Kootenai County Sheriff’s Office proposes $50 million budget

COEUR d’ALENE — The Kootenai County Sheriff’s Office has unveiled a proposed budget for fiscal year 2025.

Undersheriff Brett Nelson said the agency’s proposed budget for 2025 is north of $50 million. The county’s $141 million adopted budget for 2024 allotted about $44 million for the sheriff’s office.

“This year, we worked toward ensuring that we had what we needed to be the most effective, efficient and safe in providing services to the community,” Nelson told commissioners during a Monday morning budget meeting.

Kootenai County commissioners will weigh the proposal as part of the budgeting process.

“Now, we just need to look through this and try to discern what we can keep and what we might have to push off a year or so,” Commissioner Bruce Mattare said.

Stephanie Drobny, KCSO’s chief budget officer, highlighted a requested increase of $691,711 for the jail. Much of the request comes from increased costs for medical services, food services and utilities, as well as smaller increases related to ammunition, uniforms, inmate extradition and other items.

In-jail medical and mental health services provided by VitalCore will cost $523,245 next year, according to the sheriff’s office. 2025 is the fourth year of a five-year contract with VitalCore. KCSO is expected to open a request for proposals for contracted medical services next week.

Summit Food Services will reportedly increase its rate by 15% for fiscal year 2025, a total increase of $39,210. With the increased rate and assuming an inmate population of around 487, the sheriff’s office estimates it will cost a little more than $1 million to provide three meals per day to the people incarcerated in Kootenai County.

The jail’s electric and natural gas costs are expected to increase more than $46,000 next year. That estimate accounts for the completion of two dormitory pods in 2025 that will add 108 beds to the jail.

KCSO has also asked commissioners to increase the jail’s overtime budget from $925,000 to $1.2 million.

“When we did the projection for the end of the year, we’re already looking at $1.8 million,” Drobny said.

Other requests include:

• $65,160 for a warrants records clerk

• $68,142 to create a new property and evidence specialist position, responsible for organizing and tracking all inmate property and acting as the custodian of video evidence produced by the jail

• $104,000 to replace two non-speciality vehicles used by detectives that are “past their safe service life”

• $61,000 to build a metal mesh cage around the open seating space in the jail’s booking area

• $30,000 to replace the HVAC system at the county’s 911 Communications Center

• $20,000 to replace a horse trailer used by animal control to transport livestock during emergencies, such as wildfires

“We’re proposing this budget to ensure that we have the necessary tools to serve the residents of Kootenai County,” Kootenai County Sheriff Bob Norris said Monday. “We operate a lean organization and many of the equipment items are at end of life or near end of life.”

Commissioners will meet this afternoon for a fiscal year 2025 budget kickoff presentation with finance director Brandi Falcon.