A smell test for funding

The caller to Idaho Fish and Game explained that there was a dead deer at the end of his driveway.

"When can you be here to pick it up?" the caller demanded. "Stinks to high heaven."

The answer: Maybe never. With budget cuts, funding for removing dead beasties has dried up. Therefore, it's up to the resident to remove the foul-scented carcass.

"That," the employee explained, "is the smell of less government."

Whether or not that story is completely true, we've been unable to ascertain.

But it does make a point.

County Clerk Cliff Hayes is putting together a proposed budget for the Kootenai County Board of Commissioners to consider. Some people's deer - or ox - already have been gored. More fear what's coming by Monday, the deadline for budget submittal.

One case in point is possible elimination of the county's funding for University of Idaho extension services here. Even if the county discontinues extension service funding, that doesn't mean its programs die. It means programs like 4-H would need to cut back or tap other sources to make up the difference.

County officials must first address all mandated services in their funding formula. These include juvenile detention, juvenile probation, adult misdemeanor probation, noxious weed control, public defender, solid waste management, building and planning, the office of emergency management and several departments headed by elected officials.

More interesting is what isn't mandated. How about Parks and Waterways, which generates much of its own revenue? Funding for Jobs Plus Inc.? Support for lunches at the senior center? Or this big blip on the radar: Funding to support Coeur d'Alene Airport/Pappy Boyington Field? You could fund several 4-H programs with what the airport receives from the county each year.

In determining which non-mandated services get funded and which do not, county officials should consider why they're footing the bill in the first place, then determine what other revenue sources those services have or could have.

While we sympathize with 4-H, who wants to take away funding for Jobs Plus, which generates many times more tax revenue for Kootenai County than it receives from taxpayers? How about the airport, which is a powerful economic engine in its own right? Is it time to redraw historic lines between public and private funding for efforts that assist taxpayers?

If you want less government, like we do, we're all going to have to get used to the smell.