Week Three: 2025 Legislative Session Update

Now that we are a few weeks into the legislative session, we have a better understanding of the varying goals and priorities of leadership in the House and Senate. This insight led to a robust strategic discussion at the IAC Legislative Committee meeting on Wednesday.

The committee chose to adjust some of IAC’s priorities to ensure the most successful outcomes. Please keep in mind that even if a policy is no longer considered an official priority of IAC, this does not mean that IAC policy staff and resolution sponsors will no longer work on the issue. IAC will continue to work on policies as bandwidth allows; however, the majority of the IAC policy team’s time will be spent promoting IAC’s five priorities.

IAC’s 2025 Legislative Priorities

Consolidated Elections Clean-Up

The Idaho Association of Counties supports further clean-up efforts to Idaho’s consolidated election laws, which would standardize filing, withdrawal, and ballot creation deadlines, eliminating confusion and reducing the overall risks in elections administration.

Public Defense

The Idaho Association of Counties supports continued efforts to clarify funding responsibilities for public defense, including ensuring state code aligns with House Bill 236 to ensure counties are not paying for public defense-related court expenses, facility costs like utilities, and negotiating a legislative solution to relieve counties from providing office space for institutional public defenders. Furthermore, IAC supports amending the Idaho Code to ensure that district public defenders appointed by local magistrate commissions are directly supervising public defense within their respective judicial districts.

Tourism Tax

The Idaho Association of Counties supports a dedicated tourism tax to help counties address the direct impacts of tourism without having Idaho taxpayers bear the burden. This funding would support critical state-mandated services, including public safety, emergency communications (e911), EMS Services, roads, bridges, and other essential infrastructure. Tourism benefits our communities but also places unique pressures on local services, and counties need resources to ensure their state-mandated responsibilities are effectively fulfilled.

Public Notices

The Idaho Association of Counties supports allowing counties or the State to create and host a centralized website for publishing electronic public notices. All government entities would be allowed to choose to publish notices on the site with the option to continue publishing in newspapers if desired. Additionally, IAC supports allowing counties to post a monthly public synopsis on a publicly accessible website to enhance transparency.

Procurement Law Changes

The Idaho Association of Counties supports increasing the procurement law thresholds and the ability to use the lowest responsible bidder, aligning counties with the same common-sense standards the state already uses under the Division of Purchasing Administrative Rules. In most instances, current law forces counties to either accept the lowest responsive bidder, even if there are clear concerns about the bidder’s ability to complete the job, or start the bidding process over again. By allowing counties to evaluate a bidder’s qualifications and capacity to deliver, we can ensure taxpayer dollars are spent wisely and projects are completed efficiently and effectively.