COEUR d’ALENE — The Kootenai County Sheriff’s Office outlined a proposed budget for fiscal year 2026 in a Tuesday meeting with county commissioners.

The agency’s proposed budget is $54 million, a figure that includes about $4.5 million in new funding requests. 

Kootenai County commissioners will weigh the requests as part of the budgeting process. The adopted budget for fiscal year 2025 included $48 million for the sheriff’s office. 

Personnel requests include $507,000 for four new patrol deputies, $171,000 for a lieutenant in the city of Hayden, $242,000 for new detectives, $132,000 for a new recruiting sergeant and $89,000 for a communications coordinator. 

The sheriff’s office also requested an interpreter stipend of $1 per hour for 10 bilingual deputies who use their Russian and Spanish language skills in the course of their duties. The stipend would have an annual cost of about $25,000. 

The cost of a contract with Motorola for automatic license plate reader software to be used in 48 sheriff’s office patrol vehicles will increase slightly next year, from about $23,000 to about $24,000. 

Commissioner Bruce Mattare inquired about whether the sheriff’s office has data illustrating the impact of the license plate readers since commissioners approved their use last December. 

“One of the big contingencies for the board to agree to that is to have data that shows that it’s actually making a difference in the community,” he said. 

“We caught a murder suspect on this data just a couple of weeks ago,” Kootenai County Sheriff Bob Norris said. 

“OK, well, that’s a story,” Mattare replied. 

Norris said his office will have a useful amount of data, about six months’ worth, by this fall. 

The proposed budget for the jail increased about $1.6 million over last year. 

The increase stems mostly from rising medical costs. The jail’s contract for medical services will go up by about $1.3 million, while the cost of medication has increased about $200,000, according to the sheriff’s office. 

Contracted food services for the jail will also rise 5% next year.