The Post Falls City Council on Tuesday unanimously approved a budget that includes a 4% property tax increase and a one-year 3% increase of $549,821 from the city’s existing foregone property tax balance. 

The one-year only funding will be used exclusively toward an expansion project for the Post Falls Police Department. 

For a home assessed at $650,000, the increase will be about $2.14 a month for the first year and $.97 a month thereafter.  

Councilman Nathan Ziegler said the “biggest driver” of the increase was inflation. He also pointed to Post Falls’ participation in the distribution of ARPA funds after the COVID-19 pandemic and the city’s use of outside sources of funding instead of adjusting the levying rate as decisions that have come back to haunt the city. 

“It’s kind of ironic to me that we participated in the very thing that caused the inflation, which stopped us from keeping up with inflation with our levy rate,” Ziegler said.   

Another one of the big drivers of the city’s financial state is growth. According to Warren Wilson, deputy city administrator, the city had “largely” relied on growth revenue to pay for services before the Legislature passed House Bill 389 in 2021. 

“That’s really just not feasible anymore,” said Wilson. 

HB 389 reduced the taxable value of new construction to 90% of market value, among other actions. 

"While the adopted budget includes an increase in the property tax-based budget, the city continues to take a conservative approach to budgeting," a press release said. "Since 2009, the city has levied only a 7% cumulative increase in ongoing new property tax revenues. Inflation has increased approximately 47% since 2017, while the City has continued to experience increased demand for services associated with regional growth."

The release said the city is also facing reduced state revenue sharing in FY 2027. Post Falls anticipates receiving about $714,000 less in state revenue sharing than the previous year, primarily due to reductions in designated transportation funding and changes to liquor sales tax distributions.

Randall Hildebrand was the only resident to give testimony at the meeting and opposed the budget. Hildebrand said he wished the city would use its cash and investments, facilities reserve, impact fees and foregone balance to pay for its expenditures, rather than increasing taxes.

He said the county also wanted to raise taxes.

“You don’t get one small ask, you get a stack of them, on the same bill, from governments that never compare notes on what you owe total,” Hildebrand said.

Hildebrand pointed out Post Falls’ use of two city administrators, rather than one like the vast majority of Idaho cities. Hildebrand said both of the positions should be eliminated and the council, mayor and department heads were “more than enough to run this city.” 

“We do not need an unelected administrator layered on top, let alone two,” he said. “That’s not service, that’s overhead.”    

Along with the increase in taxes, Mayor Randy Westlund said there would be cuts as well.  

“I want everyone to know that we do have a plan, that we are working on this and there are going to be some significant structural changes and probably service cuts that won’t be popular,” Westlund said. 

Westlund published his “Plan to Save Local Government” to the city website Monday, which details many of the city's strategies for cutting costs moving forward. 

With aspects of the plan already in motion, it establishes a path to offload city properties, establish priority-based budgeting and determine how and why service cuts will be made across departments among other strategies. 

Westlund wants residents to join in on the conversation.

“I want to hear from everyone,” he said.