House passes bill to delay rerunning failed bonds

BOISE, Idaho (KIFI) - A bill to stop taxing district's from quickly re-running a failed bond has passed the Idaho House.

The effort is to stop local government entities from re-doing a bond election after voters deny it the first time.

The bill would require they wait 11 months to try again.

It would apply to all municipalities, but is mostly targeted at school districts.

The bill drew bipartisan opposition.

"This bill is good because it incentivizes that careful consideration. Getting community input figuring out what the best proposal is and what the most likely one is or what the most likely one to succeed is. And so it creates good incentives all the way around and it fosters more input and more transparency," Representative Ron Nate said.

"I don't believe that 35 or 39% of the voters saying no. Is a persuasive enough reason to take this last tool away from districts," Representative Chris Mathias said. "Let's get serious like the good lady said here and have a more difficult conversation about making our school boards and our taxing districts whole so that they are not in the position where they have to continually run bonds."

The bill now heads to the Senate for debate.