SANDPOINT — Bonner County’s plan to offload the financial burden of dispatching fees is causing alarm among cities and fire districts.

County commissioners unveiled a suite of proposals earlier this month aimed at spreading the $3.4 million burden among the public safety agencies who rely on Bonner Dispatch. The proposals include having agencies pay fees according to call volumes, having agencies set up their own dispatch centers or establishing a regional dispatch center along with other counties.

Commissioner Dan McDonald said the county has been illegally bearing the brunt of the burden for years. But Clerk Michael Rosedale determined that Idaho law requires system users to contribute to the operation and staffing of the county dispatch center.

McDonald said Rosedale’s interpretation of the law has been vetted by the county’s legal counsel and is also being reviewed by the Idaho Attorney General’s Office.

“What we’ve been doing for 20 years is illegal,” McDonald told city, fire and emergency responders during a Bonner County Communications Advisory Board meeting on Aug. 9.

The news was not greeted warmly.

“This is going to be very detrimental to our city,” Ponderay Mayor Steve Geiger said.

Geiger said the nearly $100,000 fee that would be charged to the city would likely force it to cut two officer positions in a department that’s already relatively small.

Priest River Mayor Jim Martin said his city would face similar personnel cuts if the county insisted on charging fees. Martin estimated that 15 percent of the police department’s budget would be consumed by dispatch fees.

“We’re down to the chief and one person,” Martin said of a post-fee reality.

Jennifer Stapleton, the city of Sandpoint’s administrator, said the costs would be unsustainable.

“We have one of the larger budgets. Our police department couldn’t absorb this cost and neither could our fire department,” she said.

Some agencies felt blindsided by the county’s proposals, but McDonald emphasized that they were meant to start a conversation that leads to a solution.

“We’re not looking to impose anything this year. One of the reasons we’re having the conversation now is so that everybody can start digesting this and start talking about it,” McDonald said.

But Mike Nielsen of Priest Lake Search & Rescue pointed out that the new approach overlooks an ongoing arrangement in Bonner County in which the county provides centralized dispatch services in exchange for additional radio frequencies and all of the emergency communications funding provided by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

“Don’t welsh on the deal that was made with the members of this group,” Nielsen said.