In an update to Post Falls City Council members Tuesday night, staff outlined three upcoming legislative topics of concern to the city: impact fees, collective bargaining and changes to the property tax system.

IMPACT FEES

Taxing districts have implemented impact fees to update public facilities like roads, parks, sewers and law enforcement ventures for years. Typically impact fees are a one-time credit on a developer for a residential, commercial or industrial structure to counteract costs related to new growth. Public school districts are excluded under the Idaho impact fee law, but upcoming legislation could change that, City Administrator Shelly Enderud said.

The battle for this kind of inclusion is decades long, an email from Post Falls city attorney Warren Wilson said, but has failed to gain support from the Idaho School Boards Association until this past November.

Post Falls would be tasked with managing the fees' collection and balancing the additional costs associated with impending development if the bill passes.

"It gets a little complicated as school district boundaries don't always follow exactly with city boundaries," Enderud said. "So the Post Falls School District would have the county and the city of Post Falls both collecting those impact fees as building permits were issued."

COLLECTIVE BARGAINING

Collective bargaining, the process of negotiating the terms and conditions of labor between an employer and a group of employees, is also a hot-button issue for Post Falls. In Idaho, the governmental authority has permitted and encouraged employees to organize laborers' union to improve collective benefits. However, when the matter came forward in an Association of Idaho Cities legislative meeting, Enderud said most entities were not in favor.

"Folks who have collective bargaining are not in favor of this. I have spoken to at least one of our council members who are not in favor of this, and I've spoken to our police chief, who is not in favor," Enderud said.

PROPERTY TAXES

Most pressing to the Post Falls city staff, and sentiments echoed by the Kootenai County commissioners, are the three drafts of legislation from a property tax interim committee.

Property taxes are on the rise in Kootenai County as an influx of new residents and commercial entities arrive. However, Enderud said residential taxes have seen significantly higher valuation rates than commercial counterparts. Through city data, staff found that about $1.3 million in property taxes were shifted from commercial and industrial valuations to residential in 2019 and 2020.

"These three bills are going to create more economic harm than good to both the local taxing districts and their constituents," she said. "It may look like they're trying to do something, but the tax shift will continue to occur."

The bill restricting an entity's ability to build fund balances might not come to fruition, according to Enderud's sources. If it does arise, the legislation would cut taxing districts' ability to save unused dollars into a reserve fund to pay for large projects like building developments and equipment purchases.

"They're coming up with methods of limiting our reserves and trying to penalize being good stewards of the money we save up for projects coming down the road," Mayor Ron Jacobson said. "It states to me that those involved don't have any idea how city budgets work and what we do as a city."

During the meeting City Council also approved:

• Authorizing JUB Engineering for services related to the Centennial Trail Bridge maintenance project at Huetter Road.
• A frontage improvement waiver request for 1008 N. Frederick Street.
• The Pradera subdivision plat application, the final construction area, ensures the developer completes the remaining improvements.
• A vacation for the Jacob's Run subdivision off North Greensferry Road and East Bogie Drive.
• A North Place right of way vacation for 20 feet of remaining portions of property along the northern boundary of Fieldstone Apartments.
• The license to use real property located at the south end of a cul-de-sac on North Cecil Road.
• An updated resolution to the city of Post Falls 2009 executive order that authorizes individual staff members to trespass unruly persons from city properties.
• Human Resources Director Teresa Benner presented the new approach to employee leave policies related to COVID-19, which built off the Families First Coronavirus Response Act to continue practices through June 30, 2021, as the county navigates the rising numbers of infected persons.