Highway Districts Up Close: Elections, Levies, Budgets and Capital Plans

Idaho is unusual in how many of its local roads are run by single-purpose governments. Outside cities and the state highway system, the road in front of a farmhouse or a subdivision is often maintained not by the county but by a highway district: a separate taxing district with its own board, budget, staff and equipment yard. Some are small, with a few employees and a few hundred miles of gravel and chip seal. One, ACHD, runs every public road in Ada County outside the state system, including the streets of Boise and Meridian, with a budget larger than many state agencies.

This lesson looks at highway districts up close: the laws that create and govern them, how commissioners are elected, how much they can levy and grow their budgets, how the budget hearing works, what a capital plan looks like, and the current debates over how they are governed and whether some should be consolidated or dissolved. It uses two real cases: ACHD's fiscal 2027 budget and five-year plan, and the fiscal 2027 budget of Payette County's Highway District No. 1, based in New Plymouth. Facts are current as of October 2026.

Lesson 1 explains how to find out whether your road belongs to a highway district, a county, a city or the state. This lesson assumes you have found out that it is a highway district.

What a highway district is

Chapter 13 of Title 40 is the basic highway district law. It validates districts as already organized (40-1301), makes them "bodies corporate" that can own property, sue and be sued (40-1307, 40-1313), and gives their commissioners broad powers in Idaho Code 40-1310. Under that section the board has exclusive general supervision over the highways and public rights-of-way in its system. It may build, maintain and improve roads; set and post speed and other regulatory signs; make contracts and hire staff; acquire right-of-way and, if a purchase cannot be agreed, go to district court to condemn land; set design and use standards and control access; and lay out, alter, abandon or vacate public highways through the procedures in Title 40. Section 40-1312 says these powers are to be liberally construed.

The same section imposes a duty many people do not know about: the board must publish a map of its rights-of-way and update it every five years (40-1310(9)). If you are trying to find out whether a road is public, that map is one of the first documents to request.

Other sections of chapter 13 set the ground rules for openness and money: records open to the public (40-1306C), an annual report and an annual financial statement with an audit (40-1316, 40-1317), compensation of commissioners (40-1314), a professional director of highways (40-1319, 40-1320), the budget hearing and notice (40-1325 to 40-1328), and a fiscal year that begins October 1 (40-1330).

Chapter 14 covers single countywide highway districts, formed when county voters choose one district for the whole county. Under 40-1406, creating a countywide district abolishes the highway powers of the cities in that county, which is why Boise, Meridian, Eagle, Kuna, Star and Garden City do not run their own streets. Chapter 14 also contains the special election rules for large countywide districts (40-1404A), the voter-approved vehicle registration fee (40-1416), and a dissolution procedure for countywide districts (40-1418).

Who runs a highway district and how they are elected

Regular highway districts

A regular district is divided into three subdistricts, each with one commissioner. Idaho Code 40-1305 sets four-year staggered terms and says "Each highway commissioner shall be elected on a districtwide basis." So a candidate must live in the subdistrict, but every voter in the district can vote in every commissioner race. The Secretary of State's Election Consolidation Manual lists highway district elections in May of odd-numbered years. Payette County's Highway District No. 1, for example, lists its next elections as 2027 for two subdistricts and 2029 for the third.

The bar to run is low. Under 40-1305C, a candidate must be at least 21, a U.S. citizen and a resident of the subdistrict, and must file a nominating petition with at least five signatures from electors of that subdistrict, during the filing window in Idaho Code 34-1404 (which opens on the twelfth Monday and closes on the tenth Friday before the election). Under 40-1305B, if only one candidate files for a seat, no election is held for it. Uncontested seats are common in small districts, which means one person who files can decide who oversees a multi-million-dollar budget.

Countywide districts and ACHD

Large countywide districts follow Idaho Code 40-1404A, which applies to countywide districts in counties over 200,000 people. In practice that is ACHD. It has five commissioners from five subdistricts of nearly equal population, four-year terms that start January 1 after the election, and a ban on county commissioners, mayors and city council members serving at the same time. The statute allows a salary of up to $1,200 a month, and up to $1,400 for the board president, as an alternative to compensation under 40-1314.

How ACHD commissioners should be elected has been a running dispute. In 2026 the Legislature passed Senate Bill 1356, which passed the Senate 19-16 and the House 47-20-3 and was signed on April 10, 2026 (session laws chapter 333). BoiseDev reported that the bill makes ACHD elections partisan, has the whole county vote for each commissioner while commissioners must still live in their subdistrict, and adds even-year partisan primaries starting in 2028. ACHD races were already on the November general election ballot in even-numbered years; the bill's statement of purpose says candidates will file for the even-year May primary and the primary winners will run in the even-year general election, as county commissioners do. Before the change, 40-1404A said voters in each subdistrict voted only for that subdistrict's commissioner. The current text of 40-1404A refers to primary elections beginning with the 2028 elections.

