BOISE — A special legislative committee has voted unanimously to keep paying the current $4,551-per-month housing stipend for Idaho’s governor for now, but the panel will meet again in November or December to consider possible changes.

“We really need to be talking about should we be doing this, should we be doing it at this rate, is it still needed, what are some of the other states doing,” said Sen. Abby Lee, R-Fruitland, the Senate assistant majority leader and a member of the Governor’s Housing Committee.

Said House Assistant Majority Leader Jason Monks, R-Meridian, “Does it still make sense today? I don’t know. … I certainly didn’t have enough information to make a decision other than let’s maintain where we’re at.”

All four legislative representatives on the panel are new this year; former Chairman Chuck Winder, R-Boise, stepped down from the panel when he became Senate president pro-tem this year.

Idaho is one of just five states that doesn’t provide an official residence for its governor; the other four are Arizona, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Vermont. Some states have historic governor’s mansions; some require their governors to live in those.

Idaho hasn’t had an official residence for its governor since the hilltop Simplot mansion, which had been donated to the state for that purpose by the Simplot family in 2004, reverted back to the family in 2013. No Idaho governor ever lived there; the only one who had the opportunity after renovations were completed, then-Gov. Butch Otter, was J.R. Simplot’s ex-son-in-law and opted to stay at his ranch in Star rather than move to the hilltop mansion. The Simplot family demolished the house in 2016; just its landmark huge American flag remains.

Idaho’s last occupied governor’s residence, an older home in Boise’s North End, was sold in 1990, after it had deteriorated since serving as the official governor’s mansion since 1947 and Idaho governors began declining to live there. The $221,000 in proceeds from the sale of the house combined with a $778,000 appropriation from the state’s Permanent Building Fund created a Governor’s Residence Account, with almost $1 million dedicated to housing for the governor.

Over the years, that fund has been tapped for various purposes, from a monthly housing stipend to buying a governor’s existing home to planning for building a new one.

The state owns a 15-acre property in the Boise foothills with a view of the Capitol that’s long been tabbed for a future governor’s residence, and various plans have been drawn up since 1988 to build a new mansion there, but they’ve never gone forward. Under the terms of the state’s acquisition of the property, if the land isn’t used for either a governor’s residence or a public park, it’ll revert back to the federal Bureau of Land Management. Currently, part of it is leased to the city of Boise for use as part of the Ridge to Rivers trail system.

“Right now, it’s satisfying the purpose of serving as a park because it’s part of the Ridge to Rivers, so there’s no real rush to do anything with it,” said Keith Reynolds, state Department of Administration director and chair of the Governor’s Housing Committee.

At the current annual governor’s housing stipend rate of $54,610 a year, the housing fund will run out in five years.

Rep. Colin Nash, D-Boise, said, “Our current governor is on the record of saying he didn’t run for a housing stipend. Our next governor might need it more than he does. I think it’s appropriate that our governor has housing accommodations in Boise.”

This year’s Legislature agreed to purchase the historic Carnegie Library just blocks away from the Capitol, and committee members said some functions that historically happened at a governor’s mansion, such as meetings or dinners, might be accommodated there.

The current housing stipend is calculated based on 2018 housing costs in Boise, but committee members, who met last week, noted those are outdated. Sen. Ali Rabe, D-Boise, said, “When the committee reconvenes later this year, there’s going to be another look at market conditions and the fund to see if there’s a better path forward.”

Rabe, who works in the housing field as executive director of Jesse Tree, which helps tenants facing eviction, said, “My opinion is that it would probably be more fiscally responsible to build a designated home for the governor, rather than a stipend. I don’t know that it needs to be a mansion. … I think a more simple, basic home, like a condo or an apartment, would be totally acceptable.”

“Especially with housing going the way that it is, it’d just be a good investment for the state,” Rabe said. “If we continue to provide an annual stipend, the cost of that is going to increase with the cost of housing, so we might as well invest in something and have it be here for however many years to come.”

Lee said she leans more toward the stipend approach, but said perhaps once all the figures are in, it should cover just a portion of the area’s housing cost, not the full cost. “If we have a governor with a young family, I really like the idea of that family being able to find something that works for their family,” she said.

Current Gov. Brad Little, whose salary is $138,302 a year, lives in Emmett, but also rents a condo in downtown Boise. He’s sometimes used the condo for legislative meetings.

“We have had, in the last few years, governors who already had homes or had property locally,” Lee said. “So it wasn’t that big a deal. I think it’s a good conversation to have: What is the next step going to be, regardless of who the governor is?”

In the past, when earlier versions of the Governor’s Housing Committee considered building a new governor’s mansion, protesters attended its meetings carrying signs decrying the idea of a “million-dollar mansion.”

“I’ve heard there’s been some drama over the years with this committee,” Rabe said.