Kootenai jail tax won’t be on ballot

The November ballot will not include a $55 million sales tax proposal to expand the Kootenai County jail.

County commissioners unanimously rejected the idea Tuesday.

The commission agreed that the 325-bed jail is overcrowded and an expansion is needed, but in the current anti-tax environment, residents wouldn’t swallow the hefty price tag. Voters rejected a similar $50 million proposal last fall.

The next decision now rests with the next commission, which will have two new members in January. May is the soonest another jail proposal could make it on the ballot.

Commissioner Katie Brodie called it a “huge disappointment” that the citizen advisory committee didn’t look at ways to do a smaller, less expensive expansion. She said one alternative was scaling back the project to $38 million.

“I was disappointed these alternatives were not addressed,” Brodie said.

Instead, the Jail Expansion Citizen’s Advisory Committee made a $55 million recommendation to the commission in June, adding an additional $5 million because of increased construction costs for materials such as concrete and steel.

Capt. Travis Chaney, who oversees the jail, was surprised to learn the commission made a decision Tuesday.

“I respect the position and the job that they have to do,” Chaney said. “This is a very difficult decision.”

The county will continue to ship inmates out of state, he said. On Saturday, the jail had 381 inmates in addition to 31 at other facilities in Idaho and Washington.

Chaney said the longer the county waits to expand the jail, the more expensive the project will become.

Commission Chairman Gus Johnson said that after spending weeks hearing property valuation appeals, the commission knows people are adamantly against new taxes.

The county would have funded the jail expansion by increasing the sales tax a half cent, not by property taxes. The local-option sales tax is how the county paid for a $12 million jail expansion that voters approved in 2000.

Johnson noted the state sales tax may go up by one cent, depending on what the Idaho Legislature does in a special session Aug. 25.

Gov. Jim Risch has proposed cutting $260 million in property taxes that fund basic school operations each year. He would make up the money by raising the sales tax from 5 percent to 6 percent, and shifting $50 million from the state’s $203 million budget surplus.

Johnson said he would rather see the state fix its tax system. That might change the environment so locals would agree to pay for a jail expansion.

Commissioner Rick Currie, the only member who will remain on the commission in January, said he would have preferred a $38 million option to expand the jail.

A June survey commissioned by the advisory committee showed that voters likely wouldn’t support a $38 million option so there was no point in offering it to voters, according the report by Robinson Research of Spokane.

Commissioner-elect Rich Piazza, who ousted Brodie in the Republican primary and has no opponent in the coming election, said he doesn’t want to comment on how to move forward until he takes office in January.

Tom Macy, an Independent commission candidate, wasn’t available for comment but indicated in previous interviews that he thought it was wise for the commission to leave the jail issue off the fall ballot.

Macy is vying against Republican Todd Tondee in November. Whoever wins his race will replace Johnson, who lost to Tondee in the Republican primary.

Tondee also wasn’t available for comment but has said the issue needs more study.

The expansion could have added as many as 250 beds, including single-person cells where high-risk inmates would be kept, in addition to a larger kitchen and laundry.