This Boise official wants to raise property taxes more than planned. Here’s why
Boise Mayor Lauren McLean recently proposed a base increase in property taxes of 2.7% for next year, equating to just under $10 in extra costs for the average homeowner.
But one City Council member said that gives him “some heartburn” — and he’d like to explore the maximum base increase of 3%.
Council member Jimmy Hallyburton, who won his last election in 2025 by wide margins, said people reach out to him with mutually exclusive goals: affordability, i.e. keeping taxes down, but also to repair sidewalks, better maintain parks, more police to pull concerning motorists over and other requests that cost money.
At that full increase, a Boise homeowner whose house is valued around $545,000 would pay around $4.72 more than the just under $10 currently proposed.
The city would take in an additional $600,000, by taking the full increase, according to the city’s budget workshop, which Hallyburton said he wants for deferred maintenance projects.
He pointed to actions like Greenbelt repairs and updating fire and police stations. With maintenance and construction costs stubbornly high, waiting might mean more expensive undertakings down the line, he said.
“It’s certainly not popular to be the person who’s saying, ‘Hey, well, let’s actually consider taking a little bit more,’” Hallyburton said in a phone interview Wednesday. “That’s kind of the responsible thing, that you have to ask those questions.”
Boise, like others throughout the state, is constrained by a 2021 law that capped how much cities and counties could increase their budgets, he said. That law, criticized by Gov. Brad Little at the time, limited budget increases related to new construction and annexation, according to previous Statesman reporting. Boise’s proposed general fund budget is $347.8 million, a 4.9% increase over last year. That proposed budget includes the proposed 2.7% jump in property taxes.
The law is “limiting our ability for growth to pay for growth,” Hallyburton said.
These past few months in the Treasure Valley have been rife with local governments complaining about the position the Idaho Legislature has put them in. In Ada County, commissioners pointed to a diversion of liquor revenues, state-level budget cuts and lawmakers mandating services as they considered raising property taxes.
In Meridian, officials decried legislative overreach, citing micromanagement on things like land-use issues.
On the flip side, Idaho Republicans, gathered at their convention in Meridian this weekend, proposed eliminating property taxes entirely in their platform.
It’s unclear how far the idea of taking the full 3% could go in Boise. McLean sent out a press release this month touting her lowered property tax proposal, and council member Kathy Corless, in comments Tuesday, stressed the importance of affordability.
Corless said it was “easy for me to want to pull that trigger,” but she also counted off different responses people wrote in, including that the taxes are hard for seniors on fixed incomes and that people were stretched thin and living paycheck to paycheck.
“We are trying to find that balance,” Corless said. “We are seeing the tools that we have to collect revenues to pay for these things also decreasing.”
Council members voted to move the budget forward to a July 14 public hearing.
