Kootenai County Clerk Jennifer Lock reviewed the clerk's FY26 budget with the Board of County Commissioners on May 30, describing responsibilities across multiple divisions and laying out modest staffing and budget changes for the clerk's office, recorder, county assistance and district court.

Lock described the clerk's office as a "Swiss army knife" for county functions, listing duties that include payroll and accounts payable, budget preparation, minutes for the board, recording titles and marriage licenses, passport processing and processing district court financial distributions. She said the office now totals roughly 104 employees across auditor, district court and other divisions and that the county has worked to grow operating reserves; "we have moved from ... doing 2 months reserve of operating budget for fund balance, and now we've gone to 3 months reserve," Lock said.

County assistance: Lock said the county assistance unit now focuses primarily on burial and cremation services and reduced from two full-time positions to one in 2025. She proposed trimming the county assistance operating budget to $26,000 for FY26 based on 2024 actuals and noted the county has a qualifying process for cremation assistance and limited utility/housing payments.

Recorder: Melinda, recording manager, joined Lock for a discussion of recorder revenues and trends. Lock and staff showed multi-year recording-fee and title-recording trends that have flattened since 2020; the county temporarily froze one recording specialist position in 2025 because of lower recording volume. The recorder budget includes a one-time request for VeriDesk equipment (staff said they would check with Building and Grounds for available units to try to reduce the request). Lock said the recorder office budgeted a modest revenue uptick for FY26 but is not yet seeing a sustained return to earlier high-volume years.

District court: Callie, district court manager, briefed the board on a personnel request tied to a new resident district judge that the governor approved and that could take the bench as early as July 1. The court asked for a judicial assistant (secretarial staff) to be assigned to the new judge, a request the county described as historically required when a resident judge is seated. Callie also asked to reallocate and convert two clerk positions (moving some scanning-tech resources into civil clerk positions) to meet online-filing processing timelines and meet standards for processing new electronic-file envelopes within three business days.

Other items: Lock highlighted liquor-apportionment revenue the county receives from the state's liquor division that offsets property tax; she said the county received $462,782 in the most recent payment and budgeted $417,816 for FY26 based on state trends. Lock also asked the board to allow a small district court building/grounds project (about $6,000) to be charged against a restricted district-court fund balance rather than levied.

Ending: Commissioners asked clarifying questions about trends and timing. Several small operational adjustments were discussed but no formal board votes were recorded during the meeting.