OPINION: My critics are glossing over some inconvenient facts on building

It’s easy to point the finger and blame others when you’ve got your finger on the scale. We’re watching it happen right now. The Wednesday before Christmas, the state’s Division of Public Works just happened to preview its revised “estimate” to repair the Idaho Transportation Department’s building on State Street in Boise. To the surprise of no one paying attention, the new projection was over double what Public Works told legislators it would be just last spring.

Why am I not surprised? Because more than a few people in Boise have made it clear they disagree with the Legislature’s decision to retain the State Street property. I’ve gotten called a lot of names in the last few months because I supported hitting the pause button. But the name-callers like to gloss over some inconvenient facts.

In 2021, an initial estimate put the property’s value at $80 million to $100 million. The bidder’s highest offer was $51.75 million. That may or may not be the fair market price. But learning the state would receive 51% to 65% of the projected amount played a big part in the decision to ask if this was the right decision for Idaho taxpayers.

And even if the new repair estimates are real, it still makes no sense to let the State Street property go. Think about it: Permanently moving the entire Transportation Department operation to the Chinden campus would require spending $50 million for a new building to replace just one of the dozen buildings we would be walking away from at the State Street property. It would also require spending $45 million to renovate existing buildings at the Chinden campus — for a total of $95 million in new costs.

Public Work’s new, more-than-doubled cost estimate to repair the one flooded building at the State Street property is now a range of $64 million to $69 million, still far less than the $95 million to move everything to Chinden. And interestingly, this is now more than Public Works’ estimate of $63.2 million to simply demolish the flooded building and construct a new one, putting back on the table the option of a full replacement on-site. This would also allow the state to continue utilizing the 11 other buildings we have built on the State Street property, where we still have 119 employees housed.

The whole situation leads to more questions, such as: If this was such a great deal, why did the Department of Administration not sign the deal when it could have? Also, why is the Legislature is being scrutinized for relying on numbers from Public Works?

Because whatever your opinion about the State Street property, it should bother you that your elected representatives can’t rely on information from a state agency.

Idaho legislators need to have confidence they can trust the data they’re using to do the job Idahoans elected them to do. And that job includes reducing taxes, providing regulatory relief and keeping government budgets in check, not walking away from facilities that are already in use so we can build new monuments to bureaucracy elsewhere.

Moyle, R-Star, serves as speaker of the Idaho House of Representatives.