Blog

Aug 09, 2023

We need more than one qualified commissioner

On the morning of Aug. 21, I attended the final county budget meeting for Fiscal Year 23-24. We have one commissioner, Asia Williams, who not only has transparency and the best interests of the

On the morning of Aug. 21, I attended the final county budget meeting for Fiscal Year 23-24.

We have one commissioner, Asia Williams, who not only has transparency and the best interests of the taxpayers at heart but also has an excellent grasp of finance and budgeting. While she is consistently outvoted, she at least helps pull back the curtain to expose substandard practices that would never pass muster in business but are standard practice in Bonner County.

Running a successful business for 37 years, I learned how vitally important it is to keep track of dollars and cents — and I wasn’t accountable to tens of thousands of taxpayers. Some county department heads clearly are incapable of presenting their budget needs in a way that the commissioners can make informed decisions, but the bar is so low that the practice continues unabated. Two commissioners don’t need to be informed; standing firm against the third will suffice for them.

Long before budget season, the comptroller should sit down with department heads who have a less-than-solid grasp of the process and help them put together their budget requests with clarity to eliminate the need for exhaustive public meeting exchanges with the commissioners, who then just settle (2:1) for mediocrity anyway. The taxpayers deserve better.

It shouldn’t be this hard. We desperately need more than one qualified commissioner.

DAVE BOWMAN

Selle Valley

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