Column: Legislature
Open Minds in Short Supply at Idaho Legislature
Proposals other than cutting and eliminating are not yet coming from the right side of the aisle.By Jill Kuraitis, 1-22-10
Sen. Dean Cameron is co-chair of JFAC
There are a lot of people stories being told this week at the Idaho legislature prompted by Governor Butch Otter’s plan to eliminate state money for five commissions.
Otter wants to end state funding over the next four years for the Human Rights Commission, Hispanic Commission, Developmental Disabilities Council, Deaf and Hard of Hearing Council, and Independent Living Council.
In this morning’s JFAC (Joint Finance and Appropriations Committee) meeting, committee members heard first from Wayne Hammon, the governor’s budget chief, who said that there has been some “misunderstanding” about Otter’s plan, and that “eliminating” the commissions is not the governor’s plan.
Hammon pointed out some alternative configurations for combining agencies or their services.
JFAC members then heard presentations from agency and department heads about the human costs of the proposals.
Speaking were Robbi Barrutia from the State Independent Living Council, Margie Gonzalez from the Hispanic Commission, and Colonel Brassuell from the Division of Veterans Services.
All stated, and pleaded, their cases. Several told heartbreaking stories of what happens when people who need their services can’t get them.
Democrats Sen. Nicole LeFavour (Boise) and Rep. Wendy Jaquet (Ketchum) had the most questions, pushing JFAC members to listen to what they saw as salient points about cuts in funding. JFAC co-chair Sen. Dean Cameron (Rupert) took the unusual step of admonishing LeFavour for “making political statements instead of asking questions.”
But it’s doubtful that any legislator is happy about the proposed cuts. Republicans are defending them with grim faces, and Democrats are insisting there are other ways to raise and save money and say they are trying to be the voice of ordinary citizens.
Rep. Phyllis King, D-Boise, wrote to constituents today:
1. Rep. Burgoyne & Jaquet (D-Ketchum) have a bill, which has been printed, to revue all sales tax exemptions every 8 or fewer years and ask the constituency who benefit from the exemption to justify the need to continue their exemption.
One example of sales tax exemption that maybe could be repealed is the ski lifts and grooming equipment. I noticed that this year, Bogus Basin purchased $25 million in new equipment (that would have been $1.5 million sales tax to the general fund) but they did not pay a penny of sales tax to Idaho. However, when my company, King Studio, purchased a new camera a few years ago, I paid about $300 in sales tax. This is an example of how sales tax exemptions are unfair for small businesses.
2. Sales tax on products purchased over the internet is also a way of raising revenue. When someone purchases a product online, an internet retailer collects Idaho sales tax ONLY if they have a presence in Idaho. So if the retailer does not have a presence in Idaho, there is a loss of a sale to an Idaho retailer and there is a loss of sales tax revenue to the State. What do you think?
(More information about sales tax exemptions can be found on page 26, 2009 Idaho Fiscal Facts. On the left side is “budget information” then “budget publications”.)
Another Democrat agrees with the idea of cutting tax exemptions. Tuesday, gubernatorial candidate Keith Allred was interviewed by Idaho Mountain Express reporter Jon Duval. If elected, Allred said in the interview, he “would take a different tack, making the elimination of tax exemptions a critical means of reducing the overall tax rate and increasing job creation. His plan to cut exemptions, which include tax benefits to ranchers and agricultural business owners, could find Allred in opposition to powerful lobbies.”
This morning, the Idaho Statesman’s Dan Popkey published this column saying the legislators are receiving the benefits of full-time state employees, and that if they were made part-time workers, the savings would be enough to fund three commissions Otter wants to eliminate.
Often boastful about serving in a part-time Legislature, lawmakers are full time when it comes to state benefits. For years, that didn’t make much difference.
But in November, more than 2,000 part-time employees started paying much more for health insurance, saving the state millions.
If lawmakers were classified as part-timers working fewer than 28 hours a week - a more-than-fair figure for an annual salary of $16,116 in a job of such import - the state would save $304,000, according to the Department of Administration.
That would cover most of Gov. Butch Otter’s cuts of the Council on the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, Council on Developmental Disabilities and State Independent Living Council, which serves people with disabilities.
Eliminating tax exemptions, a notion regarded as preposterous by Republicans, and cutting legislator benefits, another idea sure to find disfavor with the majority, aren’t likely. But proposals other than cutting and eliminating are not coming from the right side of the aisle.
That doesn’t mean the governor isn’t open to new ideas. Generally more able to see shades of grey than legislators of his party, Otter has made it known he’s in a listening mood. But his libertarian/conservative ideology may get in the way of his serious consideration of proposals which Democrats believe deserve a hearing.
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