A proposal to wipe out property taxes in Idaho cleared a significant political hurdle this month when delegates at the Idaho GOP State Convention voted overwhelmingly to add it as a plank in the state party platform — even as critics warned the plan could leave public schools scrambling to replace more than $400 million in annual funding.
The push is being led by Scott Herndon, who defeated incumbent Sen. Jim Woodward, R-Sagle, in the May Republican primary. Herndon brought the proposal before convention delegates, drawing a standing vote in which roughly 475 of the approximately 600 attendees — about 80 percent — rose in support of making property tax elimination an official party priority.
What the Plan Would and Would Not Do
Herndon’s approach would remove property taxes as a funding mechanism while intentionally avoiding increases to either the sales tax or income tax rates. Instead, his framework relies on natural growth in state revenues driven by economic expansion to fill the resulting gap. The plan also contemplates allowing individual school districts to establish a local option sales tax specifically to fund school construction and new facilities — a mechanism that would avoid placing a lien on a homeowner’s property.
The broader GOP platform language also calls for reducing income taxes, layering additional fiscal pressure onto state finances if both goals were pursued simultaneously.
Herndon has framed the ambition of the proposal in expansive terms. “Was going to the moon realistic?” he said at the convention. “Humans are capable of doing anything they set their minds to.”
That optimism, however, runs directly into a hard number from the Idaho State Tax Commission: counties levied and distributed $404.4 million in property taxes for public schools in fiscal year 2025. Eliminating property taxes without a defined dollar-for-dollar replacement would create a funding void of roughly that same amount — a gap that would need to be covered before a single classroom door could stay open.
Skeptics Point to a Missing Replacement Plan
House Minority Leader Ilana Rubel, D-Boise, was direct in her assessment of the proposal’s financial mechanics. “Maybe money will magically appear, and we’ll be fine,” she said. “That is not a budget plan. That’s preposterous.”
Even among those sympathetic to the goal of property tax relief, the question of school funding replacement is central. Idaho’s school funding formula — largely unchanged since the 1990s — already faces scrutiny over whether it adequately and equitably serves students across the state. Removing the local property tax component without a concrete state-level backstop would intensify that pressure considerably.
Viki Purdy, newly elected first vice chair of the Idaho GOP and an Adams County Commissioner, was among convention leaders as the platform amendment moved forward. Her position bridging party leadership and county government reflects the dual pressures local officials face: property taxpayers demanding relief and school boards requiring stable, predictable revenue.
Context: Recent Legislative Efforts on School Facilities
The Idaho Legislature has taken incremental steps in recent years to reduce the pressure property taxes place on school construction financing. A 2023 measure created the School District Facilities Fund, distributing money based on average daily attendance. A follow-up bill in 2024 established a $1.5 billion School Modernization Facilities Fund available over a ten-year window. Both measures were designed to reduce how often school districts turn to local property owners for bond and levy dollars.
Herndon’s plan would effectively build on that trajectory but accelerate it dramatically — shifting the entire local school funding burden to the state rather than incrementally cushioning it. Whether state revenue growth alone can absorb a gap of more than $400 million per year, without tax rate increases, remains the central unanswered question.
For Magic Valley families and local employers who depend on well-funded schools to develop a trained workforce, the stakes of that question are concrete and immediate.
What Comes Next
Adding the property tax elimination plank to the state GOP platform does not carry the force of law, but it does signal a policy direction that legislators aligned with the party’s base will face pressure to pursue when the Idaho Legislature convenes in 2027. Herndon, having won his primary, is positioned to champion the proposal from within the Senate if he wins the general election in November. How legislative leadership responds — and whether a workable funding replacement can be constructed — will determine whether this remains a platform aspiration or advances into actual policy debate.