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Keeping in touch has
been a challenge this year. I have always attempted to respond to my
email, especially from my District 24 constituents. This year has been
unusual, with emails flooding our legislative accounts. If you have
reached out to me personally, it is my hope that I have responded. In the
past six years the use of email has grown at an exponential rate. I would
estimate that in my first year, my account probably received an estimated 1,000
emails. This year, with the advent of mass distributions, I have seen
over 4,000 emails, with a couple of weeks to go. I work hard to review my
email, but special interest organizations send mass emails on behalf of their
members. The House of Representatives runs a lean ship, with one pool
secretary for 13 members, so we do not have the support staff to personally
reply. With all the emails, I know my response rate is below
expectations. Sorting through the mass of emails makes it difficult to even
spot email from my own family.
I am not on the Joint
Finance and Appropriation Committee (JFAC), but admire their work. The
budgets are formalizing as we approve the many appropriations to the agencies.
The largest single budget is for public education, which includes multiple
appropriation bills. It is lining up to be an estimated 6% increase over
Fiscal Year 2018. Budget years run from July 1st to June 30th.
Thus, we are currently budgeting for 2019 fiscal year. The biggest piece
of the increase in the education budget, is year four of the teacher Career
Ladder. I am so proud of the Career Ladder and the role the we played in its
design. There were many cooks on that piece of legislation. Many
Magic Valley educators and administrators will recall how we started working
together on the concept a year before it became a reality. Those who
joined in our early discussion, can share in the pride of this major change in
the compensation formulas. Fiscal year 2020 will complete the
implementation of the Career Ladder. There remains work to be done to recognize
the importance of teachers and the challenges they face. The Public Schools Budget is presented in several appropriations. You can find them here: S1348 (Teachers), S1347 (Administrators), S1349 (Operations), S1350 (Children's Programs), S1351 (Facilities), S1352 (Central Services), S1353 (Services for the Deaf and the Blind), S1354 (Superintendent of Public Instruction) and Career Technical Education (S1357).
Last week House Bill 463, Idaho State Income Tax Reform, was
approved in the Senate and sent on to the Governor for signature. We have
seen a great deal of news on this bill. Here are some of the details, but
first some perspective. As you know, the Federal Income Taxes were
modified this year with a variety of impacts on Idaho Personal Income Taxes.
Idaho Personal Income Taxes are calculated starting with the Federal 1040
calculations. We must first determine the impacts created by conformity
with the federal changes. You may have heard that the Idaho tax savings
are estimated at $202 million. The actual net tax savings are closer to
$105 million. If we fully conformed to the federal policy, and made no
changes, Idaho taxes would have increased by $97 million.
Thus, the tax impacts of H463, are a total of $202 million, with a net decrease
in state income tax revenue of $97 million.
H463 does several
things. All tax brackets are reduced by .475% and a $130 child tax credit
has been added to our tax code. The criticism is that the $130 tax credit
does not generate comparable tax savings for young families with children.
Part of the challenge this year was dealing with conformity to the
Federal tax code. First and foremost, H463 was created to reduce the
increased Idaho income taxes created by conformity. Conformity eliminated
Personal Exemptions, by doubling the Standard Deduction. Since dependent
children previously received an exemption, we needed to create a tax credit to
offset the impact of removing the exemption for children. We had been looking
at ways to increase the credit to more adequately address the difference
between the Idaho tax savings and the lost value of the dependent
exemptions. A second bill, H675, was introduced and quickly passed through the committee and House. This increased the child tax credit to $205 and will reduce Personal Income Tax Revenues by an additional $25 million.
Each of my
mailings includes a paragraph from Jessica Franco, my legislative intern.
Here are “Jessica’s Thoughts”: The more people you know
the more connections you have in your personal network. Each person will have
their fingers, so to speak, in
different pies. The more
connections you have can give you access to their pies and their experience to
help. I have been able to experience such a vast amount of information
from such a diverse group of legislators, legislative advisors and professional
staff in the Capitol. My network of support has grown over the past two
months as I have worked on such a variety of projects. What was once such
an intimidating time has revealed the power of my new connections. These
new connections provide me a network of resources to navigate the complexities
of the Legislature. I have also discovered that many people appreciate my
experience, perspective, opinions and contributions to the network.
This is my fourth bi-weekly E-Newsletter in 2018. I, try to
send one every two weeks to my list of constituents and friends. I
also have a rotating Legislative “snail mail” Letter which I send to a rotating
list of 200 constituents every two weeks. The main difference between the
letter and e-newsletter is timing. The letter is mailed the week prior to
the e-newsletter. If you are not receiving my E-Newsletter and, or would
like to be included in my snail mail list, send your contact information to lclow@house.idaho.gov.
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