That second Ada County driver’s license office? Now it’s on hold. This is why
Ada County clawed back forgone taxes to help fund a new driver’s license office, but if a bill to freeze property taxes passes the Legislature, county officials say they won’t be able to open it.
Speaking at a county growth forum Thursday, County Commissioner Diana Lachiondo said the county has “put a pause” on the office as it waits for legislators to decide whether to freeze local government budgets in the coming year.
“It’s not the building that’s the hard part, it’s how we’re going to pay for the additional staff members,” she said.
Sheriff Stephen Bartlett agreed, saying Ada County “subsidized the state quite a bit last year.” He said if property taxes are frozen, there is “no way that we’ll be able to open this secondary location.”
The county had previously been looking for a place to open a new driver’s license office and found a potential location, Lachiondo told the Idaho Statesman. There is only one driver’s license office in Ada County, on Benjamin Lane in Boise. Bartlett said Thursday that he believed a new one should be opened in Meridian or elsewhere in western Ada County.
The county commissioners voted in July to claim forgone taxes, which is money that a taxing jurisdiction, such as the county, can collect under state law but declines to in a certain tax year. The jurisdiction is still entitled to that money by state law, however, and can collect it later as a clawback.
The county forwent some property taxes from 2006 to 2012 and has since approved clawbacks, including $1.7 million in 2014 to balance the county budget and $4.27 million in 2015 to pay for a new 911 dispatch center.
When the commissioners approved the latest, $4 million clawback in July, they allocated just over $500,000 for the second driver’s license office.
Some state legislators say freezing property taxes would provide relief to Idahoans. House Bill 409, introduced by Rep. Mike Moyle, a Star Republican and the House majority leader, would freeze the portion of a taxing district’s budget funded by property taxes for one year. That doesn’t include schools, but it would include counties and cities.
City and county officials have expressed concern over the legislation, arguing it would make it difficult for local governments to pay for services.
The bill passed the House and was introduced in the Senate on Feb. 26.
Bartlett said he and other county officials are working with Moyle and Rep. Joe Palmer, a Meridian Republican, to try to draft a new bill to alleviate headaches at driver’s license offices. He described a measure that would allow a county to issue licenses that would last for a longer time, thereby requiring people to come into to the offices less often.
He also said he wants to increase staffing and extend hours at the existing driver’s license office to help people move through more quickly.
Lachiondo said that having to delay the new driver’s license office was “not a threat but instead the reality of the situation” if property taxes are frozen.
The decision to delay the office comes as people across the country work to meet the federal government’s deadline for obtaining Real ID cards by Oct. 1 to board a plane or enter certain federal buildings without a passport.
In Idaho, that ID is called the Star Card. The card is the same as any other Idaho driver’s license or state ID, except that it has a star in the right corner to show that the holder went through the necessary security requirements to get the card, including providing documents that verify identity, Social Security number and Idaho residency.
Idahoans can get Star Cards at the same offices where they obtain driver’s licenses. The means that even people who wouldn’t otherwise have to renew their licenses will soon have to stop by their local DMV offices.
According to the Idaho Department of Transportation, less than a quarter of Idahoans had their Star Cards as of Feb. 29.
Lachiondo said the decision to delay the office was made earlier Thursday. It is too soon to say what would happen with the money if a new driver’s license office isn’t opened, she said.
This story was originally published March 5, 2020 at 8:32 PM.
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