ACHD budget up $15 million, commission seeks new law ‘to have growth pay for itself’
Commissioner Jim Hansen said it’s only the second time in his nine years on the Ada County Highway District Commission that the district’s budget was unanimously approved. The ACHD 2022 budget passed following a hearing and discussion on Wednesday evening.
“And I think only the second you’ve approved,” Commission President Kent Goldthorpe said.
Next year’s $150.6 million budget is up $15 million from 2021’s $135.7 million budget. Most of the funds will go to maintenance, operations and more than 100 capital improvement projects.
While the commissioners could no longer increase the proposed budget since it had already been publicized, they did make some changes.
Commission pulls back on property tax increase
Last year, the Ada County Highway District chose not to increase its share of property taxes. But the commissioners said they needed a significant bump this year to address the district’s debt.
The drafted budget showed a plan to take a 10% increase in ACHD’s property taxes. That would have surpassed the Legislature’s new 8% cap on property tax increases through use of forgone taxes. Forgone taxes are tax increases that the district could have used in past years but chose to bank for the future instead.
ACHD planned to take the maximum 3% annual ongoing tax increase allowable each year and a 3% new-construction increase. It planned to use a special rule that allows taxing districts to take an additional 4% through forgone taxes.
ACHD planned to take the maximum 1% in forgone taxes allowed for maintenance and operations and the maximum 3% forgone for capital projects.
However, the commissioners decided that using forgone on capital projects would waste their money because, unlike other types of forgone taxes, capital improvement forgone is nonrenewable. They voted to change the budget to remove that 3%, lowering the budget by $1.3 million. The result: ACHD property-tax collections will go up 7%.
The fiscal 2022 budget would boost the tax on a house assessed at $421,000 to $191.50, up from $171.53 this year, the agency said in a news release. That’s an increase of about $20, or nearly 12%.
Ordinance would make growth pay for itself
The commissioners voted to tie the budget to the creation of a new impact-fee ordinance. They now have until June to get an ordinance passed that would expand the ways impact fees can be used by ACHD.
Impact fees are charged to developers to pay for the cost of new improvements needed to accommodate growth. ACHD will receive $24 million in impact fees next year, according to the new budget.
The commissioners have been frustrated by how few things can be funded through those fees. The fees can go only to certain system improvements needed to serve the development paying them. So while a road can be expanded to reach a new subdivision, the district can’t fix an existing sidewalk nearby that is suddenly being used more by new residents.
“(One hearing testifier) was addressing the spot where two years ago a little 7-year-old boy was killed,” Commission President Kent Goldthorpe said, referring to an incident in which a driver hit a young bicyclist on Amity Road east of the Cloverdale Intersection. “Immediately I asked for some of that $3 million I got out of the budget that year for sidewalk gaps to be used to fix that. We couldn’t do it.”
The limitations have made it difficult to pay for all infrastructure needs caused growth.
“I’ve talked to some of the people who are building up in the Foothills, and they’re surprised that when they pay their impact fees it doesn’t go to address the things that the new traffic is helping to aggravate,” Hansen said.
“I ran to have growth pay for itself,” Commissioner Alexis Pickering agreed.
However, ACHD only has so much power to change how impact fees can be spent under state law. The district hopes to persuade the Legislature to pass a state bill expanding impact fee uses during next year’s session so it can enact its own related ordinance by the June deadline, according to Goldthorpe. Without the Legislature, the ordinance change would be less expansive.
“We can only do so much with what we’ve got,” Goldthorpe said.
The commissioners also voted to create a master capital-projects priority list and a process to install temporary traffic-calming features where neighbors have expressed concerns about speeding.
No raises for ACHD leadership
The commissioners decided to remove a section from the budget that would have given themselves and ACHD Director Bruce Wong each $2,000 in additional annual compensation.
“It’s a hard time for a lot of folks,” Pickering said. “I’ve seen how much we’ve worked, but I just don’t feel like it’s the right time to get raises. We should set an example, especially if we’re taking a little bit of forgone.”
Sally Krutzig covers Treasure Valley growth and development. Have a story suggestion or a question? Email Krutzig at skrutzig@idahostatesman.com.
This story was originally published August 26, 2021 at 4:00 AM.
