Will the Idaho Legislature ever understand the needs of Idaho's resort cities?
For 17 times in the past 21 years, Idaho county tax assessors and their allies have pleaded with the state Legislature for authority to require disclosure of property sales prices so that more accurate valuations could be made from year to year.
And in all that time, the Boise-based real estate lobby—mostly contrary to its Blaine County members—has scuttled legislation for reasons that have been blatantly self-serving.
Idaho is one of only a handful of states without a sales price disclosure law.
Now a bill passed out of a Senate committee has the flavor of past failed legislation—but in fact continues to embody the Legislature's poor treatment of its resort economies.
This new legislative contrivance embodies this feature: County tax assessors must keep the sales prices a secret or be fined $1,000 for revealing them to others.
Ponder the silliness of that law. Not only would assessors know the sales price of a piece of property, but so, too, would their office clerks. Mortgage company clerks, bank clerks, title company clerks and lawyers would know.
So the "secrecy" demanded is a sham.
How laughable it would be if a sales price was leaked and the county prosecutor were required to find and prosecute the culprit from among the hundreds with access to a sales price.
State legislators have succumbed to misplaced fears that public knowledge of sales prices could be used to impose small transfer fees—just as Colorado does.
Colorado allows resort communities to fund everything from education programs to affordable housing with real estate transfer fees. The world hasn't ended and the Colorado's mountain resort economies continue to prosper.
Idaho's lawmakers have steadfastly refused to loosen the purse strings even though the local-option resort sales tax has proven that communities can do so responsibly.
Resort economies have different needs than those based on agriculture, mining, logging and high tech. They operate under worldwide economic pressures that most Idaho legislators apparently cannot imagine, let alone respond to creatively.
For example, legislation requiring developers to help pay for workforce housing for service employees has been stopped in its tracks and withdrawn by the sponsor, state Rep. Wendy Jaquet, D-Ketchum, for more work.
Idaho's resort economies will not compete well with their worldwide competition until the Legislature gets out of its tunnel vision and helps instead of hinders.
