Committee sends hospital property‑tax bill to amendment order after contested hearing

The Senate Local Government and Taxation Committee voted to send House Bill 130 to the fourteenth order for possible amendment after more than an hour of testimony and questions over whether the measure would create uneven tax treatment and financial uncertainty for hospitals and counties.

Representative Josh Tanner, R‑District 14, said the bill is intended to put county commissioners in the position to negotiate tax exemptions with nonprofit hospitals and their satellite facilities on the same basis commissioners already use for other nonprofit property. Tanner said the change would not remove exemptions automatically but would allow counties to grant full or partial exemptions based on local needs and what hospitals provide back to their communities.

"What this bill does ... is to put the county commissioners in the same room as the hospitals and to sit down and negotiate what that give back to our community actually looks like," Tanner said.

Proponents included several county officials and the Idaho Association of Counties, who argued that county…