It's Easy Being Generous with Other People's Money

If there's one problem I've been trying to fix as your county commissioner, it's the county's historical practice of using your taxpayer money for the benefit of other taxing districts. It's true and it has happened with more frequency than many realize.

In Part 4 of my series on Personality is not a Policy, I discuss the concept of "Cost Shifting." Unfortunately, many county elected officials over the years have allowed your county tax dollars to benefit other taxing districts. They do this because they often curry favor from other elected officials.

It's a cozy way of avoiding conflict so that future re-election efforts are made easier. But it's not right.

The Taxing District Dilemma

If you live in a taxing district, then you should have a say over who administers your tax dollars and how they are spent. But what if your taxing district is taking money from you and using it for the benefit of other taxing districts so they can keep taxes low for their constituents -- would you approve of that?

Would you approve of your elected officials giving staff time (time that your tax dollars paid for) to another taxing district for their benefit? Since I took office in 2023, the county has been doing this for:

• Law enforcement services

• transportation services

• and school districts.

Each of these taxing entities enjoys various benefits from your county tax dollars. I don't believe (from a policy perspective) YOUR COUNTY TAX DOLLARS should be benefitting these other taxing jurisdictions.

The Most Expensive Service Many Cities Avoid Discussing

For anybody who's paid attention to my policy statements in action, this is an important issue. Incorporated cities have their own growth plans and their own ability to levy taxes, but prefer (when allowed) to shift the cost of law enforcement onto county taxpayers via the county sheriff's office.

This creates immense strain on county sheriff's offices. First, according to Department of Justice statistics, city crime is typically 50% to 100% higher on a per-capita basis than rural areas. Translation: for every 1,000 city residents, crime is 50%-100% higher than 1,000 rural residents. This creates an outsized draw on county law enforcement services.

The reason this causes so many problems is because the 1,000 city residents pay the same amount in county taxes as the 1,000 rural residents do, but the city residents experience significantly more crime rates. As you can imagine, this becomes an unsustainable model for county sheriff's offices when county taxes cannot pay for that level of service. Sadly, this is a problem statewide.

This past year the Board was presented with a law enforcement contract that would create a $700k loss. Further, until this current year, no law enforcement contract included the actual overhead expenses like, cars, training, equipment, etc. The cost numbers were only salaries.

But what sets up county taxpayers for failure is when elected officials ignore these important facts and enter into these losing contracts anyway. It kicks the can down the road so that more drastic (and often expensive) remedies must be deployed.

CityLink Bus and the Real Beneficiaries

Then we have the county's northern public transportation service that only serves three of our biggest cities. Let's be candid here...the cities are the PRIMARY beneficiary of this service. Not county citizens.

Cataldo, Athol, Spirit Lake and the unincorporated part of the county get no benefit whatsoever from the county running this service, but their taxpayers are on the hook for the grant liability and any other liability associated with a public transportation service.

I believe it's time those cities benefitting from this service step up and become full-fledged partners in the system. That means sharing their pro-rata portion of the grant liability and the cost of compliance with these federal transit grants and programs. It's just common sense if they want a public transit system that serves and benefits their city constituents. That's what being true "partners" means.

School Districts

We sadly live in a different era. School safety has become a national issue (and it should be). However, safety must be paid for at the local level. For school districts that overlap perfectly and are combined with county government districts (including law enforcement), it's an easy subject to address. Your county taxes pay for both your local law enforcement AND schools. But that's not the case here in Kootenai County.

Here we have school districts that do not overlap and align with county districts. Some school districts overlap into other counties. Should your county tax dollars pay for school security or should the residents in that school district pay for the security expense?

This is a very sensitive subject, but it's an important one because I too have children attending school. I also am happy to pay for my school district's security, but I do not believe I should pay for school security in another school district I do not live within. That is up to the residents in that district.

Cost Shifting is Not a Sustainable Model for You to Pay

I do not believe it's the county's responsibility to take on this cost for the benefit of select groups within the county, and especially taxing districts that overlap into other counties. To put the total amount into perspective for county taxpayers, here's an approximate break down of what your tax dollars subsidize:

FY2026 Hayden Contract about = $700k (we fixed this)

FY22, 23 and 24 CityLink about = $950k (we virtually eliminated this)

FY26 schools about = $385k (this is occurring now)

Over time this adds up to millions of county tax dollars being used for the benefit of other taxing jurisdictions. And, over time, it creates a fiscal crisis that makes it extremely difficult to fix when the only tool a Board has is taking 3% of the tax base.

I believe that my job as your commissioner is to ensure that your tax dollars are going to county programs that serve all county citizens equitably, not just some lucky taxpayers or special interest groups. This issue can be fixed and avoided in the future with like-minded elected officials who have the same policy platform.

The reality is that when cost is properly allocated to where the benefit is enjoyed, growth decisions are made with better clarity. That -- my friends -- is called:

RESPONSIBLE GROWTH