Idaho, Lewis county commissioners grapple with rising solid waste costs

This story has been updated from its original version to correct a Tribune error.

GRANGEVILLE — As county commissioners in Idaho and Lewis counties begin piecing together their 2022-23 budgets, both got some sour news about the escalating costs of solid waste this week.

Robert Simmons, owner of Simmons Sanitation in Kamiah that handles solid waste in both counties, told the commissioners that the consumer price index, which includes fuel costs and other expenses of doing business, is up 8% to 8.5% in May.

What that means is that solid waste budgets — which are already a major portion of the rural counties’ expenditures — are likely to be much higher in the coming fiscal year.

“We’re mulling over what we can do,” said Lewis County Commission Chairman Greg Johnson. “We’re looking at revenues and costs and we just don’t know where we’re going to go. We’ve got to do something.”

Idaho County Commission Chairman Skip Brandt had much the same reaction.

The commissioners are just starting to build next year’s budget, Brandt said, and “there’s no sign of anything getting better.”

The commissioners in both counties are beginning to take financial requests from the various county department heads and will start crafting the coming fiscal year budgets, which are typically ratified by the end of August or first of September. The new fiscal year begins Oct. 1.

Simmons said everything about his business is attached to energy costs and the rising prices have affected his ability to purchase new equipment and make building improvements. In addition, he’s lost seven employees and is having trouble finding replacements.

Johnson said it’s too early to decide whether this situation will result in higher taxes for county residents.

“We don’t know that,” Johnson said. “We’re still in the infancy stages of our budget and we don’t know what our sales tax revenue is going to be; we don’t know what the property valuations are going to be and until we have all the figures, we can’t say that taxes are going up because solid waste is just one leg of the stool.

“It’s just been a brutal year,” Johnson added. “It’s unreal what the budgets are dealing with right now. We hope to have kind of an idea where we’re going within the next week or two.”

Brandt also said the Idaho County commissioners will take time to decide how to handle the escalating solid waste costs.

In other news, the Idaho County commissioners met Tuesday with Ryan Chapin of the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation.

Chapin said the organization holds a 97-acre parcel of land near Gasper Creek along the Salmon River.

The area is steep and lacks easy access, but the organization plans to hold a volunteer work day June 10 to clean up the remains of a homesteader cabin that was burned in the 2015 wildfire in that area.

The group also would like to do some active timber management on the parcel, Chapin said, and eventually hopes to donate the land to the Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forest.

That was not welcome news to the commissioners.

Although property taxes on that land are only $300 a year, Brandt pointed out that it would have the potential of future development, which could add to its taxable value.

And the loss of more private property in the county continues to chip away at county revenue, he said.

With 4.5 million acres of public land in Idaho County, Brandt said, “how much more can we afford to lose? … If we could go back and rewind the thousands of acres in remote holdings (that have eventually been converted to the state or federal government) that adds up to a lot of taxes. We’re not Texas; we’re not New York. We have public lands everywhere.”

Hedberg may be contacted at khedberg@lmtribune.com.