A County Budget Hearing Breakdown!

It’s all in the title, folks! In this video we go through Latah County’s recent hearing for their new budget. The hearing helped explain some features we highlighted last week, as well as mention some factors that weren’t able to cover before. Let us know what you think of their plans! 

How’s it going y’all. Aiden Anderson here with the Moscow Minutes. It is my privilege to announce that the county commissioners have officially approved and set the budget for FY2025!

In the last video, we dove into the details of the budget as they were presented on the county website. Today, we’ll be going through the actual budget hearing to see what the county had to say about it.

The county’s budget presentation took place via a powerpoint hosted at the courthouse in the commissioner’s usual meeting room. The county provided packets for the in-person attendees that included full-color slides of their budget presentation. 

County Commissioner Tom Lamar began by reading aloud the public notice for the budget hearing, and then by opening the public hearing itself. County Clerk Julie Fry gave the budget presentation, alongside the county financial officer.

The presentation didn’t actually start with the proposed budget for FY 2025, but went back in time to cover the past 10 years of county financial history, beginning with the history of the county’s revenues. As you can see on this graph, property taxes have been steadily increasing over the years. County service revenues, as well as revenues for licensing and permitting have remained more or less steady. Intergovernmental revenues are those funds which the county receives from the state; they’ve been increasing over the years, and were bumped up significantly coming out of the COVID period, but have been slowly decreasing since FY2023. Lastly, we see that the grants category has spiked pretty significantly going into FY2025. This is because of the county’s acceptance of a grant for the broadband project, which we’ll get into later.

The county’s track over the past 10 years has some interesting implications for property taxes. In this case, the property market value over the past 10 years has more than doubled, while the property tax cost per $100,000 of property value has gone down by almost 50%. This isn’t to say that property taxes in general have gone down at all. Rather, it shows that the amount being collected is being evaluated quite differently than a decade ago.

Moving on to the county’s fund balances. This graph shows how much money the county has held in their specific funds over the past 10 years. Julie Fry commented that it is thought to be a wise financial practice to have at least 3 months worth of funds in reserve at the end of the year in order to keep the county running. Those dotted lines on the graph indicate the amount the county has needed each year to be at that level for different funds. 

As with many other municipalities, COVID shifted Latah County fund balances dramatically upward due to the influx of government dollars. The recent influx of people to the state of Idaho has also resulted in recent increases. The sharp dip seen in 2023 in both the justice and general fund has to do with declining county revenues and unexpected expenses. Looking forward, Julie Fry sees the county looking to be doing more conservative budgeting, and improving its cash reserve policies.

Now, what about that little green line on the bottom? That represents the indigent fund, and through the years, it’s remained fairly steady. However, the state is taking over covering those expenses, and so going forward the fund balance for that particular county account will be cleared, and the money will be transferred to the general fund.

Next up, the county’s expense history. As you can see, all expenses have generally increased over time, which Fry said is due primarily to inflation. The spike in capital expenses is related to a number of expenses culminating at a single point, including the purchase of the county’s new DMV building, server and camera upgrades, a repeater tower, sheriff radio projects, and extraordinary public defense costs, which almost certainly relates to the upcoming trial of Brian Kohberger.

Fry noted briefly that the county has increased its total number of employees over the years to account for expanding needs across the county. However, the overall salary spending per employee has not increased in quite the same way due to a 32% inflation increase over the past decade. She also noted that local housing costs have spiked dramatically over the years, which combined with the inflation data has informed some of the decisions being made for the budget going into this coming fiscal year.

And now for the budget itself.

Hey y’all, it’s me. The producer. Look, I wouldn’t normally be here, but talent told me that getting in front of the camera more would help me get in touch with my expressive side, so here I am. Usually I’d be standing back there looking at the script, pondering the longevity of Microsoft Word. Seriously, how can something so dysfunctional remain the standard for so long? Want to move an image? Nope, get outta here. Edit a PDF? How about edit your expectations? Does your name have a spelling variation? It’s wrong; fix it. That’ll be $150.

