May 11, 2026
Voters Deserve Honesty, Not Gaslighting
By: Chris Schnitzler, Candidate for Bannock County Commissioner
Voters deserve honest answers when candidates are campaigning. Unfortunately, it is not something that they usually get. Politicians work themselves into all kinds of knots in their attempts to obscure their records.
Case in point: Sitting Commissioner Jeff Hough’s recent post on his Facebook page where he stated, “I’ve been your Commissioner for six years. In that time, we cut your property tax levy by $15 per $100,000 of value.” This is a classic example of misdirection.
Having worked in real estate for many years, I know a bit about property taxes and how they’re calculated. The levy rate, which he claims to have lowered, is a calculated number, derived by taking the budget set by a taxing authority and dividing it by the total taxable value of properties within the district that are subject to assessment.
The county commissioners play a part in setting only one of the two numbers used in determining the tax levy: the amount they plan to spend. Hough’s record over the last six years in county spending shows that the levy rate changed in spite of his and his colleagues continued spending increases. In FY 2021, the portion of Bannock County spending attributable to property taxes was (after adjusting for the Governor’s public safety grant subsidy of $4.9M) $27.8 million. In the current fiscal year 2026, that number is now $31.3 million…an increase of $3.5 million. In fact, there was only one year in which the portion of spending attributable to property tax by the county declined. It was in FY 2024, when fiscal hawk John Crowder was commissioner and was able to push through his agenda of putting taxpayers first…without defunding seniors, veterans, the homeless and others…and without giving himself a 14.5% raise, as the commissioners did this year.
So, why did the levy rate decrease? It’s because of the denominator in the levy rate calculation. From 2021 to 2025, the latest year for which numbers are available, the total taxable assessed value of property in Bannock County went from $5.5 Billion to $10.3 Billion. It was the increase in property values that drove the reduction in the levy rate…not Hough’s increased spending, which worked in the opposite direction.
The important number for property taxes isn’t the levy rate; it’s what you actually pay in taxes. One of my friends recently shared how the annual county property taxes that she and her husband pay have increased from $1355 per year to $1783 over the last five years. That’s an increase of 32%, and that number is directly related to the commissioners’ spending.
I’m running for Bannock County Commissioner to bring back an honest and transparent government that works for the citizens of Bannock County, not one that tries to gaslight them. If that’s something that you value, I’d be honored to have your vote on May 19.
