Kootenai County commissioners approve $1.4 million increase to jail overtime budget
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Summary
After hours of discussion about chronic understaffing, training lags and budgeting methodology, commissioners voted unanimously on March 5 to raise the jail overtime budget by $1.4 million while staff prepare a position-by-position breakdown for FY27 planning.
Kootenai County commissioners voted March 5 to increase the jail overtime budget by $1,400,000 after the sheriff's office told the board it had underbudgeted overtime for the current fiscal year.
Under Sheriff Brett Nelson presented the request, saying the office had an ‘‘oversight in the last budget year’’ and needed transfers within county funds to supplement overtime for the remainder of the year. County finance staff provided the board with an unloaded figure of $1,589,327 and an estimated loaded total of about $1,957,005.74 when retirement and taxes are included. Brandy, the county finance director, delivered the loaded estimate to the board.
Why it matters: Commissioners emphasized that the overtime gap is longstanding and urged a more precise method for projecting overtime costs. Several speakers told the board that vacancies, training delays and court-ordered transports have driven overtime expenses for multiple years, and that relying on one-time revenue or fund balance is not sustainable.
Sheriff’s staff explained their projection method: they broke hours by floor and tower staffing, court-ordered transports and specialized units, then trended current overtime through the fiscal year. Captain (as recorded in the transcript) said the office used jail sergeant pay as a midrange baseline to estimate a loaded hourly rate and that projected overtime hours totaled about 20,650. The captain also warned that many newly hired deputies remain in academy or extended training and therefore do not immediately reduce overtime.
Commissioners pressed for greater precision. The finance director and commissioners asked staff to break the 20,650 hours down by position (deputies, sergeants, custody techs) and compute an average loaded hourly rate per classification so FY27 planning would be based on itemized figures rather than an aggregate estimate. The board also discussed the practice of budgeting salary savings from long-term vacancies and the risk of using fund balance year after year.
After debate about interim funding levels, one commissioner moved to increase the jail overtime budget to $1,400,000; the motion was seconded and passed with recorded "Aye" votes from Commissioner Eberlein, Commissioner Duncan and Chair Metairie. The board instructed staff to return with the position-level analysis during FY27 budget planning.
A transcript inconsistency: the meeting record contains differing name spellings for the captain who spoke (the transcript elsewhere references "captain Jeremy Heil" while the speaker identifying the figures introduced himself as "Kevin Jeremy Hall"). The county officials and the board acknowledged names and titles during discussion; this article uses the spellings and identifications as they appear in the transcript.
What happens next: Finance and sheriff’s staff will complete a more detailed hour-by-position breakdown and a loaded-rate calculation to inform FY27 budget decisions. Commissioners said they want a methodology and a reasonable cap to limit open-ended reliance on fund balance.