Idaho property tax committee talks transparency during first meeting

The first meeting of an interim property tax committee spent much of its day talking about transparency, saying that’s a necessary first step in holding government entities accountable.

There are more than 1,300 local taxing districts in Idaho, including cities, counties, school and highway districts. Most levy property taxes to pay for some portion of their operations.

For taxpayers to fully evaluate the work these districts are doing, “they need to understand how they’re being taxed, who’s taxing them and how that changes over time,” noted Caldwell Sen. Jim Rice, co-chairman of the Property Taxes and Revenue Expenditures Interim Committee.

“That’s what allows citizens to properly exercise their authority to hold taxing entities accountable,” Rice said Friday.

A major concern in that regard is that, while taxing districts are required to report their revenue and budget information to the state, there’s often very little standardization in the way they account for different expenditures. Without doing a deep dive into the numbers, it’s hard for the average taxpayer to understand how a single district is spending its money, and nearly impossible to compare performance between districts.

“We don’t really have a good look at this data on a statewide basis,” said Keith Bybee, deputy division manager of the legislative budget office. In many cases, “there’s no existing data set that allows us to compare expenditures on specific services.”

Much of Friday’s meeting was spent discussing ways to change that.

State Controller Brandon Woolf, for example, gave a presentation on the Transparent Idaho website his office created and maintains. It consolidates more than 75 million financial transactions from various state agencies. With its built-in reports and search capabilities, people can track everything from state employee salaries to how much an agency spends on travel costs.

All of this is public information, Woolf said. But rather than simply distribute it as a massive “data dump” involving millions of records, the goal is to present it in a way that really helps taxpayers understand how their money is being spent.

To date, Transparent Idaho only includes revenue and expenditure information from state agencies. However, it could also serve as a one-stop shop for tracking and reporting local government financial data.

Chief Deputy Controller Joshua Whitworth estimated it might cost anywhere from $800,000 to “a couple of million” dollars to make that happen. The main requirement would be working with local entities to standardize the way different expenditures are recorded. After that, the process could be automated so it wouldn’t be a time burden.

“It wouldn’t be easy, but I’m a big believer that no good things are easy,” Whitworth said. “It will require resources, but it will also set us up to be more data driven in the future.”

The interim committee plans to hold monthly meetings from now through November. The next meeting is scheduled for Aug. 21.

The agenda hasn’t been set yet, but Rice said the August meeting will likely take a look at how market values for different classifications of property are assessed. He’d also like a presentation on the approach Utah uses to limit year-over-year increases in property tax bills.

Spence may be contacted at bspence@lmtribune.com or (208)-791-9168.