Anyway, we did a pretty deep dive on the budget in our last video, so I won’t rehash too many of the budget details in this one. I will say that the budget total for this coming fiscal year is listed to be $32,728,519, which is roughly $4 million up from last year, and which follows a loose trend from the past few years of the new budget being about $4 million more than the year preceding it.

A new addition to the budget this year, which we did not mention in our last video, and which Fry said is the primary reason for the budget increase this year, is the Broadband Capital Project Grant, a grant which has been awarded to the county this year in the amount of $5,250,000. This money, while heavily featured across the board in the county’s budget documents, is rather limited in its uses. Latah County will be using that grant specifically for funding the massive broadband project that they have been working towards for several years. Since its use is so restricted, and its being awarded is so unique, this money doesn’t play into the budget in the same way as the county’s other sources of revenue.

Fry highlighted that this year the county is anticipating a 2% decrease in sales tax and a reduction in liquor tax due to lower than usual liquor sales in Latah County. Certain online transactions related to licensing are also being taken over by the state, meaning the county will no longer be able to obtain revenue that way. In response, the county is looking at some fee increases to help cover the losses.

Property taxes this coming fiscal year are projected to change very slightly. For a property with a $100k net taxable value, the total property tax bill is expected to decrease by just under $3.00 compared to last year.

Fry then outlined the various categories in which the county spends its money. The Operations is skewed upward this year due again to the broadband grant, but the benefits category has also spiked a bit to a reevaluation of the county’s spending on employees.

Let’s talk about that reevaluation for a second. This past year, the county underwent an assessment by a company called AmeriBen, which works to provide employers with information to pay their employees at market-competitive rates. Having undergone such an assessment, the county is using AmeriBen’s wage system for employee raises, which this year included salary increases up to 5.5%, and a 1% COLA. There have also been changes to raises for elected officials, as well as employee benefits, including a new benefit in the form of AllyHealth, a telehealth system that replaces a previously-provided benefit going forward.

When going through the budget in our last video, we weren’t really able to get into the county’s goals for the fiscal year, but now we can. This year, the county has several projects on its mind. These include a new roof for the county courthouse, ongoing HVAC projects, completion of the sheriff shop, continued work on the sheriff’s 911 repeaters, and upgrades and replacements to a variety of county equipment.

There is also the ongoing need for public defense spending going into this fiscal year with the trial coming up; that being said, the state will be taking over public defense funding going into October, so the county will be able to rest a little easier there than they did last year.

Following the budget presentation, the fee resolutions. The heads of Planning and Building and the Fairgrounds, as well as the county Assessor, presented briefly on the fee increases proposed for the coming fiscal year. We went through a few of the more dramatic ones in our last video, but the logic behind these increases has to do with the fact that many of them have not been updated for over a decade, and for some, it has only just recently become county practice to regularly re-assess them. That’s why some of the fees are nearly doubling going into next year.

With the presentations concluded, the commissioners opened the floor for any questions the audience might have. Dan Schoenberg asked for a progress update on the IT programs that have received some funding increases, as well as clarifying questions about the dramatic fee changes and public defense funding. Will Stokes, the mayor of Bovill, asked about progress updates for the broadband project, and was told that they would be provided shortly.

As there were no further questions, the hearing was closed. The commissioners then went through a series of resolutions that in total, approved the budget for FY2025, fixed the total amount for the budget, adopted the dollar certification for the tax year, and approved each of the county fee resolutions. 

Alright, I’m outta here. Got producer things to do. Stay frosty or something.

With that, we’ve more-or-less finished with budget season here in Latah County. Next up is election season, which is sure to be its own kind of excitement. Once again, I’d encourage you to take a look at the budget documents yourself if you get the chance, so that you can keep informed as to how the county is spending what is ultimately your money. And of course, if you have any questions, please reach out. I’m Aiden Anderson with the Moscow Minutes. See you next time!

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