Committee member says 3% tax increase still leaves $5.4 million short; urges targeted cuts to protect public safety

A committee member said at a Kootenai County budget discussion that even with a 3% property-tax increase, the county would remain about $5.4 million "in the red," and urged leaders to identify focused cuts to avoid using fund balance.

The member said the county must "figure out where the cut is going to really hurt us and where the cut is something that we can manage to this year and get by without having to dig in the fund balance again." The comment framed the conversation around prioritizing spending to preserve public safety funding.

Noting recent pressures on the 2026 budget, the committee member compared two concrete items: "the amount of money that we spent to to make whole that 2026 budget on the overtime is the amount of money that our finance director is asking for for new software." That comparison was presented as an example of choices the county could make about reallocating limited resources.

The speaker warned that if the county does not "manage all this on the finance side and we don't manage on the assessor side and we don't manage on the treasurer side and give them the money they need to do their job, there won't be any money for the public safety side." The remark emphasized a need to balance departmental needs to avoid eroding emergency services budgets.

The committee member argued the numbers should be used to "triage where the axes can fall," urging a data-driven prioritization rather than across-the-board cuts. They clarified that the remarks were not intended as personal criticism but as a request for clearer information about the budget drivers behind the shortfall.

No formal motions, votes, or decisions were recorded in the transcript excerpt. The discussion as captured focused on identifying where cuts would have the least operational impact and on understanding the specific budget drivers that produced the projected shortfall.