The arguments, as reported by BoiseDev and Boise State Public Radio:

• Supporters, including Senate sponsor Lori Den Hartog and House sponsor John Vander Woude, said commissioners make decisions for a regional road network and should answer to every voter in the county, the way Ada County commissioners already do, and that countywide elections would encourage a whole-county view of traffic.
• Opponents, including ACHD, the League of Women Voters, the Idaho Conservation League and some legislators of both parties, argued that partisan, countywide races in a county of more than 500,000 people would make campaigns more expensive and more dependent on large donors, and that a commissioner could win a subdistrict seat without carrying the subdistrict. Sen. Ben Adams noted that Idaho requires cities over 100,000 to elect council members by district.

The election bill followed other legislation aimed at ACHD. BoiseDev reported that Gov. Little signed Senate Bills 1140 and 1144 in 2025. As BoiseDev described them, S1140 narrowed what counts as spending "for the primary benefit of motor vehicles" and made violations a misdemeanor, and S1144 barred highway districts from building standalone bicycle and pedestrian projects except near schools, parks or designated areas, and from narrowing roads when rebuilding them. Supporters framed the bills as keeping road money on roads that move traffic. Critics, as BoiseDev summarized them, said the bills would make it harder for urban highway districts to respond to bicycle and pedestrian safety problems after crashes and to slow traffic in cities. Both bills were signed March 31, 2025 (session laws chapters 242 and 243), according to the Legislature's bill pages for S1140 and S1144. Read the enacted bill text on the Legislature's site before describing exactly what either law requires.

What a highway district may levy

Highway districts can tax property in two separate ways, and both limits apply at the same time.

The rate limit

Idaho Code 40-801 caps the levy rate, measured as a percentage of taxable market value. The general highway levy for construction and maintenance of highways and bridges may not exceed 0.2 percent. A special levy for bridges, matching state and federal funds, secondary highways and emergency maintenance may not exceed 0.084 percent. The combined total may not exceed 0.284 percent. The statute also says that half of the general levy collected within an incorporated city goes to that city, and none of the special levy does. How that city share works in a particular district depends on whether the city's streets are part of the district's system; ask your district and city how the money moves.

Section 40-1308 allows an additional levy for insurance, lawsuits and judgments. Bonds are separate and need voter approval. Idaho Code 40-1105 validates highway district bonds approved by a two-thirds majority of the voters voting on the proposition, and Article VIII, Section 3 of the Idaho Constitution requires the assent of two-thirds of the voters voting at an election before a local government takes on debt beyond that year's income and revenue.

The budget growth limit

The rate cap rarely binds when property values are rising. The limit that matters most is the cap on growth in property tax dollars in Idaho Code 63-802, which applies to almost every taxing district. In plain terms, as the current text reads:

• A district may ask for the highest property tax amount it certified in any of the three previous years, plus up to 3 percent.
• It may add revenue from new construction (its levy rate times the new construction value) and from 90 percent of the prior year's annexation value.
• If it took less than the full increase in a year and reserved the right by resolution that year, it builds a "forgone" balance it can recover later. Recovery requires notice, a public hearing (which can be combined with the budget hearing) and a resolution stating the amount and purpose, filed with the county clerk and the State Tax Commission.
• Forgone recovery for maintenance and operations may raise the budget by no more than 1 percent a year. Forgone recovery for a capital project may not exceed 3 percent of the budget, must be deducted from the forgone balance, and must be certified as completed. Qualifying capital projects include roads and bridges, facilities, and equipment with a useful life of at least ten years.
• Exceeding the limit requires a vote. Under 63-802(1)(h), a permanent increase in the base budget needs two-thirds of voters at a May or November election. Under 63-802(3), a majority of voters can authorize exceeding the limit for no more than two years.

The statute was amended twice in 2026 (session laws chapters 197 and 316), and the current text also caps the total budget increase calculated under the growth formula at 8 percent for most districts (15 percent for fire protection and ambulance districts), with exceptions for certain urban renewal and annexation changes. Course 26's lesson on the 3 percent cap works through the formula in detail; check the current statute text before you calculate a specific district's limit.

The budget hearing: what the law requires

The budget process for a highway district is short and specific:

1. Notice. Under 40-1326, notice of the budget hearing must be posted at least ten full days before the hearing in at least one conspicuous place in each district and published as provided in 40-206. The notice must give the day, hour and place of the hearing, where the proposed budget can be examined, and a full and complete copy of the proposed budget.
2. Public inspection. Section 40-1327 requires the proposed budget to be available for public inspection.
3. Hearing. Under 40-1325, the commissioners must hold a public hearing on the budget and adopt it before certifying a levy. Section 40-1328 deals with the quorum at the hearing and objections.
4. Certification. Under Idaho Code 63-803(3), non-school taxing districts must certify their budget amounts to the county commissioners no later than the Thursday before the second Monday in September, with an extension of up to seven working days available on request.
5. Fiscal year. The new budget takes effect October 1.

