Communication issues highlight Shoshone County budget workshop

WALLACE –– A Shoshone County budget workshop got contentious on Wednesday morning as concerns over budget cuts went largely unanswered.  

Shoshone County Interim Clerk Peggy White presented Commissioners Jeff Zimmerman and Dave Dose her recommended budget. However, these recommendations came in the form of two large binders and not a public presentation, which was what many attendees, including Dose, had expected.  

White’s recommendation came five days sooner than what is required by Idaho Code, which stipulates that the board must have the suggested budget by the first Monday of August.  

The meeting was moved from the commissioner’s chambers to the District Courtroom to accommodate the number of residents who attended the meeting. After White explained where she was in the budget process, the meeting was opened to public comment, which is where things got heated.  

Among the attendees were roughly a dozen law enforcement officers, including Shoshone County Sheriff Holly Lindsey and many of her deputies. Lindsey had implored the public to attend due to concerns over alleged comments made by White regarding significant cuts to the sheriff’s office’s budget.  

According to Lindsey, during a private meeting with White, she was reportedly told that the SCSO needed to cut $526,000 from their proposed budget. It was also alleged during the workshop that White had spoken about abolishing the pay matrix that had been created specifically for the sheriff’s office and moving back to a more county-wide pay scale.  

These alleged conversations prompted Lindsey to issue a statement to the public on Tuesday, where she warned of the potential defunding of her department.  

During Wednesday’s hearing, many people asked White questions concerning the SCSO’s budget, however, she deflected nearly all of them, explaining that it wasn’t her place to do so at this juncture.  

“What I’m presenting today is just preliminary figures, it’s got nothing to do with the public at this point,” White stated. “We’re not shutting down anything, any department, we’re not doing any of that at this point because the commissioners have not even been able to check the figures. There’s nothing here other than I’m presenting the books to the commissioners.”  

Dose attempted to assuage the tension by explaining his own confusion, but to little avail.  

“There’s apparently a little misunderstanding, even on my part, on what we were presenting today,” Dose said. “I thought we were getting a little more information than this.”  

White’s assertation of Lindsey’s concerns being premature have some merit; because the commissioners will now review her suggestions and meet with each department to see where they can make any adjustments or cuts before setting the county’s budget. This gives Lindsey the chance to fight for funding she thinks her department needs to function at its current level.  

When Lindsey spoke, she alleged that the process being followed this year for budgeting is different than the way it was done in 2023. 

“This process has been completely different than last year,” Lindsey said. “Last year we had the opportunity to work with the clerk to determine what we could work with in our budget. We had several meetings before came to the board to discuss that.”  

Before the meeting ended, Dose spoke of the challenges being faced by the county, specifically centered around the finances, but he implored people to lower the political temperature.  

“We got a lot of emotion in the room,” Dose said. “I know there’s been a lot of misinformation. We do have a new clerk this year from last year. There has been lots of confusion in the county. Our last clerk told us that we were short $1.7 million that we’ve been trying to work on. Our audits this year and our current clerk are saying that things might not be that bad. I can’t say it’s nobody’s fault, but I don’t know that it’s anybody’s fault sitting in the room right now.”  

Zimmerman also commented on the situation from last year and how it’s affecting this year’s process.  

“We’re looking really good county-wide, except for the justice fund, we’re off some but we’re going to have to work on that,” Zimmerman said. “We’ve been left with this. This your (Lindsey) fault, it wasn’t Peggy’s fault, it wasn’t our fault. This is something we inherited. So, the only way we’re going to get past this is to work through it together.”  

The concerns went beyond just the figures within the budget, as Lindsey also alleged that the clerk’s office ignored a request for information from the sheriff that forced her to submit a public records request to the clerk to get a response. A copy of that request was not readily available, but White did acknowledge the allegation from the sheriff.   

The meeting ended with icy exchange between the two elected officials before Dose adjourned.  

"The lack of communication with your office has really just made it difficult,” Lindsey said directly to White.  

“The lack of communication between both offices, I would suggest,” White replied.  

“I would not,” Lindsey responded.  

The commissioners will be meeting with each elected official next week to review their department’s budgets before having another workshop.