COEUR d'ALENE - A majority of the Kootenai County Commissioners voted to begin advertising to fill the vacancy created by Todd Tondee's firing.

Tondee, a former county commissioner, was fired earlier this month from his position as a transit program specialist in the county's Grants Management Office. The Press filed a public records request, but the county declined to release the documents that would have revealed why he was let go.

Commission Chairman David Stewart voted against filling the vacancy, while Commissioners Dan Green and Marc Eberlein voted to do so.

The board discussed the direction of the Grants Management Office during a meeting on Monday, when Stewart argued the office should be cut from four positions to two - or possibly down to one full-time position and one part-time.

"We're in budget season right now, and this is a way to cut the budget," Stewart said. He believes the office is an overgrown bureaucracy.

He would like to move Grants Management Office director Jody Bieze into Tondee's former position, which is fully funded with Federal Transit Authority grant money.

Three of the four positions in the office were created last fall.

Stewart complained that the county is spending $144,000 on wages and benefits for employees in the office - grant funds cover the rest - and the office is only managing $2 million in grants.

He also said the manager of the Coeur d'Alene Airport and the head of county Parks and Waterways have complained about Grants Management's "overreaching." He said they could manage their own grants, which they did for years with no problems.

"I don't have any interest in reformatting the Grants Management Office," Green said.

He said he doesn't have confidence in the numbers Stewart cited, which were produced by the County Auditor's Office.

Green said he would like to see the office expanded. The county pays T-O Engineers tens of thousands of dollars - possibly hundreds of thousands - for grant administration work. The county could do that work itself, Green said.

Eberlein sided with Green.

"I'd like to substantiate the information before we take any leaps," Eberlein said.