Teton County's FY27 Budget Grows 5%

DRIGGS — Teton County commissioners take up a $24.2 million FY27 budget at an August 24 public hearing, a balanced plan that shifts money toward emergency dispatch and the jail and away from planning and building.

The funds that property taxes support balance exactly, at $12,051,680 in revenue against the same amount in requests, about 5 percent more than this year. Property taxes cover $7,353,192 of it, up 6.36 percent.

Most of that is the general fund, which pays for the county's day-to-day operations and rises about 7 percent to $10.3 million. Another $12.2 million sits outside the property-tax side altogether, in funds that run on their own fees and levies like solid waste and road and bridge, bringing the county's total to $24,248,677. Idaho's property-tax cap limits how much the county can raise on the property-tax side each year.

Why the published notice looks like a cut

The legal notice the county ran in the Teton Valley News on August 12 and 19 shows that same general fund shrinking, from $11.6 million to $10.3 million. The budget summary in the same hearing packet shows it growing, from $9.6 million.

Both describe the same year. The difference is about $2 million the county paid out on a lawsuit in the current budget, which the legal notice counts and the summary leaves out. "When compared to the FY26 budget, the FY27 budget appears to be a budget reduction," Clerk Kim Keeley wrote in her memo to the board. "However, when you remove the $2 million lawsuit payment, the FY27 budget represents a continuation of County services with moderate operational growth, targeted capital investment, and increased personnel costs."

On that basis Keeley puts the increase at about 6 percent, with 60 percent of it coming from personnel.

The jail

The jail budget climbs 137 percent to $635,250, up from $267,496. Almost all of the increase is prisoner housing, budgeted at $600,000 against $225,000 the year before. Teton County has no jail of its own and pays Madison County to hold its inmates, so the line tracks what that contract costs.

The county budgeted $155,196 for the jail in fiscal 2025 and spent $270,481; it budgeted $267,496 for 2026 and had spent $357,978 by late July, with two months left in the fiscal year. The 2027 figure sets the line closer to those actual costs.

Dispatch

Emergency dispatch rises 79 percent, to $1,232,290 from $686,993. The largest piece is a one-time purchase, a $540,000 dispatch console and $8,000 in handhelds, with a possible $250,000 for radios noted in the worksheet but left out of the request. The county pays for the $540,000 out of cash on hand. The department also adds two emergency communications officer positions.

The county has asked Victor and Driggs to help fund dispatch, and a dispatch task force formed this spring to rebuild the county's dispatch-services agreement.

The trims

The planning department drops 24 percent to $462,130 from $607,025. Most of the reduction is a $150,000 line for the county's comprehensive-plan rewrite that appeared in the 2026 budget and is not repeated at that level; the 2027 figure lands below even the $506,002 the department budgeted in 2025.

The building department falls 7 percent to $390,753 from $418,795. The county removed a code-compliance position and expanded the building-services coordinator role.

Pay and positions

The budget funds a 4 percent cost-of-living increase for county staff, and raises for six elected offices on top of it: $20,000 for the prosecuting attorney, $5,000 each for the sheriff and the clerk, and $3,000 each for the treasurer, the assessor, and each commissioner. It also assumes a 10 percent increase in the cost of employee medical coverage, a figure Keeley notes will not be known until after the board adopts the budget.

Salaries and benefits rise about $909,000, or 9.8 percent. Keeley calls personnel the largest recurring cost driver in the budget and warns that the increases carry into future years. Code compliance and dispatch communications come off the books, and the county adds a part-time law-enforcement IT position.

The road fund loses state money

Keeley projects state revenue sharing flat to slightly down across most county funds, with one exception. In the road and bridge fund, she expects state funds to be cut by $900,000, the largest revenue-sharing drop in the budget. Road and bridge still grows, to $3,743,542 from $3,511,326, and the resolution before the board carries the $1.5 million two-year supplemental road levy alongside the county budget.

What the county did with its cash

The general fund draws $740,000 from cash on hand to pay for one-time capital, $540,000 of it the dispatch upgrade and the rest repairs and improvements to county buildings. The three county-owned apartments on Buxton Avenue, where the board weighed an additional $18,000, are budgeted at $47,050 against $47,975 this year.

What to watch: The hearing on the county budget starts at 9:05 a.m. Monday in the Commissioners Meeting Room at 150 Courthouse Drive in Driggs, with the $472,278 Teton Mosquito Abatement District budget taken up at 9:10. The county is that district's fiscal agent, so both are adopted in the same motion, Resolution 2026-0824A, which also carries the road levy. Together they total $24,720,955. Anyone may appear and speak on any part of the budget.

Editor's note: This piece was updated from a previous version based on the latest budget packet posted August 21.

Teton County's FY27 Budget Grows, Shifting Toward Dispatch and the Jail