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Nampa legal counsel warns against using mitigation fees as tax substitute; council leans toward legislative fix
Summary
City legal counsel told the Nampa City Council that Idaho law tightly limits when cities can impose fees and cautioned against using mitigation or user fees to backfill revenue lost under HB 389; councilmembers signaled they prefer pursuing legislative remedies and did not adopt local mitigation fees.
Preston, the city’s legal counsel, told the Nampa City Council on a special meeting morning that Idaho law narrowly limits when municipalities can impose fees and that using fee statutes to replace tax revenue risks violating constitutional and statutory limits.
“You can call a dog a cat all you want. It’s still a dog,” Preston said, arguing courts will void arrangements in which a user fee is a disguised tax. He reviewed the difference between police power (regulation) and taxation authority the legislature reserves to itself, and cited recent case law including Hillview Mobile Park v. Pocatello to show courts scrutinize fees that function as revenue-raisers rather than payments for a specific, proportionate service.
Why it matters: Council members are considering how to respond to a revenue shortfall they and other jurisdictions have attributed to…
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