Should Ada County voters raise their taxes to expand the jail? Here’s our take | Opinion

While much of the focus in this year’s election has been on the Boise mayor’s race, one of the most significant and impactful decisions sits quietly on the ballot of every Ada County voter.

That’s whether to approve a $49 million bond that will end up costing taxpayers nearly $72 million over the next 20 years to expand the Ada County Jail.

The Idaho Statesman editorial board recommends a “yes” vote on the bond.

Just like all other services — police, fire, roads, parks — the jail needs to grow with our growing population. The facility is at or over its operational capacity every day, according to the Ada County Sheriff’s Office.

We are convinced that Ada County is doing all that it can to divert inmates out of jail.

The county uses several diversion programs, such as a Community Transition Center, pretrial release, alternative sentencing and misdemeanor probation programs to keep people out of jail.

County officials report that 2,000 people participate in these programs, which is almost double the current jail population.

Further, county officials report that 87% of inmates are in jail on felony charges, leaving only 13% in on misdemeanors.

The simple fact of the matter is that with population growth comes growth in the need for services, and the jail is one of them.

Property taxes for new jail

We offer this endorsement with some reservation.

First, the current crop of Republican commissioners — Rod Beck, Tom Dayley and Ryan Davidson — ran on promises that they were going to look for ways to cut our taxes. And yet, here they are asking us to raise our taxes.

But it’s not much of a tax hike: The estimated average annual cost of the bond is $3.60 per $100,000 of taxable assessed value.

The median assessed value of a property in Ada County is $418,100 this year, according to the Ada County Assessor’s Office dashboard. With a $150,000 homeowners exemption, the bond would cost $9.65 per year for a homeowner of a house assessed at $418,100.

Still, though, it’s a tax hike — one that is going to be borne disproportionately by residential property owners.

To protect commercial and ag land owners, Republican state legislators in 2016 capped the homeowners exemption, which has resulted in the property tax burden being shifted to us homeowners.

In Ada County, homeowners are expected to absorb 74.3% of the property tax burden in 2023, according to previous Statesman reporting. That number was 62.1% in 2012, according to assessor’s office data.

Earlier jail expansion plan

Another point we’d like to bring up is that if county commissioners hadn’t scuttled an earlier plan, the jail expansion would be done by now — at a lower cost.

Three years ago, under the leadership of Democratic commissioners Diana Lachiondo and Kendra Kenyon, the county put together a lease-purchase financing plan to build the expansion at a cost of $44.4 million, with a completion date at the end of 2023.

But Republicans blew their tops, saying the plan skirted voter approval, even though in 2015, the Idaho Supreme Court said such lease-purchase financing is perfectly fine and within the bounds of Idaho’s laws and constitution.

So, were it not for the Republicans, Ada County voters would already have a jail expansion. And because construction costs have only risen since then, it would have been done at a lower cost.

Further, if Republican lawmakers would get their act together with criminal justice reform, perhaps we wouldn’t be in this predicament. The state houses hundreds of people in county jails who would otherwise be in a state prison. They’re not in a state prison because state prisons are overcrowded, too. At the same time, at 62%, Idaho has the highest percentage of people incarcerated on parole and probation violations in the country, according to a recent study by the Council of State Governments. Getting some of those inmates out of Ada County Jail would help alleviate the overcrowding problem.

One last thing we’ll point out is that the Republican commissioners will now get to find out what Idaho’s school board members have to go through every year: champing at the bit, nervously waiting for the results of a bond election that, in Idaho, ridiculously has a two-thirds supermajority requirement to pass so that they can build a new school for an overcrowded district or simply repair a leaking roof.

We’d rather see voters approve some of these school bonds than pass a bond to make more room for people in jail. Doing the former might actually reduce the need for the latter in many instances.

Be that as it may, the Ada County Jail needs to be expanded, and this bond deserves your support.