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Idaho bill would let recreation district boards trigger dissolution petition step
Summary
Representative Jeff Ehlers introduced RS 32028 to allow a recreation district board majority to serve as an alternative to a citizen petition for initiating a dissolution vote; the measure would not remove the voter approval step.
Representative Jeff Ehlers introduced RS 32028, a draft proposal that would add an option for starting the statutory dissolution process for recreation taxing districts.
Under current practice described in the presentation, dissolving a recreation district requires a two-step process: a petition signed by 20% of qualified electors in the district followed by a majority vote at the ballot. RS 32028 would add an alternative for the first step: a majority vote of the district’s board of directors could place the question on the ballot in lieu of collecting petition signatures. Either route would still require the second-step majority vote of district voters before dissolution could occur.
Ehlers said the change is intended to ease dissolution in cases where a district retains taxing authority but no longer holds assets or operations that justify the tax. He used the West Ada Recreation District as an example: created in the 1970s with roughly 1,000 signatures then, it now would take roughly 19,000 signatures to qualify for a petition step because of population growth. He said the board has transferred assets to the city but continues to collect property taxes and that the change would give boards an additional, still-voter‑dependent, path to seek dissolution.
There was no substantive debate recorded on the text; Representative Skogg moved to introduce the RS and the committee approved introduction by voice vote.
The proposal preserves the voter-approval safeguard: even when a board initiates the first step, a majority of district voters would still need to approve dissolution at the ballot before a district could be dissolved.
