Shoshone County adopts budget after increasing levy
Shoshone County's elected officials sit at the front of the district courtroom to discuss the budget during a recent public hearing. Pictured (from the left) is Peggy White, Jeff Zimmerman, Dave Dose, Tracy Casady, Karey Eddy, Holly Lindsey, Ben Allen, and Jerry White.
JOSH McDONALD
WALLACE — After weeks of special meetings, the Shoshone County commissioners adopted a budget for the Fiscal Year 2024/25.
The $17,813,713 budget was not without controversy, due largely to internal and public concerns over the county’s justice fund, which covers the sheriff’s office.
Coming into the new budget cycle, the justice fund had finished the previous year in the red. During a special meeting last week, the commissioners and administrators from the sheriff’s office met to discuss how they would navigate the situation without having to cut positions or wages.
The solution they landed on was the combination of increasing the justice levy by 3%, cutting one $70,000 open detention position, and then using $300,000 worth of grant funds to cover the department’s budgeted lease agreements and salaries.
The 3% increase will result in people seeing a $3 increase per $100,000 of assessed property value.
The total amount levied from county taxpayers this year is $5,449,211.
The increased levy rate was not a popular decision, with Commissioner Jeff Zimmerman openly stating that he wouldn’t vote for increased taxes. Zimmerman was frank about his frustration with how counties in Idaho are required to fund themselves and that counties like Shoshone are effectively on their own when it comes to restrictions.
“One of the problems we have as a county is only being able to tax on real property,” Zimmerman said. “We’re unique. Eighty-two percent (of Shoshone County) is federal lands. We have a lot of forest lands that are owned by logging companies. We don’t have the room, like these other counties do, to put in a 1,000-home or even a 100-home subdivision. We just don’t have that space. Our tax base is never going to be like these other counties that have flat land.”
While this year’s budget is higher than last year’s, that increase is less than $100,000, the smallest year-to-year increase for Shoshone County in the past six years.
The board’s work to help the SCSO figure its way out of the hole this year has been met with some public criticism, including from resident Matt Beehner who spoke up during the final budget workshop before the budget was adopted.
“You’re kicking the can down the road,” Beehner said. “The sheriff’s office looks to me like it’s going to be in the same predicament next year, but you’re not going to have the $250,000 in grant money.”
Sheriff Holly Lindsey was thankful for the board’s efforts and explained why she believes any cuts made to the sheriff’s budget would have potentially disastrous consequences for the county’s residents, even if the fix is only temporary.
“After several workshops with the board, we were able to reduce our budget deficiency to $260,000,” Lindsey explained. “With that new information, Undersheriff Lance Stutzke and I went back to the drawing board on what we could cut from our budget. After determining what we could cut and still operate, it didn't look promising as it would dramatically impact the types of services we could provide to the community, such as SRO positions, Coeur d’Alene River patrol, St. Joe River patrol, remote community patrol and discontinuation of some non-criminal services to the community. I think the biggest takeaway from this process is that our community will soon have to decide what they would like the future of Shoshone County to look like and what role they would like to see their sheriff's office play in it. I want to thank all the commissioners for helping us get through this budgeting process and keeping our law enforcement strong. Our community depends on it.”
The board also approved Shoshone County’s annual Ambulance Service District budget, which is $2,334,841 — a roughly $600,000 increase from last year. Of the $2 million budget, $522,331 is being levied from county residents.
Commissioner Dave Dose was open about the mental toll these two most recent budget processes have taken on county employees but was adamant that the board is always working with the county’s best interest in mind.
“It’s a balancing act,” Dose said. “We’re balancing between how much service we can provide, what we are legally required to provide, and how much we can actually fund.”