COEUR d’ALENE — Kootenai County commissioners agreed this week to publish a $147 million budget for fiscal year 2027 that includes a 3% increase in property taxes, an increase of about $3 million over the previous year.

A public hearing on the FY2027 budget is set for 6 p.m. Aug. 26 at the Kootenai County Public Administration Building. 

Commissioner Bruce Mattare said the board was “almost compelled” to take the maximum allowable 3% increase due to “significant expenses” that hit the county in the past year. 

“The first one is health insurance,” he said during Tuesday’s budget meeting. “We’re seeing an increase, even with all the adjustments we’ve made, of $1.8 million.” 

The county’s operating expenses total about $36 million, while capital requests from different departments total about $9 million. 

Personnel costs make up the bulk of the county’s budget, about $96 million. Mattare said baseline increases to the personnel budget total $2 million, including roughly $704,000 earmarked for step increases on employee anniversaries, which commissioners approved as part of the FY2026 budget. 

Another $704,000 in step increases will go into effect in FY2027. 

Commissioners will have to take a hard look at step increases for employees next year, Mattare said. 

“Then, of course, we got hit with the jail overtime,” Mattare said. 

When the Kootenai County Sheriff’s Office was poised to outspend its overtime budget for FY2026, mainly due to overtime worked at the jail, commissioners injected about $3.5 million into the current year budget, nearly quadrupling the original $925,000 overtime budget. 

KCSO has budgeted $2 million for overtime in FY2027, a $1.3 million increase over the previous year. 

Even with a 3% property tax increase, the county faced a budget deficit of about $154,000. To balance the budget this week, commissioners agreed to eliminate a few line items totaling about $41,000 and to change the new vehicles they would approve for KCSO. 

The sheriff’s office had requested eight Chevrolet Tahoes at a cost of about $111,000 each, for a total cost of about $892,000. Last year, the agency budgeted for Ford Explorers priced at about $94,000 each. 

Commissioners agreed this week to approve the purchase of Explorers rather than Tahoes at a projected savings of about $140,000. 

“We never really had a good illustrative case made for these,” Mattare said, adding that he’d like to see KCSO conduct a cost analysis for how different vehicles might impact overhead costs like fuel and maintenance. 

Mattare said the 3% property tax increase is needed for county government to function. 

“There is no way we could continue government operations this way without significant slashing of expenditures, and that would be staffing, unless we take the 3%,” he said. “That is what the board was forced into this year.” 

He said he hopes the county’s elected officials will work together in the coming year to mitigate future costs. 

“If we don’t make those changes, we’ll be forced to in a way that will have huge adverse impact on everybody,” he said.