Is the district in a losing battle with your money?

Property owners in this area need to know what’s going on with their property taxes.

In January there was a permanent levy that narrowly passed. It was designed to collect $12.7 million annually for the school district, at a cost of $214 per $100K of property value. That’s about a 23% increase to our current property tax burden.

The problem is that the ballot for this levy did not comply with an unanimously-passed law stating that it MUST contain, in clear terms, the cost to the individual taxpayer.

Some would say this was an intentional omission designed to trick taxpayers into voting “yes,” implying that the tax would cost no more than we already pay.

When confronted with the illegality of the ballot, the district officials disregarded the argument, stating that the levy would have passed anyway. I say let’s find out: run it again with the language required by law.

Since the ballot was illegally administered, a lawsuit was filed hoping to overturn the levy and stop the taxes from being collected.

Even though the ballot admittedly was not in compliance, the school district officials hired as many as six high-cost attorneys from Boise and CDA, at taxpayers’ expense. They are fighting this tooth and nail with your money and no regard for the ethics taught in their own halls.

For more information, you can Google “Idaho Tax Watch nonprofit;” there you can find all the details and learn how you can help right this wrong.

JASON GIDDINGS

Sagle