Idaho Falls, Idaho Development News

City Council Deliberates 2026-2027 Budget, Property Tax Impacts, and Fee Adjustments

The City Council session focused on the 2026-2027 budget, with discussions on revenue tracking, the strategic plan's aspirations, and council priorities. Key discussion points included the nature of budgets as educated guesses, the importance of tracking revenue, and the groundwork being laid for council priorities. Specific priorities highlighted were the aggressive park CIP, code enforcement's role, the ERP software launch, and space allocation for city staff. The council also engaged in a discussion about departmental priorities, noting a trend towards personnel requests versus capital projects, and examined the budget's impact on property taxes, detailing potential increases for residential and commercial properties based on various scenarios of foregone revenue. The session also covered general fund support for community assets like the aquatic center and zoo, with an emphasis on their importance and current support levels. Detailed breakdowns of departmental fees, including proposed increases for water, wastewater, sanitation (landfill tipping fees), power, fiber, airport, parks, recreation, golf, animal control, community development, and the Frontier Center, were presented. Enterprise funds and capital projects were also reviewed, with a particular focus on unfunded requests and the allocation of foregone revenue. The council debated the use of 3% foregone revenue for capital projects versus ongoing costs, ultimately deciding to fund one-time capital requests with 3% foregone and COP money, and ongoing costs with growth and 1% foregone, while identifying $220,000 in cuts needed from ongoing costs.