Bonner County budget hearings on Monday

SANDPOINT — Bonner County is expected to increase property taxes by about 3 1/2 percent, according to the county commission.

Board Chairman Cary Kelly said he and fellow commissioners hoped not to take the full 3 percent allowed by law, but said there was no choice in order to keep wages competitive, grapple with unfunded state and federal mandates and to cover other unavoidable expenses.

“For us to take the full 3 percent, that was agonizing because we didn’t want to do it,” said Kelly.

Kelly said the 3 percent amounts to about $350,000. Taxes on new construction will add another $106,000.

Although the county is only raising property taxes it collects by 3 percent, some landowners’ could see higher increases, depending on what taxing districts other than the county do with their respective budgets.

The board, however, opted not to utilize about $1.1 million in additional taxing authority that was not used in previous years.

Commissioners are holding public hearings Monday on the county’s $55.5 million budget. The hearings are at 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. at the Bonner County Administration Building.

“If you look at the increases, most of it went for wages and benefits,” said Kelly, referring to an ongoing effort to ensure employees are at the correct pay grade for their job and comparable to similar jobs across different departments.

As a result, some employees will receive wage hikes of varying degrees, while others won’t.

“It wasn’t across the board,” said Kelly, adding that elected officials aren’t getting any bumps in pay either.

Kelly said the county did not have the funding in the coming fiscal year’s budget to implement any raises that were based on a combination of longevity and performance.

Health care costs, meanwhile, rose by about 23 percent, according to Kelly.

“We did increase the deductible and we did increase the premiums a little, but the coverage is the same,” Kelly said.

Kelly said the cuts could have been significantly more drastic, such as limiting coverage only to employees and not their spouses or jettisoning dental or vision coverage.

“The county still pays the majority of the health care costs,” he said. “That’s the bottom line.”