COEUR d’ALENE — The Coeur d’Alene City Council unanimously approved a $109M million budget for the 2021-22 fiscal year on Tuesday night.

The council could have taken a 3% increase in property taxes, $700,738, but did not. That means that in seven of the past 10 years, the city has declined to take the allowed tax hike.

“I think you should be very proud of the stewardship that you have shown,” City Administrator Troy Tymesen said during the meeting at City Hall. “There are a lot of zeros up there. Not every community can show zero percent property tax increases over this number of years."

Mayor Steve Widmyer was happy with the budget.

“I’m very proud of the budgets we’ve put forth over the last eight years,” he said.

The city has a foregone tax balance of about $7 million, one of the highest in the state. Foregone is made up of anything less than the full 3 percent a taxing entity can increase annual property taxes. It is a taxing authority, Tymesen said, not a bank account.

The council also voted 5-1 to reserve the right to recover the foregone increase it passed on taking, with Councilman Dan Gookin voting no.

"My opinion is, foregone is the sword of Damocles over every single taxpayer here who doesn’t realize they have this obligation that we can go after them," he said. "I don’t think we ever will. But I think if the Legislature ever wanted to clean up, again, something about on property taxes, they could probably put a lid on this."

Councilwoman Christie Wood disagreed.

“Because we are using so much of our fund balance for this year’s budget I think it's just prudent that we reserve the right to foregone in case there were ever any kind of emergency,” she said.

The city will use $1.2 million of its general fund surplus to balance the budget, which has projected expenses of $46.4 million and projected revenues of $45 million.

The rest of the $109 million spending plan goes to nondiscretionary items such as enterprise funds and special revenue expenditures.

The general fund is projected to have $9.8 million Sept. 30, and $8.5 million Sept. 30, 2022.

“The good news is, you have 18 percent of your annual expenses in cash ready for a rainy day,” Tymesen said.

The city is projecting a $2.4 million increase in state funding.

“That’s why we’re proposing a zero percent property tax increase for our constituents,” Tymesen said.

“The state is doing well, the city is doing well and we did everything we could to keep property taxes down,” he added.

Tymesen pointed out a $3.1 million general fund increase is “very sizable.” It is due to merit increases, cost of living adjustments, 1% wage increase, health insurance, additional staff, services and supplies and capital outlay.

New positions totaling about $750,000 proposed in the budget include a police sergeant, two police officers, a code enforcement officer, grant-funded police officer, three firefighters and an assistant street director.

Capital purchases of $539,840 include police vehicles, station flooring, used surplus equipment, police building chiller unit and city owner building repairs.

Despite the positive budget news, Widmyer said legislators are meddling in local issues and affecting city budgets.

He has heard that the Legislature may move to restrict fund balances of municipalities and counties.

“I think our citizens and our voters should decide our finances and what our level of property taxes are,” he said. “I don’t think it should be dictated to us from legislators from Boise."

He said that's something local officials should be prepared to be vocal about in January when the legislative session begins.

“We can take care of our business here in Coeur d’Alene the way our citizens want," Widmyer said.