Figure 2 puts the highway district year on one line.

Case 1: ACHD's fiscal 2027 budget and five-year plan

ACHD's commissioners approved a $261 million fiscal 2027 budget by a 5-0 vote at their August 26, 2026, meeting, after a public meeting on July 23 and a public hearing on August 26, according to ACHD's budget page. The budget includes a $133 million capital program covering more than 100 projects. Commissioners certified a property tax levy expected to raise about $58.5 million. In a separate unanimous vote, they approved recovering $2.27 million of forgone property tax revenue, with $1.7 million for the Cloverdale Road project between Victory and Overland roads and the rest for maintenance.

BoiseDev's coverage added detail from the staff presentation. ACHD took the full 3 percent increase (about $1.7 million) and the forgone amount, which BoiseDev described as "all available increases." The forgone recovery had two parts: 1 percent ($568,000) for maintenance and operations, which stays in the base going forward, and 3 percent ($1.7 million) for a single property tax year for Cloverdale Road. The budget includes a 3 percent cost-of-living adjustment for employees. Staff projected the fiscal 2028 budget at about $218.8 million, a drop BoiseDev attributed largely to large infrastructure projects. Two examples: cost-sharing and federal grant revenue falls from $29.97 million to $18.97 million (part of it tied to the Eckert Road bridge replacement), and facility reserves spent on the new Apple Street facility fall from $17 million to $500,000. BoiseDev later added an editor's note that some Eckert Road money is a state grant through LHTAC, not federal money.

Projects named in the coverage include the Eckert Road bridge replacement (after 2025 inspections found decay in its wooden pillars), Cloverdale Road from Victory to Overland, a roundabout at Ten Mile and Deer Flat roads, Franklin Road widening from McDermott to Black Cat, phase two of Linder Road from Overland to Franklin including a new overpass, and Stoddard Road from Victory to Overland.

For comparison, ACHD's fiscal 2026 budget was $257 million with a $125 million capital program, and the commission also recovered $2.1 million of forgone revenue that year, about $1.6 million of it for the Linder Road and Floating Feather project, according to CBS2/Idaho News (August 2025). Two years in a row, ACHD has used one-year capital forgone recovery for a named project. That is a pattern a reader can track: which projects get forgone money, and whether those projects were already in the five-year plan.

The five-year plan

ACHD's capital plan is its Five Year Plan, formerly called the Integrated Five-Year Work Plan. The first two years line up with the budget and the last three show planned work. The 2027 to 2031 Five Year Plan lists 285 projects totaling $1.21 billion. Development began in January 2026; a winter survey asking the public to prioritize projects closed February 19, 2026; comments on the draft closed August 20, 2026; and the adoption hearing was September 23, 2026. ACHD reports receiving more than 1,200 public comments across its outreach rounds and says the board adopted the plan 5-0. The project page links the full project list, a list by neighborhood, a "beyond 2031" list and an interactive map.

The plan matters for three reasons. It is where a project appears years before a budget pays for it. It is the document the Legislature targeted in 2025 when appropriations language tried to require specific ACHD projects, which ACHD Commissioner Kent Goldthorpe told BoiseDev amounted to taking money out of the district's five-year work plan. And it ties to ACHD's impact fee capital improvement plan, which Lesson 8 covers.

Case 2: a rural district's budget, line by line

Most highway districts look nothing like ACHD. Highway District No. 1 in Payette County, based in New Plymouth, has three commissioners, meets the second Tuesday of each month, and posts its budget and minutes on a simple website. ITD's 2023 local mileage report lists about 111 miles of road for Payette County's Highway District No. 1. Its fiscal 2027 budget shows estimated revenue and expenditures of $2,978,097. Figure 3 shows where the revenue comes from.

Reading the lines teaches most of what you need to know about highway district finance:

• Property taxes (39 percent). The district's own levy, limited by 40-801 and 63-802. Every dollar here was set at the district's budget hearing.
• Motor Users' Revenue (36 percent). The district's share of the state Highway Distribution Account: fuel taxes and registration fees distributed by formula. Lesson 2 explains the formula. A rural district can depend on state money almost as much as on its own levy.
• Sales tax (8 percent). This line most likely reflects the district's share of the $45 million TECM local distribution under 63-3638(16), which Lesson 4 covers. The budget does not say, so confirm with the district which sales tax distribution it is. If it is the TECM share, Idaho Code 40-720 limits its use to maintenance, added lanes and congestion relief that benefits motor vehicles.
• Replacement money. The three small "replacement" lines appear to reflect state payments that replace property tax revenue lost when the Legislature exempted certain property (personal property, farm equipment, and energy-related property measured in kilowatt-hours and therms). Course 35 on Idaho property taxes covers these exemptions.
• Penalty and interest ($7,200). Late charges and interest on delinquent property taxes. This small line is the subject of a 2025 Idaho Supreme Court case, discussed below.
• Carryover (13 percent). Cash left from the prior year. A large or growing carryover is worth asking about: is it saved for a specific project, or is the district levying more than it spends?

