Panel Readies Bills For Changing Government

The next Idaho Legislature will consider the option of limited county government separate from other legislation authorizing other forms of government.

That was the decision of a special legislative committee on Friday. It gave final approval to proposed legislation to let voters trade in the state’s century-old three-person commission form of county government for possibly more efficient and effective alternatives.

Charter government will be considered separately because of the controversy that has consistently surrounded county efforts to win charter authority.

The primary legislation would give voters in any county of the state the opportunity to scrap the traditional elected three-member county commission for one of four alternatives - an elected county executive, an appointed county manager, an expanded five-member commission or an expanded seven-member commission.

It offers the option of combining, eliminating or making appointed any of the countywide elected officers such as the treasurer, clerk and assessor. Those changes could be made in conjunction with any of the governing body options.

The bill also authorizes two or more counties to consider consolidating elected offices such as sheriff or prosecutor, but only if a majority of the voters in each the counties involved in the original proposal approve.

The committee did not include the possibility of voters deciding to turn their currently politically partisan county governments into non-partisan ones because of the significant changes in state election laws that also would have to be made.

But that is a possibility under the bill. The transformation of county offices to non-partisan status and the ability to election commissioners by district rather than countywide are the two major options the charter legislation adds to the main bill.