Kootenai County commissioners set direction for FY2026 budget development

Kootenai County commissioners on March 6 directed staff on a set of procedures to guide development of the fiscal year 2026 budget, including continuing anniversary-based step increases for employees, routing personnel requests through Human Resources and following Policy 600 for job reclassification and grading.

The guidance matters because it sets the administrative rules departments must follow while preparing budget requests that will determine staffing, operating and capital spending — and it frames the timing and information the auditor will use to present revenue and deficit scenarios, including a 0% tax-increase baseline and options up to a 3% increase.

Finance Director Brandy Falcon opened the meeting by asking for direction on a list of personnel, operating and capital budget rules. "So today I just, wanna go through some key, items to get your direction on for the development of the FY '20 '6 budget," Falcon said. Commissioners present were Eberline, Duncan and Metari.

On personnel, the board confirmed the approach used in recent years: if the board funds anniversary-step increases, steps will be applied on each employee's anniversary date rather than by submitting individual step requests. Departments must route personnel requests through Human Resources before those requests are added to budgets; exceptions identified included overtime, on-call pay, bonuses, service awards and requests to add a position that already exists and does not require grading.

Sylvia Pratt, speaking for HR, described the role HR will play in grading and reclassification. Pratt said the current practice is for departments to present reclassification or new-position requests at HR meetings before HR evaluates and proposes a grade. The board directed staff to follow Policy 600 for the job-evaluation and reclassification process and allowed HR to get direction from the board during those meetings.

Falcon said HR set a deadline of April 21 for departments to submit personnel requests to allow time for HR to evaluate and assign grades prior to inclusion in budget materials. Commissioners and staff also scheduled multiple HR meetings in March and April as part of that process (March 20, April 3 and April 17 were discussed as dates for presentations to the board).

Staff raised the idea of opening the budget with bonus line items at $0 and requiring departments to submit personnel requests for discretionary bonuses during the budget process. The sheriff's office was noted to have $100,000 budgeted for sign-on bonuses. Pratt said, "The budget has been going into the Sheriff's Office and they handle the agreements that are signed so they've been really handling the process." The transcript records discussion but does not record a clear, final board decision on whether department bonus lines generally should open at $0; Falcon said she would proceed with the other directions recorded.

On elected-official wages and the county wage study, the board confirmed it engaged Thompson Consulting to perform a wage-market study using the same market as the prior study. Falcon said the consultant will provide raw FY2025 market data; the auditor's office will present that data and, separately, aging scenarios to approximate FY2026 wages for comparison to market. Commissioners asked for the un-aged wage-study data and for aging scenarios to be shown as separate options so the board can consider COLA (cost-of-living adjustment) and other adjustments after reviewing the study.

Falcon said the auditor will present budget kickoff materials on June 2 and will include scenarios showing the county's budget position at a 0% property-tax increase and incremental scenarios up to a 3% tax increase so the board can see how different tax assumptions affect any deficit.

For operating budgets, commissioners directed departments to submit a two-year trend plus current year-to-date figures for each line item; Falcon said the county financial system readily provides two years and year-to-date data. New program requests must either save personnel or operating costs or be justified to the board. Departments seeking new contracts or noncapital purchases were instructed to include supporting quotes: capital requests should include three quotes (or an explanation when three are not available), and noncapital purchases over $500 should include at least one quote. Falcon said procurement rules and departmental attorneys will handle procurement compliance after a budget is adopted.

On capital requests, commissioners asked departments to provide estimated useful life for assets, three quotes for capital goods and construction projects with a breakdown of hard and soft costs, and a suggested funding source for each project. Falcon reminded the board that grant-funded capital is handled separately as budget amendments when grants are awarded during the year. The board also indicated vehicle requests should include a fleet-management form for review.

Falcon said the auditor's office will analyze fee-based revenues (noting DMV and community development), sheriff patrol-contract revenues and state-shared revenues based on guidance from state agencies; the county treasurer will provide the budgeted estimate for interest revenue.

Next steps recorded were HR evaluation of personnel requests by the April 21 deadline, presentation of wage-study data and COLA scenarios to the board, a budget kickoff on June 2 and auditor-prepared budget scenarios starting at a 0% tax increase. Several procedural items and deadlines were set; where the transcript did not record an explicit final vote, staff were directed to proceed with the processes described above.

The meeting concluded with public comment called and none offered, and the special meeting was adjourned.