We both agree with and appreciate the efforts by our county commissioners, succinctly described by Commissioner Marc Sortman to ask “that everybody reviews everything because we’re paying bills we probably should never be paying.”

“We’re just asking everybody to do their due diligence as we move forward as a county, balancing this budget, getting things financially secure,” Sortman continued, as reported in last weekend’s edition of the Williamsport Sun-Gazette.

Sortman and the commissioners point to a more thorough review process to eliminate unnecessary bills as reducing wasteful spending. They’re right, and we hope government at all levels and in all capacities can find their diligence to be a source of inspiration.

We have editorialized numerous times that our school districts should aggressively seek ways of consolidating and sharing expenses instead of allowing duplication or triplication — or, as we fear our region is at risk with eight school districts entirely or predominantly in Lycoming County, octafication — of administrative functions.

And there is no shortage of programs and initiatives at the state and federal level that can be characterized as wasteful spending. With a national debt of $37.2 trillion, the time will come when even programs that might not strike many voters as “wasteful” will have to be subject to intense scrutiny.

We acknowledge and appreciate that some in our U.S. legislature over the years, particularly our region’s own Republican congressmen and senators, have pressed for that level of frank assessment.

We continue to emphasize that the monstrous size of the debt and its continued growth are evidence that our officials in Washington, D.C., have been, in part, too negligent in applying the oversight for which we praise Lycoming County’s commissioners.

We hope our commissioners continue to identify and eliminate unnecessary spending. We, again, hope our state and federal lawmakers and executives can also apply that level of perusal and inspection to our tax dollars.