Several Jefferson County elected officials and department heads pressed commissioners for corrected budget files and clearer timelines during the meeting, saying errors in draft documents threatened to cause last-minute changes before the required publication deadline.

Assessor and revaluation staffer Jessica (last name not specified in the record) said she repeatedly asked the treasurer’s office for full budget exports and instead received scanned TIFFs of single pages; she told commissioners that multiple line items in the assessor and revaluation budgets did not reflect changes discussed at an earlier board session. “Everything that I've highlighted in red, those are all things that need to be corrected prior to publishing,” Jessica said.

Why it matters: Idaho statutes require counties to publish a budget notice at least two weeks before the public hearing; staff said the county needs to deliver corrected files to departments immediately so elected officials and employees can verify wage and line-item changes before publication.

Details from the meeting: Commissioners and staff discussed salary-step corrections, missing line items for software conversion (requested $50,000), and errors on benefit and wage lines. New-construction valuation figures were reported to be about $79 million with urban renewal value returning roughly $57 million — data that affects levy limits and revenue assumptions. County staff also discussed a proposed $500,000 allocation and $250,000 anticipated state contribution for a planned stoplight project tied to impact fees.

Timeline and next steps: County staff told commissioners they will work to produce corrected budget files quickly; staff said they expect to have solid numbers for departments to review so a publication to the legal paper can be made by Friday, enabling the two-week notice before the budget hearing scheduled for the last Monday in August (statutory deadline: first Tuesday in September). Commissioners asked departments to return any final corrections immediately and offered to assist with verification.