Getting by with less

COEUR d'ALENE - Chugging along.

Though facing a nearly 4 percent budget cut next fiscal year, the Panhandle Health District is confident it can maintain all its programs, spokeswoman Cynthia Taggart said.

"We've really had an incredible fiscal manager," Taggart said. "Our budget director started planning for this (recession) before it actually happened."

The district will hold a public hearing next week over the proposed 2011 budget of $9,872,700, slashed 3.8 percent from the current fiscal year.

The reduction is due to funding cuts from the state and five counties, Taggart said, as well as the loss of revenue from a fee the district stopped collecting this past year.

Instead of cutting the programs it provides for the five northern counties, which include child care inspections, environmental quality protection and preventative health programs, the district will continue freezing wages and keeping vacant positions open, unless a department's existence depends upon them.

Programs are inevitably affected by the leaner staffs, Taggart acknowledged.

"You have fewer people doing the work," she said. "But we're at a place where 95 percent of the people here will do whatever it takes to get the work done. For most of them, they take their programs seriously. They're not about to let them suffer."

The state will also help the district through the budget wasteland, Taggart said, by covering the district's health insurance costs for two months, as it will be doing for all Idaho agencies as part of a state premium holiday.

"Health insurance is going up 10 percent. That would have really hurt us, but because of the holiday we'll be OK," Taggart said, adding that she didn't know the exact figure. "That made a huge, huge difference for us."

The district's 2011 fiscal year begins July 1.

The public is welcome to attend the hearing on the 2011 district budget, scheduled for 2 p.m. May 27 at 8500 N. Atlas Road in Hayden.

Taggart added that throughout the district's budget struggles over the past two years due to state cutbacks, foresighted budgeting has prevented any layoffs.

"We're going into our second or third year with no new raises. That's hard, but there are no cutbacks, either," she said. "That's a huge relief during a tough time."