SANDPOINT — The Sandpoint City Council voted to move $45,000 away from new welcome signs and put the money toward a government efficiency study at Wednesday’s meeting.

The council voted 4-2 with councilors Deb Ruehle and Pam Duquette dissenting and councilors Justin Dick, Rick Howarth, Kyle Schreiber and Joel Aispuro agreeing. The changes made at Wednesday’s meeting will not be finalized until the council adopts the budget at its Aug. 20 meeting.   

The motion to move the money was made by Howarth, who said that he’d like to see the city’s budget examined to find any avenues of inefficient spending. 

"When I say that word efficiency, what operations should be self-performed that we do internally, what should be contracted,” Howarth said. “What I’m advocating for is the efficiency study looking at the IT infrastructure, looking at duplicate vehicles, duplicate equipment, holistically.”  

Mayor Jeremey Grimm said that idea for new welcome signs came from a meeting he had with Duquette and Howarth. Duquette said she feels that signage is important and that small elements like those are the little details that make Sandpoint stand out.  

“Another study, I don’t know it just seems like we spend a lot of money on studies, and do they go anywhere? I’m not sure,” Duquette said. “The signs are not that expensive, and they make a community more welcoming, more special.” 

Ruehle said she opposed the motion due to the lack of information presented about the potential study. 

“I feel like we are throwing spaghetti on the wall in a way, because I don’t have any details about what we are going to do with that,” Ruehle said. “That’s not to say that we don’t need to do that, there’s just nothing there to make my decision on.” 

Schreiber said that while he didn’t know of any specific efficiency gains to be had, he was in favor of finding ways to better spend tax dollars. Dick agreed with Schreiber and said that it’s possible that the money saved in the study might buy the city a better sign. 

"We are eventually going to fix from Church down to First and Superior anyway, where we have an opportunity to do a marvelous ‘Welcome to Sandpoint’ sign,” Dick said.  

Grimm said that the signs would have been placed by Dover and on U.S. 2 coming from Ponderay and looked like the blue sign that can be seen when entering Sandpoint from the Long Bridge. 

A public hearing on the budget is scheduled for Aug. 20, where the public can voice their opinions before the budget is fully adopted. That meeting will be held at City Hall and start at 5:30 p.m.