In an update on an issue raised at last week’s meeting of the Lycoming County Commissioners, it was announced that the county coroner had agreed to utilize some of the furniture that the county already had rather than purchasing all new for the Coroner’s building being constructed on Wahoo Drive. The issue had centered around a request for over $63,000 to purchase new furniture for the facility that had been made at last week’s meeting.

“My wife would be telling me, don’t beat the dead horse on money…but I am going to thank the coroner’s office,” said Commissioner March Sortman.

“This week, with some negotiations, they did decide to take the commissioners’ idea of utilizing furniture that already existed within one of our many facilities where we have some new furniture, some good reconditioned furniture and we were able to lower that bill,” Sortman said.

“These are things we need to continue to do as a county and we are moving in the right direction in most areas,” he said.

Commissioner Scott Metzger echoed that thought.

“Why go out and spend extra money, even grant money…or other funds,”Metzger said.

“We often hear well we have money in these funds. Well, the state doesn’t have a budget. The feds have cut those monies that are in those funds (which) are going to be needed to be used some day,” Metzger said.

“If we have stuff in storage or that’s not being utilized, that can be utilized, why spend those monies when we don’t need to,” Metzger continued.

“That’s the culture we’re trying to get across in the county that we have to work together to be a little bit more frugal, because we do have good leaders that are frugal, but the same time, we have to brainstorm and think, well, do we have to do it this way? Can we do it differently to try to save some cost taxpayers money,” he added.

Sortman pointed out that even though the money being utilized for projects is grant money, it still comes ultimately from tax payers.

“I personally, really do believe it’s starting to change from federal to state to local. We have always just spent. We use words like, oh, it was grant money, so that’s free. It’s never free. Grant money comes from the taxpayers as well. So no matter what level it’s coming from, it’s all taxpayer money. There’s no way around it. Nobody’s handing out just cash. It came from somewhere. Some plant made it happen, but it was taxpayers money, whether it’s (and) I’m not picking on the coroner, whether it’s a cremation fund, the corner has, or, I forget what the fund is called that the DA has. It’s all taxpayer money. It belongs to the taxpayers, not to us individually,” Sortman said.

“So the more we continue to think that process through and not think something’s free because it was a grant or anything else, we’ll all be on the right track soon. And I really do believe it started,” he said.

As the commissioners focus on formulating the budget for next year, Metzger commented that it is a “tough budget.”

“Monies aren’t coming in, and the fund balance continues to dwindle, and this is an extremely tough budget,” he said.

“So we have some very difficult decisions we have to make, and it’s been a challenge, but we’ve got to get to a balanced budget. That’s something that you have to live within your budget in your home…we have to do the same thing as government officials. So this is an extremely difficult budget,” Metzger added.