Notice what is missing: a line for the state's one-time fiscal 2026 transfer. The 2025 Legislature sent $110 million to the Local Highway Distribution Fund for distribution with the first Highway Distribution Account payment of fiscal 2026 (see Lesson 4). That money would have appeared in a district's fiscal 2026 budget, probably inside the state distribution line, and it is not in fiscal 2027. When comparing a district's two most recent budgets, ask how much of the change is that one-time money.

The late-charges case: East Side Highway District v. Kootenai County

In 2025 the Idaho Supreme Court decided a dispute over who keeps the late charges and interest on delinquent property taxes. In East Side Highway District v. Kootenai County (Idaho Supreme Court, Docket No. 51332), decided July 9, 2025, several taxing districts (East Side Highway District, Post Falls Highway District, Worley Highway District, and the cities of Coeur d'Alene and Post Falls) sued Kootenai County and its treasurer after the treasurer decided the county would keep all late charges and interest to cover collection costs instead of sharing them.

According to the Justia summary of the opinion, the district court ruled for the taxing districts, finding that Idaho Code 63-1015 and 63-1007(1) required the money to be distributed in proportion to the taxes, and awarded attorney fees under Idaho Code 12-117(4). The Supreme Court affirmed. It held the statutes unambiguous: late charges and interest must be apportioned the same way as the property taxes themselves. It upheld the fee award and granted fees and costs on appeal. Bloomberg Tax reported the decision on July 21, 2025.

For a highway district, the amounts are small but real, which is why a line like Payette's "Penalty and interest $7,200" exists. For a citizen or reporter, the case is a reminder that money owed to a highway district passes through the county treasurer, and that the treasurer's distribution reports are public records you can check.

Consolidation and dissolution

Idaho law gives voters three ways to change the structure of highway districts. Each requires a petition, a hearing before county commissioners and an election.

Change	Law	How it starts	Vote needed
Consolidate two or more districts	Title 40, chapter 15	Petition by 5 percent of electors or 25 electors (whichever is greater) in each district, or by a majority of each district's commissioners. County commissioners hold a hearing and decide whether to order an election.	Majority in each district; if any one district says no, it fails and cannot be resubmitted for four years.
Dissolve a regular district	Title 40, chapter 18	Petition by at least 25 electors; hearing at least 21 days after notice; county commissioners decide whether to order an election.	Majority of votes cast. The county (or another successor unit) takes over the roads, property, debts and levy authority. A failed attempt bars a new one for one year.
Dissolve a countywide district	40-1418	Petition signed by at least 10 percent of electors in each county commissioner subdistrict; hearing.	Majority at the next general election.

Chapter 16 of Title 40 covers detachment and annexation of territory, and chapter 17 covers county highway reorganization. A district cannot be dissolved until a successor exists to take over its roads (40-1821).

The arguments are recurring and local. People who favor consolidating small districts, or folding them into a county road department, argue that one road agency per county can share equipment and engineering staff, avoid duplicated overhead, and give voters one clear place to complain. People who favor keeping small districts argue that local boards know their roads, respond faster, and keep levy decisions close to the people who pay them, and that consolidation can shift costs from fast-growing areas onto rural ones or the reverse. In counties with several districts, differences in levy rates between neighboring districts are often the spark. Before taking a side, compare the districts' levy rates, miles maintained, cost per mile and debt; all are available from district budgets, the county clerk and ITD's local road reports.

Where this fits in the rest of the course

The state money in a highway district budget comes from the Highway Distribution Account and the TECM local share described in Lesson 2 and Lesson 4. Highway district projects that use federal money appear in the ITIP (Lesson 5) and in MPO TIPs (Lesson 7). Impact fees, which ACHD and some other districts collect, are covered in Lesson 8. Lesson 9 turns the budget steps here into a full plan for getting a road fixed, and Lesson 10 covers district contracts and audits.

Related courses: Local Government, especially the budget cycle, the 3 percent cap, levies and bonds and reading a tax bill; Idaho Property Taxes; Idaho Open Meetings for the rules that apply to every highway district board meeting; Idaho Public Records Requests for budgets, minutes and right-of-way maps; Testifying and Public Comment; and Running for Local Office. Commissioners can use Budgets and Fiscal Duty and Conducting Public Meetings. Urban renewal, which can affect a highway district's tax base, is covered in Urban Renewal and Economic Development.