Kootenai County commissioners begin budget talks

COEUR d’ALENE — Kootenai County commissioners took a first look Wednesday at the proposed budget for fiscal year 2024.

Finance director Brandi Falcon presented commissioners with multiple scenarios for the county’s revenue, depending on how much of a tax increase the board chooses to take, from none at all to the maximum of 3%.

With no tax increase, the county’s revenue is estimated at around $138 million. Projected revenue would increase to about $139 million with a 1% increase, $140 million with a 2% increase and $140.6 million with a 3% increase.

Commissioners will balance the budget over six deliberation meetings between June 9 and July 17. The county must publish the preliminary balanced budget by Aug. 14.

The county’s biggest expense is personnel, with $83 million budgeted for fiscal year 2023. That includes a 6% cost of living adjustment wage increase for all county employees.

Kootenai County currently spends about $3 million every two weeks on payroll. Various departments have asked for a combined total of roughly $5 million in personnel requests for the coming year, including requests for 15 new positions, changes to existing positions and step changes for current employees.

Commissioner Bruce Mattare expressed support for adjusting elected officials’ pay to reflect current market rate values.

“I’ve always believed that you should pay people for the job that they’re doing,” he said. “We should look at that.”

For fiscal year 2023, the county’s base operating budget is $33 million. New requests for operating expenses total $1.6 million over the 2023 budget. This includes $1.5 million requested for Kootenai County Solid Waste and $93,000 requested for general government operations.

Capital requests total $17.2 million. This includes $14.4 million in Solid Waste requests and $2.8 million for general government.

The county will see a smaller than usual gap between revenue and expenses in 2024, totaling about $9.2 million. There are four main factors at play.

Public defense is no longer levied, which will save Kootenai County approximately $4.4 million in the coming fiscal year. This is because of House Bill 735, which overhauls how public defense is funded in Idaho. The legislation eliminates the county charity and indigent fund levy and shifts responsibility for public defense from counties to the state.

Health insurance costs for the county will not increase in 2024.

The DMV has increased fees enough that it is now self-funded, which Falcon said will reduce the property tax burden by $1.6 million.

The county’s interest revenue has also increased $2.2 million over last year.

“This is an anomaly,” Falcon told commissioners. “That is not something you can expect to happen every year.”

Property tax revenues will remain uncertain until later in the summer, when the county assessor completes the property rolls.

The auditor’s office relies on property values provided by the assessor to calculate the preliminary levy rate, which is used to calculate new construction and urban renewal district returns. Other taxing districts also rely on these values in order to create their budgets.

The preliminary new construction roll is due June 5.