Crow, Lake pleased with progress on property tax bills

Both the House Revenue and Taxation Committee chairwoman, Rep. Dolores Crow, R-Nampa, and Rep. Dennis Lake, the co-chair of an interim committee on property taxes, say they’re thrilled that there’s been so much progress in the past week toward addressing property tax issues in the Legislature.

“I think it’s fantastic,” Crow said. “You have 35 bills out there – that’s never happened. It’s been a monumental task, but if something good comes out of it, it’ll be worth it.”

She added, “I’ve bent over backward doing things that have never been done to do this.” Those include introducing every property tax bill brought to the committee – a huge list that caused the committee’s agenda on its first day of deliberations to be more than 30 bills long – and giving every one of them a public hearing. (Crow called an impromptu hearing Wednesday morning on House Bill 569, a bill her committee had introduced a day earlier; all others were heard in a week and a half of hearings ending the day before.)

Crow said she hopes people don’t have unrealistic expectations, because relief can only go so far. “People think immediately that they’re going to get this huge tax relief,” she said. “Some people are really going to be upset, and then here we are again.”

Though she’s maintained that property taxes fundamentally are a local issue, Crow said Thursday that there’s a role for the state, local government and citizens in addressing property taxes. Legislators can change laws; local government can control spending; and citizens can show up and comment at local budget hearings and carefully consider whether to vote for additional tax levies. “We all have to work together,” she said. “I haven’t, to my knowledge, done anything except to try to help the taxpayer as much as I can.”

Lake, who brought seven bills from the interim committee to House Rev & Tax, said he’s been pleased with the reception. “What tickles me about the whole process is the interim committee was able to set the tone for what was ultimately decided, and that’s what interim committees are for,” he said.

So far, the only two bills that have cleared Rev & Tax have been interim committee proposals.

They want a meeting

Stan Kress, the Cottonwood school superintendent and head of a group of school districts that successfully sued the state over school construction funding, is asking for a meeting between school superintendents and legislative leaders to work out a solution.

“We approach this as an opportunity to work together to the benefit of Idaho schools in a manner consistent with a sound and appropriate economic and fiscal foundation,” Kress wrote to all members of legislative leadership in both houses. “Together we can fashion a historic legacy.”

However, Senate Majority Leader Bart Davis, R-Idaho Falls, said, “There’s no reason to meet with Supt. Kress. We’re working toward a solution, a statutory solution that we believe will allow us to resolve this problem.”

Talkin’ dirt

The House Ag Committee had several presentations scheduled last week, including one, according to the agenda, on “Idaho Soil Conversation.”

‘It’s cranking up’

The formal reading of bills across the desk in the House on Friday went on – and on. At its end, House Speaker Bruce Newcomb commented, “We just read another 33 bills across the desk. I just went through 33 more bills that are just House bills to be introduced on Monday. So it’s cranking up. This week I think we probably had pretty close to 200 bills – so be prepared.”

Pizza and drugs?

Rep. Kathy Garrett, R-Boise, invited fellow House members this morning to an informational session next week on the ins and outs of Medicare Part D programs that’ll be called “Pizza and Part D.” “We thought about ‘Pizza and Prescription Drugs,’ but thought that might not be appropriate,” she said to laughter. “Bring your questions.”