Commissioners adopt Sanders County budget

THOMPSON FALLS – The Sanders County Commissioners met Thursday, August 5 to adopt the county’s budget.

After a two-hour session of open comment where the commissioners listened to two different concerned citizens about adjustments or concerns in the budget, they moved to approve the financial plan.

Too late in the game to make any real changes depicted in the open comment session, the commissioners use the comments they do receive for next year’s budget.

Commissioner Carol Brooker explained that eliminating an entire department or program as some of the comments suggested is a complicated process and would have to be looked at thoroughly before any kind of decision was made.

The commissioners stressed the main difference in the budget this year is the county’s road budget – a budget that will see the biggest decrease.

With the county dealing with the loss of the Secure Rural Schools funding, there is a severe reduction in the amount of money they will receive towards road maintenance.

SRS is part of a federal program that provides money to counties where national forest is located. The money received is required to be allocated towards both roads and schools within the county.

SRS funding was put in place when the timber industry collapsed and helped replace the timber money in a continual effort to support roads and schools in rural counties like Sanders.

With the lack of SRS funding, the federal government is likely to revert back to the old system, creating another relationship with timber money. In the past, 25 percent of the revenue generated from the timber industry was paid back to the county.

If this indeed did happen, the funding would be around $368,000, still a loss of $1.3 million.

With the loss of SRS funding, the budget had to be worked over and condensed.

According to County Commissioners Chair Tony Cox budgets were tightened up across the boards, helping the commissioners come up with money wherever they could.

This year no across the board raises were given and neither were cost of living raises, something the commissioners agreed was not the ideal situation but workable.

After working with the budget and weighing out the costs of everything, the budget remains to be balanced and the public is not expected to see any significant increases in taxes.