County wraps up bills for FY 2022

SANDPOINT — First order of business: pay the bills.

Almost $170,000 in bills for the county from Fiscal Year 2022 were approved for payment unanimously at the Bonner County commissioners’ meeting Nov. 1.

County Clerk Mike Rosedale said these expenses were the “tail end of last year’s budget.”

Rosedale also brought the second bundle of bills for fiscal year 2023. The amount for the county was almost $1.2 million and the amount for EMS was just shy of $65,000. All of Rosedale’s items passed with all three commissioners in favor.

A total of roughly $550,000 in unanticipated revenue was brought in by the Solid Waste Department via collection and gate fees, department director Bob Howard said. Howard asked that the commissioners direct the clerk to open the budget and add in the revenue. All were in favor.

Solid Waste Director Bob Howard also brought a proposal for a revised engineering plan for site improvements. On Oct. 4, the department solicited bids for the improvements, which came in roughly double of the county’s estimate..

Howard said Solid Waste officials are working with engineers from Great West to reduce the scope of the project so the county can put it out for new bids this winter. The cost of the project revision will be funded by a USDA loan approved in August. 2021. The contract was $147,000 and was approved unanimously.

Road and Bridge Director Jason Topp presented a grader lease purchase agreement with Columbia Bank for a John Deere Model 6x6 grader for over $330,000. Topp also asked the commissioners to renew two snow plowing contracts. We Can Hoe has been plowing the Hope Peninsula and John Pipkin has been plowing Glengary Road. Their hourly rate has gone from $66 to $70 an hour. Both requests passed unanimously.

Noxious Weeds Manager Chase Youngdahl asked for authorization to destroy records that had exceeded their required retention. This included cost-share application records five years or older and herbicide application records three years or older, stored for the period mandated by Idaho Code. The item was approved unanimously.

HR’s Cindy Binkerd asked to recruit for Justice Services. Binkerd said they need a detention/community service officer, a detention manager, and an assistant director. Binkerd also brought a third party administrative agreement with PacificSource to administer employee health benefits for the county. Both items passed with all in favor.

Swati Rastogi of the Planning Department brought an intergovernmental agreement between Bonner County and the Spirit Lake Fire Protection District to begin developing impact fees.

After a question on how this could impact property taxes, Commission Chair Dan McDonald responded that this is a fee from a separate taxing district. The fee, Commissioner Jeff Connolly said, would only apply for someone who builds another structure. The agreement was passed unanimously.

Risk Management’s Christian Jostlein brought a stop loss insurance policy with Travelers Insurance for approval. The policy, which covers $1.5 million, would be retroactive to Oct. 1, 2022 and would last until Sept. 30, 2023. The policy costs $20,000, which Jostlein said was about a third of the cost in the past.

“I expected the price to be closer to $100,000,” Jostlein said.

Commission staffer Jessi Reinbold was contacted by Sarah Garcia, district administrator for the Bonner County Soil and Water Conservation District, who asked for a letter from the commissioners supporting a new pay scale for aquatic craft inspectors.

Garcia said that the Idaho State Department of Agriculture limits the wage for these state employees at $15 an hour – which Garcia said was not competitive enough for the area. Reluctance to raise the wage has made staffing the stations difficult each boating season, Garcia said.

The letter would encourage the ISDA to treat the local inspection program as a “pass through” program, allowing the BCSWCD to set the wage as they see fit. If the ISDA takes over operations, Garcia warned, the inspection sites may be shuttered, which has happened to other districts.

Garcia told the commissioners that, even though the ISDA has said they have the funding to do so, they refused because the pay rate would not be the same for the rest of the state. Garcia requested last year to raise the wage to $18 for their inspectors, which is the occupational standard, as well as an unspecified increase for the manager of the sites in Bonner County.

Garcia said ISDA has said the agency has said they could not run the inspection sites themselves. About one of every four watercraft inspections in Idaho takes place in Bonner County.

“Seems like a small price to pay to keep zebra mussels out of our waterways,” McDonald said.

The motion passed unanimously.

The next Bonner County commissioners meeting will be held on Tuesday, Nov. 8 at the Bonner County Administration Building located at 1500 U.S. 2 in Sandpoint.