Deep Dive

DRIGGS — Teton County, Idaho collected $341,718 this year in Payment in Lieu of Taxes, or PILT, the federal program that reimburses local governments for the untaxable public land inside their borders. The Teton County PILT payment is one of the smallest of any county in the state, less than a seventh of what Teton County, Wyoming received for the same reason.

The U.S. Department of the Interior distributed $49.6 million through the program to Idaho's 44 counties for the 2026 fiscal year, money meant to offset the property taxes counties cannot charge on national forest, Bureau of Land Management ground, and other federal holdings. Teton County ranked near the bottom of that list. Only nine Idaho counties received less.

DRIGGS — The Driggs consent decree set a hard federal deadline to rebuild the city's wastewater treatment plant by Dec. 15, 2028. The city now treats February 2030 as the deadline and is still working to secure the federal sign-off that would make the later date official.

An independent CPA examination jointly commissioned by Driggs and Victor concluded that Driggs overcharged Victor for years on the cities' shared wastewater loan, used a cost-allocation method the inter-city agreement does not authorize, and could not reconcile two of three quarterly bills the auditor tested. The report, signed by Cooper Norman in Idaho Falls on February 9, 2024, became part of the public record on March 27, 2025, when the Victor City Council voted to end the 26-year partnership and build its own treatment plant.

VICTOR — The wastewater numbers in the Victor-Driggs fight start at $35 million, the figure that has dominated the debate since Mayor Will Frohlich announced plans to build an independent treatment plant. Critics call it reckless. The recall petition cites it. Councilmember Amy Ross, the lone dissenting vote on the judicial confirmation, warned in January that she doesn't think "anyone understands the full financial implications of $35 million in debt."

DRIGGS, Idaho — The Teton Creek Resort settlement approved Monday will cost Teton County $3 million. The county faced a $19 million judgment. The current Board of County Commissioners negotiated it down.

For more than 25 years, the cities of Victor and Driggs have shared the Driggs wastewater treatment system. That partnership is now the subject of a major lawsuit, a mayoral recall effort, and more than $65 million in proposed infrastructure spending between the two cities. This is how it happened, what the lawsuit says, and what comes next.