Otter says no to SB 1385
Rep. Phil Hart, R-Athol, and others had worked on the bill for several years before finally coming up with a version that would pass. But now Gov. Butch Otter has vetoed SB 1385, the bill that sought to give excess proceeds from a tax deed sale – that’s a sale of property by the county for back taxes – back to the delinquent owner.
Under current law, the government can keep any excess. As a trade-off, the bill would have lowered the time for tax deed sales from three years of delinquency to two.
“A legitimate question can be raised about who wins with this compromise bill,” Otter wrote in his veto message. “I’m concerned that enacting it would be at the cost of property rights and taxpayer dollars. … The fact is that some of the houses in question are abandoned or ‘meth’ houses that require extensive county and taxpayer resources to return to the market and the tax rolls. There appears to be good reason why the Legislature rejected similar bills in the past. I see no good reason to approve this year’s proposal.”
Late this week, Hart was scrambling to try to pass a new version more acceptable to the governor.
‘Trust us, trust us’
After four hours of public testimony, almost all of it against, Sen. Jeff Siddoway, R-Terreton, explained why he was supporting HB 599 anyway, to phase in a repeal of the personal property tax on business equipment: “To me, this is a start – I can see that we’re going to have to change this all along so that it doesn’t injure the counties and the cities,” Siddoway said. “I’d like to say, ‘Trust us, trust us to get it there.’ To me this is a start.”
But Senate Tax Chairman Brent Hill, R-Rexburg, who cast the tie-breaking vote to pass the bill out of committee earlier this week, said he didn’t expect it to be changed later. “I think there are more positives than there are negatives,” Hill said.
Common Interest backs drug-treatment funding
The Common Interest, an Idaho citizen group headed by Harvard professor Keith Allred, has come out in favor of restoring the drug-treatment funds that Gov. Otter vetoed, and proposed a different way of funding the treatment. Allred, who called the veto “regrettable,” said, “We also find it curious that he cited a lack of evidence for the effectiveness of such programs as a primary reason for the vetoes. We found overwhelming evidence for the cost effectiveness of community-based substance treatment.”
The citizen group recommended an increase in the beer and wine tax as a possible alternative source of funding, if Otter doesn’t want to fund the programs from the state’s general fund. Idaho’s beer tax hasn’t been increased since 1961, and its wine tax hasn’t risen since 1971.
New report: Substance abuse programs on track
According to a report from the state Office of Performance Evaluations, new efforts to track data and outcomes from statewide substance abuse services in Idaho are on track and meeting recommendations made in two earlier performance evaluations. However, Otter vetoed $16.8 million in funding for the very programs that would be monitored, saying there hasn’t yet been enough proof that they’re working.
“The study shows that we’re on the right track,” Rep. Maxine Bell, R-Jerome, who said there’s a “chicken and egg” dilemma. Said Rep. Margaret Henbest, D-Boise, “We have the process in place (to track outcomes). If we pull the funding back, we’re not going to have any outcomes.”
Otter’s budget director, Wayne Hammon, said the governor would have preferred to trim back the funds rather than veto the entire amount, but had no choice because of the way the budget bill was structured. “I’ve heard the chicken-and-egg argument – it’s a very large egg,” Hammon said. “He understands we have to have some drug treatment money. … The governor just doesn’t believe it needs to be $14 million a year from the general fund.”
Eighty percent of the vetoed money goes to provide drug treatment to people participating in drug courts or on probation or parole.
Otter: Reform liquor license rules
Though Gov. Butch Otter signed the Tamarack Resort special liquor license bill into law – allowing the resort 12 special nontransferable liquor licenses instead of the current three – he issued a signing message to lawmakers criticizing them for approving special liquor licenses rather than reforming the whole liquor license system so such requests won’t be needed.
“Once more we are making a very specific and tortured exception to Idaho liquor license policy for a particular business – albeit one that is unusually important to its community and county,” Otter wrote. “Well folks, it’s time to draw a line in the sand. This session’s requests from Tamarack and others appear to be valid under current circumstances and I will not oppose them. However, with the end of the 59th Idaho Legislature it is time to call a halt to the practice of granting exception after exception to our liquor license rules. It’s time to comprehensively reform a system that over too many decades of piecemeal changes has become a patchwork of special circumstances and ambiguity.”