Budgets, Parades, and the Latah County Jail

A lot’s happened since the last report! Budget documents are available, parades are being planned, and what’s happening with the county jail right now? We dive into the latest on all of it this week!

Read the full transcript of the video below:

Just a reminder before the video gets going. Budget season is finally here, and documents are becoming available for the public to access. You can find budget request documents on the Clerk/Auditor page of the county website, and the draft of the Moscow City budget can be found on the Financial Documents page of the city website. These documents are among the most important projects that our local governing bodies work on every year, and they don’t often receive a ton of public input. If you’ve got the time and wherewithal, I highly encourage you to check them out before the public hearings later this summer.

Ok, PSA over. Back to the video.

How’s it going y’all? Aiden Anderson here with the Moscow Minutes. I’ve been traveling this past week, but I’m back now, and a lot has happened. Just because it’s summer break doesn’t mean that things slow down around here. Let’s get into it.

Julia Parker continued in her role as acting mayor this past week. The first order of business at the Monday meeting was an amended professional services agreement with Lombard Conrad Architects. As Cody Riddle of city staff explained, this is the most recent of a series of amendments to the same agreement with Lombard Conrad for design services for the Moscow City Shop campus.

While previous versions of the agreement have focused on construction drawings and specifications for a new shop building, this latest amendment focuses on changes to the interior of the current shop building, making improvements to office spaces and amenities. As councilor Hailey Lewis explained, this part of the project has been anticipated for some time, and has been planned for already in the city budget. As such, the Moscow city council approved the amendment unanimously.

Next up, Steve Schulte presented a fee waiver request from the organizers of the Latah County Independence Day Parade. A little bit of background for this one. In 2024, the city adopted a fee resolution, which sets the charges for a variety of city services. This included a substantial change to the parade traffic control fee, updating the fee from $346.50 to $4,830.84.

Why such a massive increase? According to the city, this change in the fee reflects the actual cost of the event for the city based on time and materials, utilizing the hourly labor and traffic control signage rental rates that were also set by the fee resolution. 

Now, the organizers of the Independence Day Parade requested that the equipment portion of these fees be waived, leaving only the labor costs, which would drop their fee down to $2,240. This proposed action has some precedence, as the U of I homecoming parade this past year requested a similar fee waiver, and was granted it.

The city council held a pretty involved conversation on the subject. Sandra expressed interest in approving it based on the precedent set by the U of I. Bryce expressed discomfort in approving the fee waiver based on a desire to avoid setting a precedent for future events. Julia asked questions related to when the fee ordinance went into effect, and whether the event organizers would have been informed about the fee increases prior to their application.

Gina largely agreed with Sandra about approving the fee waiver, with the intent to see the full fee paid in future years. Hailey argued that the city’s present financial constraints meant that waiving such a fee would be unwise. Looking at the subject from a budget and transparency perspective, Drew came out in favor the waiver.

The conversation eventually centered on the timing of the U of I homecoming parade application, and whether they would have had time to be similarly aware of the fee increases related to parades, and therefore be a true precedent for the fee waiver. City attorney Mia Bautista assisted in this, and while records could be found related to the U of I’s application and their knowledge or lack of it when it came to the fee increases, it seems the direct communications with the Independence Day parade organizers about the fees were unclear, even though the fee increases had been set for some time.

When it came time to vote, the council ended in a tie, with Gina, Sandra, and Drew voting to approve the waiver, and Julia, Bryce, and Hailey voting against it. As such, the motion to approve failed, and in this circumstance, where no tie-breaker (such as the mayor) was present, this meant that the original fees were upheld.

The county commissioners spent a significant portion of last week processing internal budget requests. These are related to county departments and what amounts of money they anticipate wanting in order to function going into next fiscal year. All of these are available on the county website in case you want to take a look at them before the budget is finalized.

The county held their monthly meeting with the department heads and elected officials this week. Commissioner Stooks began the meeting with the following statement…

Recently, the county posted a press release related to the transition of the Latah County Jail facility from being an actual jail to a temporary holding facility. The press release describes the cost of necessary facility maintenance and required improvements to be too steep for the county to address meaningfully at the present time. As such, the “decision to transition to a court holding facility allows the Sheriff’s Office to focus on long-term planning for inmate housing and to prioritize the safety of both staff and individuals in custody.”

This decision was made recently in a county public meeting, but not everyone was satisfied by the process. County Treasurer BJ Swanson took to social media to express her frustration with the decision, particularly the rushed and seemingly “politically motivated” process by which this decision took place. In this same post, she asked for a more transparent and public explanation as to why the jail is being closed. 

At the meeting on Tuesday, Swanson reiterated her concerns to the commissioners, who acknowledged that this is an ongoing discussion which contains some liability concerns, and as such, further consultation with their legal department is needed before they can make further official statements. Commissioner Stooks in particular called into question as to whether the treasurer’s posts on Facebook were in violation of the county’s personnel policy.

All to say, this was a week for heavy discussions and ongoing conversations. The summer continues and so does the work of local government. We’ll do our best to keep you informed on how these different situations develop. And as I said at the beginning, go check out the budgets! 

As always, we’ll have the relevant links posted with this video, and if you have any questions, please reach out! I’m Aiden Anderson with the Moscow Minutes. We’ll see you next time!