COEUR d'ALENE — Salary increases were hotly debated on Thursday night during a public hearing before Kootenai County commissioners approved a fiscal 2020 budget of $101.6 million.

Commissioners Chris Fillios and Bill Brooks supported the proposed budget, while Leslie Duncan was opposed.

The budget includes $1.7 million in wage increases. Of that amount, $900,000 is planned for the Sheriff's Office, including sworn and civilian personnel.

Fillios said about 75 percent of the county employees will receive a 2 percent wage increase, but a wage study indicated that some positions, including those in the Sheriff's Office, are severely underpaid compared to Coeur d'Alene.

The average pay raise for patrol deputies will be 8 percent.

"We would have had to go even higher than that if they were strictly on the wage study," Fillios said.

Duncan said she believes in paying employees adequately, but said the study was a blanket approach to wages rather than looking at positions individually.

"I would have liked to take more time and used a stepped approach," she said during the meeting attended by about 75 people.

Deborah Rose, who lives in the Athol area, thanked Fillios and Brooks for addressing the wage study. Without the pay increases that were approved, she said, turnover will only increase.

"Just like everyone else, I don't like paying taxes and seeing my taxes increase," she said. "The proposed budget remedies the under compensation without a significant increase in tax rates. Given what has occurred in the past with wage studies that went unheeded, a proposal to consider future raises will neither retain good employees nor attract first-rate candidates."

It doesn't appear the debate on wages is over.

Shawn Somershoe, who has been a detention deputy at the jail for 13 years, said the budget will create a greater disparity between detention deputies and patrol deputies. His raise will be 2 percent.

Fillios said the wage study isn't perfect, but it's a start to make the county more competitive with Coeur d'Alene.

"There are imperfections (such as with the detention deputy pay) and those will have to be taken up going forward," he said. "We're trying to put a stake in the ground to get on the right path and will have to make the necessary adjustments going forward."

Duncan said she'll be looking at how technology may save the county from having to fill some positions in the future as a way of cutting costs.

It will be the first time the county's budget amount has topped $100 million to start a fiscal year.

The budget includes a 3 percent property tax increase that will generate about $1.5 million. Taxing entities are allowed to increase property taxes up to 3 percent per year under law.

"We're taking the 3 percent increase because our house is falling down," Brooks said. "When we lose employees because we refuse to take the 3 percent, that's foolish."

Commissioners opted not to dip into the county's foregone tax balance to develop the budget, which many other counties have done.

Jeff Tyler, chairman of the Northwest Property Owners Alliance, opposed the property tax increase and increased budget.

"Many people I know feel like they're being taxed out of their homes," he said. "Our Founding Fathers wanted to have limited government, not expanded government."

Tyler suggested taking a closer look at the eight new positions created and non-mandated services may have been a way to drop the tax increase.

Jerry Johnson, chairman of the North Idaho State Fair, said the fairgrounds is in desperate need of paved parking and found the county's plans to repave the lots at the Administration Building and Elections Office instead a tough pill to swallow.

"I don't understand the funding priorities," Johnson said.

About 4 percent of the fair's budget — $75,000 — comes from Kootenai County.

The budget also includes $5 million for a new building on the county's downtown campus to relieve crowded departments. The money will come from the county's savings account. There is about $7 million left in savings.

"Our fund balance is getting lower," said Dena Darrow, the county's finance director. "In the future, we may need to go into indebtedness for larger projects."

County commissioners met with department heads for the past three months to hear budget requests and made more than $16 million in cuts to balance the proposed budget. The requests above last year's budgeted amount came in at $19 million at the start of the budget season.

"This has been the smoothest and most amicable budget process we have seen in years," Fillios said.

The county is only a portion of residents' overall tax obligation, which also includes applicable city, school, highway and fire district taxes.

- In other business, the board unanimously approved the Emergency Medical Services budget of $8.3 million and the Aquifer Protection District budget of $554,859.