ADA COUNTY, IDAHO — Ada County voters will decide this November whether to continue a local vehicle registration fee that has helped fund transportation projects for decades.
The Ada County Highway District Board of Commissioners unanimously approved ballot language, placing the measure on the November general election ballot.
WATCH: Critics argue lighter vehicles are paying while larger trucks don't pay the local fee
If approved, the fee would continue at its current rate with no increase. If rejected, the funding source will expire in 2028.
The fee, first approved by voters in 1990 and renewed in 2008, generates about $14 million annually for transportation projects across Ada County, according to ACHD.
The measure has drawn criticism from some residents, including former Boise Guardian editor Dave Frazier, who said his concern is not with the fee itself, but with how it is applied.
"All of us lightweight people have to pay for the trucks that do the most damage to the highways, and they're exempt, and they shouldn't be," Frazier said.
The local vehicle registration fee applies to vehicles weighing less than 8,000 pounds.
ACHD said larger commercial trucks do not pay the local fee because they are subject to a separate state vehicle registration system. The district said some of those state registration dollars are distributed back to ACHD through the Highway Users Fund.
According to ACHD, any change allowing the district to impose an additional local registration fee on larger commercial vehicles would require action by the Idaho Legislature.
Frazier said he believes the system should be changed but supports paying for road maintenance.
"I have no objection to paying the tax," Frazier said, "I just want it to be uniformly administered, uniformly levied."
The ballot measure itself would not change which vehicles pay the fee. Instead, it asks voters whether to continue the existing funding source.
"It's a fee that voters or the Ada County residents are already paying," ACHD Commission President Miranda Gold noted.
Gold stated the revenue helps fund road and bridge maintenance, congestion relief projects, safe routes to school, sidewalk improvements and neighborhood transportation projects.
If approved by voters, the fee would continue at its current rate through 2046.
