Idaho struggles over budget priorities

Governor Otter faced tough criticism from both parties over his spending plans for the 2010 budget.  While school budgets and social services are being cut as part of a $216 million reduction package, Otter plans on raising taxes and registration fees to fund roads.  This has left many lawmakers questioning the priorities of Idaho’s leaders.

“Democrats are not going to support a tax increase in struggling families to support roads while cutting education, we need to have our priorities straight,” said Sen. Elliott Werk, D-Boise in a KTVB interview on January 13th. Sen. Russ Fulcher, R-Meridian also expressed reservations about taxing citizens for new roads.  Speaker of the House Lawrence Denney, R-Midvale “It’s true if we have to choose between people and potholes almost everyone the legislature will choose the people.”  Sentiment is that we can not wait to educate our children, but we can wait to fix our roads.

These struggles and seemingly baseless priorities among leaders are also affecting Idaho cities.   The City of Eagle, under Mayor Phil Bandy,  is taking out a half million dollar loan in order to avoid insolvency, yet it plans on spending $172, 000 on a floundering Urban Renewal Agency and has made no known announcements on budget cuts.  Other cities are taking a proactive approach. The city of Kuna, under Mayor Scott Dowdy, has called an emergency session to begin slashing its budget after realizing it is facing a half million dollar shortfall.  Travel, donations, training and uniforms are among those items cut from the budget. “It’s clear that we need to take corrective action,” Kuna Mayor Scott Dowdy said Tuesday night. “The sooner we make changes, the sooner we’ll realize savings.”

There are times for investments into infrastructure and planning.  When the tax payers are struggling, now is not the time.