The need for a new Kootenai County government building is clear, commissioners were told Thursday.

How to pay for it? Not so simple.

County consultant Shawn Riley told commissioners that a hard look at the existing county facilities space indicated what he already suspected: The county is on the verge of bursting at the seams.

“If we continue down this path without some sort of solution, we’re going to be in a crisis,” Riley said. “Somebody (employees) are going to have to move off campus.”

Commissioners have generally said they do not prefer to take foregone tax dollars or go to the voters with a bond measure to pay for a new building.

That leaves funding the new facility — estimated at $30 million — through tax increment dollars that the county will receive when urban renewal districts in Coeur d’Alene and Post Falls close over the next several years.

But just how much is at stake was a point of contention among officials making their case to commissioners.

Consultant John Austin, former finance director for the city of Coeur d’Alene, told the board that conservatively the county can expect $2.6 million annually after five urban renewal districts, one in Coeur d’Alene and four in Post Falls, close between 2020 and 2023.

Austin told commissioners based on that anticipated sum, the county could finance $32 million for the new facility.

But county finance director Dena Darrow and treasurer Steve Matheson objected to Austin’s numbers, saying there were far too many variables to offer a dependable estimate on increment funds.

Those unknowns include taxing levy rates, the economy, municipal budgets, and property valuations.

“If you’re projecting out three, four years, five years in the future, we have no idea what that money’s going to be and I believe the auditor feels very uncomfortable throwing numbers out when we don’t know what those numbers are going to be,” Darrow said.

“Based on values going up or levy rates dropping, the amount due from urban renewal districts could be less,” she said.

Matheson also said he believes Austin’s figures are too high.

For Coeur d’Alene’s Lake District alone, for example, Austin estimated the county could expect $1.7 million. Matheson said it is probably closer to $1.3 million.

When factoring in fewer dollars coming from the Post Falls urban renewal districts, Matheson said Austin’s figures might be off by a half-million or more.

“The discrepancy I see is Mr. Austin is calculating what cash flows might be at the closure of the (urban renewal) districts based on their cash flows now,” Matheson said.

Commissioner Chris Fillios said what’s clear is that the county will receive urban renewal funding that could be used to pay for the new county facility.

“It’s not a question of whether we’re going to collect the increment, it’s a question of how much increment are we going to get?” he said. “We’re looking at the increment coming to us, whatever that figure is, and all of a sudden we have all these hyper-concerns.”

Fillios issued a warning for the officials involved in the facility financing deliberations: “I am not going to allow this process to get politicized. Let’s get that straight right here.”