The Flathead County commissioners on Monday put their unanimous stamp of approval on a $98.1 million budget that includes $14.1 million in capital improvements for the coming year.

While the budget total on paper is $16.7 million more than last year’s $81.2 million, the increase really reflects the way the county is transferring transactions from one fund to another, County Administrator Mike Pence said.

“It sounds huge but it really isn’t,” Pence said of the increase. “A major part of the difference is in the way we’re moving our money” for better accounting.

Finance Director Sandy Carlson said $1.7 million of the budget increase is for personnel services, which includes pay increases. Operating budgets for the county’s various departments increased 1.5 to 2 percent.

Key elements in the county’s $14.1 million capital improvement plan — part of the preliminary budget — include $3 million for a companion building to the Earl Bennett Building that will house the Agency on Aging, some health services such as the dental clinic, and county maintenance services. That building will cost $6 million, but the remaining $3 million is budgeted for 2016.

A $2.9 million renovation of the historic county jail also is included in the capital plan. The renovation should begin by late summer or early fall, and when completed the old jail will accommodate the Flathead County Attorney offices.

Other expenditures in the 2015 capital improvement plan are $2.5 million for a liner expansion at the county landfill plus $500,000 in additional land purchases for future landfill expansion and about $900,000 for fairgrounds infrastructure improvements.

During the commissioners’ public comment session on Monday, state Rep. Jerry O’Neil, R-Columbia Falls, said he doesn’t believe it’s fair for the county to spend $6 million on a building for Agency on Aging in Kalispell because it’s too far away for many rural residents to use, “yet you’ll be taxing them.

“If Kalispell wants to build an AOA building, that’s fine,” O’Neil said, adding that a better alternative would be to have churches and fraternal organizations provide services to seniors.

Commissioner Gary Krueger spoke in favor of the county’s capital improvement plan, noting how a south campus building “has been on the radar since back when the old hospital was sold. The plan was to have two Earl Bennett buildings.”

When the Agency on Aging relocated from the old hospital, Courthouse East, to the rented facility on Kelly Road, “at that time it was known we’d have another building,” Krueger said.

“The capital improvement plan is a working document that can change,” Krueger said. “We forecast what we know with our very best information today.”

The budget will be finalized the first Monday in August.