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Ada County moves toward tentative budget amid calls for state changes to ease property-tax pressure
Summary
With fund balance estimates in the green, commissioners advanced dozens of personnel items and discussed several legislative changes — higher inmate-per-diem, allowing inspection and recording fees to match costs, and Wayfair-related sales tax adjustments — that they say would reduce pressure on property taxes.
Ada County commissioners continued budget deliberations June 16 and reported the county is "in the green" on fund-balance needed for its tentative FY27 budget, while identifying state-level policy changes they say would help relieve property-tax pressure.
Clerk Triple reported that after the board’s adjustments the county is in the green on the one-time fund balance metric and in an acceptable "yellow" position for ongoing items. The board advanced a large slate of personnel reclassifications and base-pay adjustments across many departments, approving items described as within each department’s maintenance budget by voice vote during the session.
Commissioners used closing remarks to frame the local budget in the context of state revenue trends and long-term foregone taxing authority. The Chair noted the county has left roughly $33 million in foregone taxing authority unexercised over several years, and commissioners urged the Idaho Legislature to consider three changes they said would reduce local property-tax burden: raising the state per-diem paid to counties for state inmates, allowing recording and inspection fees to fully cover program costs, and ensuring Wayfair-era sales tax distribution flows through existing formulas to increase local shares.
Staff outlined the timeline for finalizing the budget: a public budget presentation on July 21 with full numbers, tentative budget adoption in August and final adoption at the end of August. The board was reminded that after tentative adoption the budget cannot be increased and can only be lowered. No final budget adoption occurred at the June 16 session; staff will return with full numbers and public notice materials ahead of the July presentation and August tentative adoption.
