Sen. Roy Lacey, D-Pocatello, proposed a change to the House GOP’s latest plan in the conference committee: Since local highway districts wouldn’t get to share in any of the surplus eliminator money, he proposed changing the distribution of new gas tax funds from the proposed 60-40 state-local, to 58-42 for two years, “to give the locals a little more … That kind of helps the locals through this two-year period that they would have no access to the (surplus eliminator) money,” Lacey said. “This would give them a little shot in the arm for the next two years.”

But in a straw poll on that idea, it died on a 4-2 vote, because both Reps. John Vander Woude and Joe Palmer opposed it; all other conference committee members supported it. “I don’t deny that the local districts in my opinion probably need some help,” Vander Woude said, “but in my opinion I’d like to just keep it at the 60-40 and move forward with that.”