Kootenai County Commissioners Consider Raising Employee Salaries

COEUR d’ALENE — Kootenai County commissioners will evaluate salary increases for county employees as part of the fiscal 2025 budget process.

Commissioners will meet for three more budget deliberation meetings between next Tuesday and July 19. A preliminary balanced budget will be presented on August 1, and a public hearing on the budget is scheduled for August 28. Commissioners are expected to adopt a final budget on Aug. 1. 30.

At a previous budget deliberation meeting, county Human Resources Director Sylvia Proud recommended a 3.5 percent cost of living adjustment for all county employees for fiscal year 2025, or an overall increase of $2.3 million.

Proud said this recommendation was based on recent consumer price data and compared to other local and state agencies, which have proposed cost-of-living adjustments ranging from 3% to 3.5%.

Commissioner Leslie Duncan noted that Kootenai County plans to conduct a salary study next year for fiscal year 2026. If the county does not make a cost-of-living adjustment for employees in the meantime, She said wages could lag behind market rates.

“We may not be able to catch up,” she said Tuesday.

Duncan said funding milestone increases for eligible employees on their anniversary date take priority over cost-of-living adjustments. Even so, she said she would like to see county employees receive something to offset any increases in health insurance costs.

Proud has previously noted that pension costs are expected to rise and health insurance costs will increase by about $1.1 million.

“I’m willing to go down to 1% (cost of living adjustment) at this point, or negotiate the budget,” Duncan said Tuesday.

“We have to start somewhere,” Commissioner Bruce Mattare said.

Mattare said he would not like to see a tax increase for fiscal year 2025, although county Finance Director Brandi Falcon indicated it would be impossible to do so without passing on significant costs to county employees.

“The $1 million health insurance increase should be fully passed on (to employees),” Falcon told commissioners. “You couldn’t do (step increases), no COLA. You would have to remove every new program request and you would have to remove every personnel request from Budget A and you would still be $1 million in the hole.

Commissioners will also explore the possibility of reducing funding for county positions that have been vacant for more than 100 days.

Most of those vacancies are within the Kootenai County Sheriff’s Office, Mattare said, and some are in the process of being filled.

“I would be open to maybe 25% of those positions being less funded, because I expect us to fill them,” he said.

The next budget deliberation meeting will take place on July 2.