COEUR d'ALENE - For most North Idaho residents the hot summer days of July are spent dipping in the lake or swilling a cool beverage, but for elected officials - it's budget time.

Kootenai County commissioners kicked off the budgeting process in earnest Wednesday, spending five hours of their day parsing through nearly $6 million in requests that won't fit within their projected revenues.

The county is expected to take in $67,491,272 in revenues this year. Those include property taxes, fees and reserve funds they plan to expend this year.

That figure includes a 3 percent increase in property taxes that the commissioners could take under state law, but it doesn't necessarily mean the commissioners will decide to do that.

The $67 million draft budget will cover all of the mandatory costs the county has, plus a 3 percent pay raise - less the cost of insurance increases.

"Healthcare increased by $388,473," Commissioner Todd Tondee said. "But we will back that out of the 3 percent salary increase."

Total salary increases, if the commissioners decide to approve them, would total $675,955.

Department heads, however, requested nearly $800,000 in additional personnel, almost $700,000 in additional operations costs and $4.3 million in capital requests.

That's over and above the $67 million in revenues.

So the commissioners will spend this week deciding what to cut and what to keep.

They spent five hours on Wednesday deliberating over new personnel requests.

"I'm OK with no new people," Tondee told the other commissioners, but later retracted that after hearing some of the requests. "The deputy coroner. I'm OK with that one."

He also supported adding an internal auditor after Pat Raffee, chief deputy clerk, explained how much auditing they needed to conduct this year.

Commissioner Dan Green also supported the position saying past audits have developed efficiencies that resulted in saving the county money.

"We will get a return on that one," Green said.

As for the deputy coroner, the commissioners decided to check into contracting that position out, but they also felt the coroner's office needed a part-time administrative assistant's position.

The sheriff's department probably won't be getting a new mechanic, though.

"I am not in favor of another county mechanic," Tondee said. "There are three mechanics out there already. When I toured Ada County, they had three mechanics and they were doing just fine."

Shift differential pay at the sheriff's office will also get a closer look this budget cycle. Commissioners debated on whether or not to support that.

"Shift differential is a sore subject for me," Green said.

They eventually agreed to talk with the sheriff about reforming the way shift differential is allocated in his department.

Tondee also said he was not going to support any increase in the prosecutor's budget because the other two commissioners would not support increases for the public defender's office.

The prosecutor requested additional funding to keep a criminal investigator position that is currently funded through a grant source that is ending.

"I don't support it because it creates additional pressure on the public defender when they start prosecuting more cases," he said.

In the end, they decided to keep the request in the budget until they get a little further along in the budget cycle.

The commissioners plan to tackle the new operating budget request and new capital requests by the end of the week and then bring in the department heads they need to talk with in order to finalize a budget by early August.

"By Friday we should know who we need to talk to," Green said, as he complimented budget staff for putting together an efficient process.