Betsy Russell reports:  Gov. Butch Otter, in his luncheon address to the Associated Taxpayers of Idaho today, challenged county commissioners to bring him a list of state-mandated services they provide that they’d like to do away with. “I’d be remiss if I didn’t open the floor to the question of what are we going to do about personal property taxes,” including proposals to eliminate them. “I’ve made no mystery of the fact that I’ve been a supporter of that,” Otter said, “but I also understand how 44 counties … the question is always what are you going to do with that share of our budget which we get in our counties from personal property tax, and I said frankly I don’t know.” He said, “I want to engage in those discussions.”

He said the budget will be challenging in the upcoming legislative session, and the latest tax revenue figures are forcing a downward revision in projections. “I will tell you we do not have a placeholder for $130 million in that budget,” to offset elimination of the personal property tax. “We will have those discusssions, and I hope that we can come up with a plan. … I understand the plight of the counties, when it represents in some counties upwards of 35 percent of their budget.”

Otter said two years ago, he asked for a list of “those things which you think you can do without in your county that we mandated, and I’ll be your champion to get rid of those services, to stop those services and to relieve you from that financial burden, because I understand that. But I have yet to see the list.”