COEUR d’ALENE — Kootenai County commissioners agreed Thursday to publish a $131 million budget for fiscal year 2025, about $10 million lower than the previous year’s budget, and signaled they intend to take a tax increase just shy of 2%. 

Commissioners Leslie Duncan and Bruce Mattare voted in favor of publishing the budget with a 2% tax increase, though the final number is expected to be slightly lower. 

“If there’s a way we could knock off a couple bucks and get it below 2%, I think that would be better for us,” Mattare said. 

Commissioner Bill Brooks voted against publishing the proposed budget, citing concerns that county employees won’t receive a sufficient cost of living adjustment. 

County HR staff has recommended an increase of 3.5%, which Brooks supports, while Mattare and Duncan favor a 2.5% increase. A 2.5% increase amounts to about $1.7 million. 

“My only heartburn on the budget so far is I think we need a 3% and I want to get a 3.5% (cost of living adjustment),” Brooks said Thursday. 

Personnel costs increased by about $331,000, though the county trimmed about $1.9 million by cutting funding in half for positions that have gone unfilled for more than 100 days. 

Employees will also receive a step increase on their anniversary date, amounting to a $709,000 increase across all employees. 

The proposed tax increase, likely to be around 1.9%, is expected to leave Kootenai County with a surplus of about $45,000. The total levy amount is about $61 million. 

Mattare said he’d like future budgets to include clear plans for how the county will save for capital projects, rather than treating surplus funds as a cushion for mid-year financial requests from county departments. 

“What we’re going to have in salary that’s not spent will go back into the fund balance,” he said. “It’s been, in my opinion, kind of a lazy way to do our budgets because it allows for a lot of slop for a slush fund and all these mid-year changes, and I’d like for us to get away from mid-year changes.” 

The community will have the opportunity to weigh in on the budget at a public meeting scheduled for 6 p.m. Aug. 28 at the Kootenai County Administration Building.

    Brooks