Assessor's office cutting jobs

COEUR d'ALENE - The Kootenai County Assessor's Office is planning to eliminate five positions through attrition.

The move will provide both short-term savings in reduced costs, and long-term savings as well, according to a press release.

"It also allows us the ability to provide pay incentives to our remaining staff who are expending additional effort to ensure we complete this office's mandated responsibilities on time and in an acceptable manner," the release said. "It is our goal to reduce or eliminate the loss of our key valued staff members by creating a more competitive compensation package."

Four of the five posts are vacant. The fifth will be vacated at the end of April when the employee retires.

The timeline for implementing the new structure is the end of March.

Kootenai County has lost seven appraisers in the past year, and several other key staff members to other government agencies.

The appraisers average $16 to $24 an hour.

There is a "significant cost" associated with training new staff members each time there is turnover, the county said.

The county's cost to train new appraisers is between $35,000 and $60,000 over two years.

"We intend to mitigate these hidden costs," the release said.

The staff reductions will leave the assessor's office with 61 employees.

The changes are possible, the release said, because "Our management team has diligently and creatively worked together to streamline procedures, maximize the use of new technology, and share positions between departments during peak demand periods in order to continue providing our citizens with the high quality of customer service that they have come to expect from our offices."

The pay rates in the assessor's office range from around $11 an hour to about $31 per hour for managers.