Cd'A council ready if Little's CARES tax plan fails

The Coeur d’Alene City Council is keeping its options open after voting to reserve the right to recover this year’s forgone increase of $687,110 in an ordinarily routine line item on its budget.

The money is a 3% reserve in property taxes the city is entitled to claim each year, though it sometimes chooses not to claim all or any of that percentage. While claiming or not claiming that 3% is often a decision weighed by routine financial and political forces — often manifesting in the reductive question, “Does the city need those funds?” — as 2020 has shown, this year is anything but routine.

“Normally, I would probably vote against this,” Councilman Dan Gookin said. “But the reason I’m going to do this is because we need to have an insurance policy in case the governor’s rebate program we’re adopting turns out not to be legal. We’re going to need to fetch that back, and I feel much more comfortable keeping that on the books, as opposed to taking it off the books.”

That “rebate program,” as Gookin phrased it, is a plan Gov. Brad Little introduced in June to offer Idaho cities and counties up to $200 million in federal CARES Act funds — money devoted to coronavirus relief programs — toward essentially funding public safety salaries, so long as those salaries are not funded by property taxes. Many cities are opting into the program, including Coeur d’Alene, while other smaller cities like Hayden have chosen not to participate.

The need for the Coeur d’Alene City Council to pass the resolution stems from the fact that Little’s plan isn’t certain to pass legal scrutiny. Bonner County prosecutors have filed suit over Little’s proposal, and while members of Little’s administration have said that Treasury officials have provided guidance telling them to move forward, nothing is certain, which is why the motion passed unanimously.

“We’re moving forward in good faith,” Councilwoman Christie Wood agreed before voting ‘yes’ at the meeting. “We don’t know where the lawsuit will end up. Hopefully the governor has put something out there that’s solid for all the cities in Idaho, and counties. But if not, you’re absolutely right, Dan.”

The CARES Act property tax package will, if it holds, actually provide closer to $212,000 in federal emergency funds, while taking the 3% tax increase would give the city the $687,110. But despite a tight budget, council agreed the move would help its citizens more to weather their own households’ COVID-related financial crunches.