BoCo board of commissioners adopts $75.2M budget for FY2025

By Soncirey Mitchell
Reader Staff

The Bonner County board of commissioners voted Aug. 26 to adopt the county’s fiscal year 2025 budget, which totaled $75.2 million, as well as the Ambulance District budget, which amounted to $5 million.

The 2-0 vote, from which Commissioner Asia Williams abstained, brought months of work by county staff and elected officials to a close.

“Beginning late July, we had meetings with different department heads going over the budget line items, and the commissioners looked out for those different line items,” Clerk Mike Rosedale said at the Aug. 26 hearing. “There are some enhancements they went through and approved. It all came down to this — this is a compilation of the work of the department heads and the commissioners and the other elected officials.”

The county’s total budget for fiscal year 2025 is $75,213,004 — $35,449,298 of which the county generated via property taxes, representing an increase of approximately $1.7 million from 2024.

“Keep in mind Bonner County taxes make up a little less than half of your tax bill. You have other taxing districts like the hospital, the school district, the library district, the fire district…,” said Rosedale.

Bonner County Commissioners Asia Williams, left; Luke Omodt, center; Steve Bradshaw, right.
Photo by Soncirey Mitchell.

The county anticipates a $2.3 million reduction in revenue from sources other than taxes and will carry over only $5.6 million compared to the $8.2 million last fiscal year.

The Justice Fund covers expenses from the Sheriff’s and Prosecutors’ offices, among others, and will take up the bulk of the budget at  $23,937,372. 

The closest comparable expenses are Road and Bridge at $12,173,507, Solid Waste at $10,932,646 and the General Fund — which encompasses everything from Human Resources to the coroner — at $10,880,859. 

Each of these budgets only rose or fell “a little bit” since FY2024, except for the Justice Fund, which “stayed static,” according to Rosedale.

The clerk gave meeting attendees a handout detailing the budget’s expenses and revenue sources with a written reminder about House Bill 292, which relieved property taxes in 2024 by creating the state-funded School District Facilities Fund and the Homeowner Property Tax Relief Account.

“At this time, the Treasurer’s Office and the state will not be able to determine the taxpayers’ exact amount [of tax relief] until each county has finalized the levy calculations for all taxing districts and the state certifies the levies on Oct. 1. The amount of the property owners’ tax relief will show up on the tax bill you will receive in November,” wrote Rosedale.

Treasurer Clorrisa Koster later explained that, unlike last year, the relief will only “be applied to those property owners that actually have a homeowner’s exemption,” but this change will not affect the county’s budget.

“It’s not going to change the budgets that are being passed. It doesn’t affect those amounts whatsoever, and it doesn’t affect the amount of levied tax that’s being noted,” said Koster. “The amount of property tax relief due to Bonner County will be paid by the state to the county, and then the county will apportion those funds to the taxing districts just like they would have if paid directly by the property owner.”

She encouraged anyone with additional questions to call or stop by her office at 1500 US-2 Ste. 304, in Sandpoint.

After hearing questions and comments from members of the public, county staff and elected officials, Commissioner Steve Bradshaw made a motion to adopt the budget.

“I hope that on our next budget cycle that the next board pushes for doing Government Finance [Officers Association],” said Commissioner Williams. “One of the reasons that counties submit their budgets is that it kind of provides a structure but also a plan. There are elements of that program’s criteria that help with some of the difficulties that some of the different departments have, especially when it comes to the communication aspect with the community — to know where we’re going but also to understand the capital projects that we have.”

Williams did not specify which departments she was referring to and did not respond to a request for clarification by press time. She further spoke about “concerns” regarding employee compensation, but did not elaborate with specific examples.

The GFOA is a national network of over 23,000 finance officers that provides members with “best practice information around accounting, auditing, budgeting, capital planning, debt management, financial reporting, pension and benefit administration and treasury and investment management,” according to its website.

Based on population, Bonner County would pay between $595 and $745 annually for a membership, which includes complimentary webinars, networking opportunities and some literature. Services like training courses, award applications and GFOA publications incur additional fees.

At the Aug. 27 regular business meeting, Williams elaborated on GFOA’s specialties, adding, “It’s beneficial to every staff member that has to do a budget because it helps out our auditing if you learn the concepts of the budget language. We’re not doing that in our county and so we’re not helping the people that we elevate to mess with our budget by giving them a resource so that they can be successful in helping plan their own budgets.”

She went on to argue that GFOA’s resources would help the county plan for the future and better understand its finances so that it would not have to dip into contingency funds as often. 

“I know there were some concerns on my end on some of the elements of this current budget, to include certain departments receiving a 5% raise when we’re moving a step and grade and other departments didn’t get to address that issue of inequality that exists in their departments, so hopefully on our next cycle we’re able to come up with a format that we can depend upon year after year in Bonner County,” she said.

Williams later added that by advocating for the use of GFOA’s processes she was not arguing that the county had done something wrong, only that the structure could be beneficial.

“I would like to assure the public that all of our budgetary processes were in accordance with GAAP [generally accepted accounting principles] financing and accounting, which is also reflected in the audit,” said Omodt at the Aug. 26 hearing. “And, yet again — I commend Clerk Rosedale and his office — [the audit] came back clean without any faults for Bonner County, which I will bring forward to the public’s attention that in the previous year we did have a finding and it was addressed, which demonstrates that Bonner County is on firm fiscal footing and it’s taxpayers should feel confident in their county government.”

“The DIY accounting manuals that Commissioner Williams held up are nothing more than props,” added Omodt in an Aug. 28 email to the Reader. “Bonner County complies with state and federal law and our accounting procedures are in accordance with GAAP, as repeatedly demonstrated by our audits. We need to stop selling fear and conspiracies and focus on the work.”