The Stakes of Teton Valley's Road Levy

VICTOR — Victor City Treasurer Jasmine Griffin told the City Council on May 13 that if Teton County voters reject the road levy on May 19, Victor will open its next budget year about $200,000 short on road funding, a gap the city would cover from its Local Option Tax.

The Special Road & Bridge Levy on Tuesday's primary ballot funds road work for four governments. The county's Road & Bridge department takes the largest share, roughly a million dollars, about a third of its road budget. The rest comes from state fuel taxes and vehicle registration fees. The cities of Victor, Driggs, and Tetonia divide the remainder in proportion to the property taxes paid within each. Victor's slice is the best documented of the three: the city budgeted $205,000 in road-levy revenue this year, the money behind Griffin's warning. A failed renewal would leave all four governments short. Teton County voters have approved the two-year measure in every cycle since 2010, and this year's version asks for up to $1.5 million per year, up from $1.4 million in 2024, to replace the current levy when it expires on September 30.

This year, the state took away road money. In January, Gov. Brad Little proposed pulling $275 million from the Idaho Transportation Department's Strategic Initiatives Fund to help close a projected state budget deficit. That total included $110 million that the state had earmarked for local road departments. The fund holds sales-tax revenue set aside for transportation, and Little wanted that money for the state's general budget. Lawmakers adjourned the session on April 2 and left the cut in place.

State Sen. Jim Woodward, a Sagle Republican on the Legislature's budget committee, tied the cut to tax policy in a March 15 column. "We were forced this year to take $275 million away from ITD and our local road and bridge departments because of the income tax cut last year," Woodward wrote. "That translates into rougher roads and more congested roads."

Local governments cannot easily replace that money. Idaho law caps most of the annual increase in property tax revenue at 3%, no matter how fast a county grows, and Teton County has been among the state's fastest-growing for more than a decade. The road levy is one of the few revenue tools that voters decide on at the ballot. It also gives the county cash to chase outside money: most federal-aid road and bridge work in Idaho is covered almost entirely by federal dollars, but the local government has to put up 7.34% of the cost itself, and a thinner road budget leaves less on hand to meet that match. Not every program works that way; the state-funded Leading Idaho Local Bridge program asks for no local share. But the levy is the flexible local money the county leans on to qualify for the grants that do. If voters reject the levy, the county and the three cities lose up to $1.5 million between them.

Victor has done the math. The city is writing its fiscal 2027 budget without knowing whether the levy will pass, and that $205,000 is the hole it would carry into the next budget if the levy fails. Griffin named the Local Option Tax as the backfill. Victor's lodging, liquor, and local sales taxes fund it, and the city has built up a balance in the account that it has not drawn down. That reserve is what would cover a failed levy, money Victor could otherwise hold for housing or property tax relief.

Driggs and Tetonia would not feel a failed levy the same way. Driggs has the largest property-tax base of the three cities, and it runs its own resort tax, a roughly $2.3 million fund. It could draw on that fund the way Victor would draw on its reserve. Tetonia has no such cushion. The town of about 300 keeps no dedicated road fund; its road spending runs through a general fund of under $200,000, and the local-option tax its voters approved took effect only in January. Tetonia also draws the smallest slice of the levy because the cities' shares track the property taxes paid within each city, so the valley's smallest government loses the least in raw dollars and has the least room to make it up.

The state money may come back. Little has called the pull temporary and tied any restoration to revenue growth, though his office has not set a timeline or a target. The renewal on Tuesday's ballot is the road funding that Teton County voters still decide.

What to watch: Polls are open Tuesday, May 19, for the primary election. The road levy needs a simple majority to pass. Victor continues work on its fiscal 2027 budget through the summer, with the City Council's next regular meeting set for May 27.

What a Failed Road Levy Would Cost Teton Valley

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