County adopts $60 million budget
SANDPOINT — Bonner County commissioners adopted a $60 million budget on Thursday with some last-minute adjustments to solidify plans to relocate the Department of Motor Vehicles and cover infrastructure needs at the fairgrounds.
The portion of the general budget fueled by property taxes grew by about $200,000, but commissioners resolved to use taxes from new construction to offset the increase.
“I’m not thrilled by with the budget. I would have rather seen us reduce the budget, but we came pretty darn close,” said Commission Chairman Cornel Rasor.
The board did not take the 3-percent tax increase allowed by law for the general budget, but did implement such an increase for the Ambulance District, which sustains the county’s EMS service.
The budgets were adopted along with a resolution to set aside $52,000 in funding for retrofitting a space at the Bonner Mall in Ponderay so it can be used by the county’s DMV.
The DMV is expected to move this fall from its current location near First and Pine to Ponderay. The Public Defender’s Office would vacate its rental office in Sandpoint and slide into the former bank building currently used by DMV.
The county also identified $20,000 to replace up to two heaters at the fairgrounds, one of which has failed another which appears to be heading that direction.
Commissioners conducted two rounds of brief and lightly-attended public hearings on Wednesday. The EMS budget attracted sideways glances at both proceedings.
Gary Robertson questioned why the per-person cost for EMS is about $90 in Bonner County, but substantially less than in other Idaho counties.
“Why?” Robertson asked.
Another resident, Roland Rose, noted that the average cost in Idaho is about $12.
“Our system is not that much better than anywhere else in Idaho,” said Rose, a Sagle Fire District commissioner.
After the hearing, Bonner EMS Chief Rob Wakeley said it’s difficult to find a county that aptly compares to Bonner in terms of size, population and level of EMS service. He said Canyon County comes the closest, but there are still stark differences.
Bonner County’s EMS budget is about $3.6 million, compared to the $9.5 million budget in Canyon. Bonner has a population of about 40,000, while Canyon has more than 188,000. Bonner County covers 1,920 square miles, while Canyon covers just 603 miles.
“A 40,877 population spread over 1,920 miles is a lot more challenging than serving 188,923 people contained in 603 miles,” Wakeley said in an email after the hearing.
County commissioners intended to implement zero-based budgeting, but had to settle for a modified version due to tight time constraints.
“We’re a lot closer this year than we were last year, but we’re not down to zero-based yet,” said Commissioner Mike Nielsen.
Rasor has long advocated for such a budgeting approach, but said the concept only recently gained traction.
“Future boards will have the benefit of having this starting point for zero-based budgeting and I think we did a much better job at getting a real picture of the budget,” said Rasor.
Rasor added that the adopted budgets are the most accurate they’ve ever been and said the budgeting process revealed a number of errors and software hiccups, but they didn’t involve substantial sums of money.
A $1 discrepancy was found in one spot, while a $35 difference was found in a $700,000 budget.
“It’s just one of those things that needed to be fixed,” he said.