Let the debates begin

Job creation, a health care exchange debate and a proposal to remove the personal property tax will be among the highlights of the 62nd session of the state Legislature, which begins Monday.

Rep. Frank Henderson, R-Post Falls, who recently turned 90 and is the oldest legislator to serve in Idaho, said he'll continue to focus on job creation by lowering the impact of startup costs for businesses.

"When a company starts up, it has many first-time costs," Henderson said. "I believe there's an opportunity to reduce those costs."

Henderson, a member of the Economic Outlook and Revenue Assessment Committee, said he'll also look at minimizing the costs for businesses wanting to expand.

"Within the first 10 days, I plan to introduce two or three bills to reduce these upfront costs," he said.

Sen. Bob Nonini, R-Coeur d'Alene, is moving from the House to the Senate.

He said he's still interested in education issues, including helping charter schools with funding facilities. Such schools don't receive state assistance to start up.

"Let the starter schools use the state's credit rating for a low-interest loan," Nonini said of one proposal. "When they build these schools, they have high interest rates and that can be a killer. It wouldn't cost the state to help charter schools in this way."

Nonini said more than 6,000 students statewide are on waiting lists to get into charter schools.

Nonini said some local governments, including Rathdrum, are concerned about a proposal backed by the Idaho Association of Commerce and Industry that eliminates Idaho's personal property tax.

Businesses pay personal property tax on most things they own that are not buildings or land, including machinery, tools, furnishings, equipment and some fixtures.

The intent of the proposal is to spark business, but the tax generates $140 million a year for Idaho cities, counties and other local districts that are facing tight budgets.

"It could be a devastating issue for local cities and counties," Nonini said.

Rep. Ron Mendive, R-Coeur d'Alene, wants to work to protect private property rights, water rights and bring greater access to the state's natural resources.

Mendive has worked in North Idaho's mining, logging and construction industries.

He said the national forests in North Idaho are being systematically closed to logging, mining and some recreational uses.

He said 2.5 million acres of U.S. Forest Service land in Idaho's five northern counties is being given various classifications.

In a worst-case scenario, depending on the classifications given to those lands, some 40 percent of the 2.5 million acres could become off limits to many uses.

"Maybe we can do some things to at least retain use of those lands," Mendive said.

He said he also plans to work against President Barack Obama's health care reform legislation, known formally as the Affordable Care Act, which was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court.

"Obamacare is big," Mendive said. "That's going to be the first issue that really gets tackled down there. Everything else kind of pales in comparison. It sets the tone for everything else."

Rep. Kathleen Sims, R-Coeur d'Alene, a member of the House's State Affairs committee, expects to be tackle election laws.

"It's been a long time since anyone looked at the election law from the beginning to the end," she said. "We've had Canadians voting in municipal elections."

While there have been significant advancements in technology with the way people vote and the way votes are counted, voting laws on the books haven't kept pace, she said.

"We need to clean up election laws," she said.

As the new vice-chair of the Local Government Committee, she expects to be working on urban renewal legislation.

Like other legislators, Sims expects to be working on Obamacare and health-care exchanges.

"I don't believe we should set up exchanges of any kind," she said.

Her position reflects that of the Kootenai County Reagan Republicans, the Kootenai County Republican Central Committee and North Idaho Pachyderm Club, she said.

"I'm absolutely with them on this," Sims said.

Sen. John Goedde, R-Coeur d'Alene, expects the upcoming legislation to be "reactionary rather than proactive."

"We will be responding to situations that have presented themselves to the state rather than plowing new fields," he said.

One of Goedde's first focuses will be moving legislation for short-term accommodations to correct statutes connected with the now-defunct Students Come First education reform legislation enacted in 2011 and repealed in November.

Idaho must also decide what to do with expansion of Medicaid and establishment of a state-based health exchange, or to default to the federal exchange, Goedde said.

The budget will be a large issue, he said, as revenues have not grown as much as anticipated and expenses are not going down

The personal property tax elimination proposal has an uphill climb, Goedde said.

"I have heard from many business people who want to see their personal property tax eliminated," he said. "In some cases, this could reduce revenue for local public entities by 40 percent, and I don't know how a city or highway district gets along with such a cut."

Rep. Ed Morse, R-Hayden, real estate appraiser, said two of his biggest issues early on are personal property taxation and health care.

"I may have a bill on personal property taxation," Morse said.

He said it will be a significant issue this session because businesses have been burdened with annual reporting requirements on personal property that others have not.

"We've exempted many other types of personal property," Morse said. "The only one left is business personal property."

He said it will be important for the Legislature to classify what's real and what's personal property.

One of the bigger issues will be what to do with Medicaid expansion, according to freshman Rep. Luke Malek, R-Coeur d'Alene.

He said the state will have to decide whether it wants to accept federal funds that would provide medical insurance for people below 138 percent of the poverty level.

Idaho currently pays catastrophic medical bills for the indigent, through the state's medical indigency/Catastrophic Health Care program, which comes from the state general fund and local property tax money.

In November, a panel comprised by Gov. Butch Otter's office recommended the state utilize the federal dollars, but the questions some lawmakers are wondering is what the state would do if the money ran out, especially since there is a strong push for the federal government to reduce spending.

The program would be fully paid by the government for three years, then it would go to 90 percent covered after that. What would happen, he asked, if the state agreed to then the program was cut.

"Then the state's on the hook," he said. "What happens then?"

Rep. Steve Vick, R-Dalton Gardens, said constituents have been hammering him about halting implementation of the Affordable Care Act, and ensuring the federal government doesn't "take away our guns" after the Sandy Hook shooting.

"That's what I'm hearing the most," Vick said.

He is optimistic about both issues. Gun ownership is already protected in Idaho's Constitution, he said.

"If (the federal government) were to pass anything, which I doubt they will, I don't think there's support for that even in D.C.," he said.

And Vick hopes to follow Oklahoma in suing the federal government over the employer mandate under the new health reform act.

"That's something I think has not been challenged," Vick said.

Vick plans to take another crack at a bill that would require a two-thirds vote to raise taxes and fees.

Vick also hopes to tweak Medicaid by establishing a competitive managed care system, he said.

Rep. Vito Barbieri, R-Dalton Gardens, expects an interesting dynamic in this legislative session, with more than 20 new House members.

He hopes to float a bill adjusting how local improvement districts are created, he said.

Constituents are demanding a say in agencies' creation of such funding mechanisms, he said.

"We've got to revamp that so a district can't unilaterally determine whether to form an LID," he said.

Barbieri is partnering with Nonini on a bill to create a tax credit scholarship program.

"It looks like an excellent program that would very well in Idaho," he said, noting that it has been successful in Georgia.

Legislative town hall slated

- Local legislators will hold a town hall meeting on Jan. 26 at American Legion Post 143 in Post Falls from 9-11 a.m. An update on the session will be provided and there will be an opportunity to ask questions.