The Valley Signal

Government & Accountability

Driggs Hears Seven FY27 Funding Requests, From a Balloon Rally to a $400,000 Sheriff's Ask

Driggs heard FY27 funding requests from seven groups June 16: six community grants plus the county's $400,000 sheriff's ask, an order of magnitude larger.

By Valley Signal Staff ·

DRIGGS — The Driggs City Council heard FY27 funding requests from seven community organizations and county agencies at its June 16 meeting, six of them routine asks for a few thousand dollars each and one, from the Teton County Sheriff's Office, for $400,000.

The council took no action. Mayor August Christensen framed the presentations as information to guide the city's coming budget sessions and held each speaker to five minutes. "Tonight city council won't be deliberating," she said. "This is just for information."

PAWS, the Driggs animal shelter, asked for $33,000, the same as the current year. "Not asking for more," its representative told the council, citing a $70,000 veterinary budget and a shelter near capacity in kitten season.

Seniors West of the Tetons requested $10,000 to launch a senior-transportation pilot, about 40 percent of the program's cost. Board chair Lynne Browning said a recent survey found transportation was the biggest barrier facing local seniors, worst in winter. The center serves more than 1,000 people a month.

The Downtown Driggs Association made the largest community request: $53,625. That figure includes a $2,000 increase in its annual operating grant, to $51,000, and $2,625 for a downtown flower-planter program. Events and outreach manager Teddy Nichols brought a second request as well, for a $1,000 increase in the management fee for the Teton Valley Welcome Center and $1,088 for a summer Saturday ambassador there. Nichols said the association reached Main Street America's accredited tier this year.

The Teton Regional Economic Coalition asked for $10,000, which executive director Andy Epperson said the city's match would leverage into a $35,000 Idaho Department of Commerce grant and $20,000 in Small Business Development Center support. The coalition served more than 50 businesses this year, he said.

The Teton Valley Balloon Rally requested $8,000, a $500 increase that keeps the city at the event's title-sponsor level. Event director Virginia Powell Symons said the rally's insurance had doubled and production costs had risen about 20 percent ahead of its 45th annual event, two weeks away.

Teton Valley Housing, the joint-powers authority formed by the county and its cities, asked for $35,000 in operating support, the same as the current year and separate from the $70,000 the city provides as administrator of the authority's workforce-housing program. Executive director Jerod Pfeffer pointed to the 175 Front Street project in Driggs, which won $4 million in state funds and breaks ground July 17. The authority has told the valley's cities that Idaho spends far less per resident on housing than neighboring states.

Together, the six community requests came to about $150,000.

The meeting's second-to-last presenter was Teton County administrator Billie Siddoway, who brought the night's largest single ask before the housing authority closed the session. She told the council that Commissioner Brad Wolfe, the commission chair, could not attend and had asked her to relay his request. "His request is going to be for $400,000 again this year," she said, a figure she put at the cost of one officer per 1,000 residents.

Siddoway incorporated the Teton County Sheriff's Foundation in 2022 and serves as its secretary. Apparently speaking for the foundation, she said its donations could subsidize part of the cost, with the city phasing its share in over several years, beginning with about $150,000, and the sheriff's office paying the balance.

Siddoway said deputies were spending more time inside city limits, citing "an increase in traffic controls in your neighborhoods, security checks in the area," and that the county could no longer sustain that level without help. "We really are at the point as a county where we need to pull back on city attention," she said. Driggs draws about three officer-shift commitments over the year, she said.

In a June 2025 budget work session, the city noted it was "unknown" whether Teton County would ask Driggs to collect a Law Enforcement/EMS impact fee. The county presented in person the following month, with Wolfe and Sheriff Clint Lemieux making the case but naming no dollar figure; the city's July 22 work-session minutes record that "no dollar request was made" and put the cost of one deputy at about $150,000.

Driggs City Attorney Sam Angell told the council the deputies were doing "a lot of patrols, issuing a lot of citations" with "increased work within city limits."

Siddoway also brought a request she described as her own, "in my role as county administrator": Domo, a data-dashboard platform that she said would let residents look up figures like monthly traffic stops or building permits online. She said it would cost the county $20,000 the first year and $30,000 after, and asked whether Driggs would share a license.

What to watch: The council will weigh the FY27 funding requests in budget sessions this summer; the city's fiscal year begins October 1. Siddoway said Wolfe would present the sheriff's office's case to the council July 7, and that she would carry councilors' questions to him.

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