While Lycoming County government has passed another no-tax-increase budget for 2013, that doesn't mean its costs are necessarily stationary.
Standing out the most perhaps is an expense for housing county inmates at neighboring prisons, which has risen by nearly $600,000 from the $12,500 budgeted by the county one year ago.
There's no real solution to the problem. The county's facilities are at maximum capacity and it is paying to transfer inmates to Clinton, Centre and Tioga County facilities at a cost of $65 a day.
It's not as if judges can't keep from incarcerating people whose crimes call for imprisonment. And the cost of building new facilities makes those kinds of decision a last resort.
Everyone pays for crime, Lycoming County included.
