Legislators look to 2023

Education and property taxes are among the issues North Idaho's lawmakers plan to tackle as they head to Boise for the 2023 legislative session, which begins Jan. 9.

Sen. Doug Okuniewicz, R-Hayden, said he thinks all of North Idaho's elected officials will be interested in the property tax issue.

“There’s a number of proposals that have been shared out already," he said. "We have a number of different approaches there. We’ll all be busy with that. I live here too. I pay property taxes. I see what’s happening."

First-term Sen. Ben Toews, R-Coeur d'Alene, also expressed the importance of addressing property taxes.

"Property tax reduction will be an important issue this session as homeowners continue to deal with higher home values while the homeowner’s exemption has lagged, only increasing by 25%, from $100,000 to $125,000, since 2017 while the average home value has more than doubled in that period," he said.

A first-term senator, Okuniewicz has one term of experience serving in the House of Representatives. He said he always has a list of potential projects, but what can be accomplished during the session depends on what transpires as lawmakers talk to constituents and their legislative colleagues.

"We’ll have to test the waters," he said. "There's lots of moving parts with the committee chairs, and half the Legislature is new. We have to see what, if anything, people might like or be opposed to before I can say for sure they’ll go forward."

Two years ago, Okuniewicz ran a bill that became law to increase fees for out-of-state visitors at Idaho's most popular state parks, including Farragut.

"We’re already paying as residents," he said. "At the time, parks and recreation was looking to raise fees on residents but I was able to work with them to see it another way. We raised the fees for non-residents at our busiest parks, which seems to help with a couple things — one, it helps with the money problem for parks and rec, but it also helps to open a few spots for residents."

One bill this session may see has to do with forfeiture of computers and laptops by those who have been sentenced with child pornography crimes, Okuniewicz said. He is working on it with Post Falls Police Detective Neil Uhrig.

"We want to see if we can essentially not give them back, or destroy them," he said. "I’m not saying every crime should result in asset forfeiture, but we shouldn't make it easy to go back to what they were doing."

First-time Rep. Jordan Redman, R-Coeur d'Alene, said education, specifically school choice, will be a topic of discussion this session.

"That was talked about a lot at our organizational sessions," he said. "There are about six different ideas about what school choice will look like."

Toews said school choice, as well as education savings accounts, will be in focus during the 2023 session as lawmakers consider ways to give parents more options to ensure students receive quality educations tailored to their unique needs.

"Making education savings accounts universal, like they already have done in Arizona, would go a long way in empowering parents to make sure that all children in Idaho are given excellent educational opportunities," Toews said.

Toews, who will serve as vice chair of the Senate Education Committee, said he will be able to work directly to promote education savings accounts.

"I believe that this is one of the most important issues of our day as we continue to see our state lag behind much of the country in educational metrics," he said. "While we have a lot of great teachers and schools, we need to look at innovative, free-market solutions to address the shortcomings in our system."

As a representative of District 3, Redman said he has goals of providing his constituents with newsletter updates as well as monthly town halls to stay engaged with people and hear what they have to say.

"That's what I'm elected to do," he said.

He said with this young class heading into session, he expects various issues from the past 10 years to return to the floor for fresh discussions among the new legislators.

"It will be an interesting learning curve," he said.

Redman will serve on the Business; Environment, Energy and Technology; and Health and Welfare committees.

"I think, on those committees, there's going to be a lot of rule changes,” he said. "I hope to deregulate. In health care, I think there's too much regulation. I’ve seen the red tape that doesn't help the patient. Trying to eliminate that to hopefully create easier care for the electorate and the constituency is something I will definitely focus on."

He said his big goal is to continue the platform on which he ran.

"I want to represent people of District 3 with faith, family and freedom, the pillars I've grown to love being in Idaho," he said. "I want to continue that for the state and District 3 in particular."