COEUR d'ALENE - Belt tightening might not be enough this year.

Kootenai County is asking to bump up property taxes 1 percent in the proposed budget for fiscal year 2010-11, which some officials believe is crucial for maintaining services, even with cuts across most departments.

"It sounds weird saying $70-odd million is a lean budget, but it's spare bones," said Commissioner Todd Tondee. "It (the tax increase) is needed to fund the operations of the county."

The proposed $71,872,236 budget is actually $2 million below the current fiscal year.

But it isn't enough to keep up with reductions in state revenue and the loss of income from planning and building fees, said county Finance Director David McDowell.

"Anything to do with the building climate, those revenues are down significantly," McDowell said.

The 1 percent tax increase would bring in an extra $372,104 necessary to balance the budget, he said.

The county hasn't yet calculated how the tax increase would affect individual residents' taxes.

The proposed budget does include a few increases, including an additional $676,846 for the sheriff's department, which would bring its budget to $19.4 million.

The revenue would go toward a detention deputy, medical services at the jail and an additional background investigator, McDowell said.

The county vessel budget would also go up to $678,470, a $160,406 increase to cover construction projects for the Parks and Waterways Department.

The funds would go toward matching a grant to reconstruct the Sunup Bay boat launch, said Nick Snyder, Parks and Waterways director.

"That's our second busiest boat launch we manage in Kootenai County," Snyder said.

The county is also looking at kicking in $80,000 to fund mental health court, McDowell said, now that state funding has fallen through for that service.

The county has made some savings, as well.

Under the proposed budget, the Solid Waste Department's construction budget would drop from $2.7 million to $750,000, now that work is completed on transfer station construction and preliminary landfill expansion.

"This year is a little bit lighter load," McDowell said.

The county snowmobile budget would drop to $21,765 from $113,200. This is because revenues from that activity were down this past winter, McDowell said.

As done for the current fiscal year, no raises are included in the proposed budget.

Commissioner Rick Currie added that health care costs went up less than 1 percent.

"We are self-funded, and that means our employees are definitely helping us out. They aren't going to the doctor unless they have to," Currie said. "That's a team effort."

The commissioner also lauded the county's health care administrators for keeping costs down.

Several county departments have also trimmed where they can, McDowell said.

"The board (of commissioners) put priority on maintaining staffing, so we didn't have to resort to cutbacks on staffing. But that means we tightened up both operating budgets and capital budgets pretty significantly," McDowell said.

The commissioners will hold a public hearing on the proposed budget at 6 p.m. Aug.18 in Room 1 of the Kootenai County Administration Building.

The proposed tax change can be lowered at the hearing, but not raised, Currie said.

The commissioner isn't in favor of a tax increase, he added.

"I do think that there are places in the budget that we could find that 1 percent," he said. "But that's the decision of the board."