The Butler County commissioners should be embarrassed over their handling of the 2008 budget. Instead of demonstrating a willingness for tough decisions to reign in the cost of government operations to avoid a tax increase, the commissioners have instead tossed out the prospect of cutting funding to various important entities. Those include Butler County Community College, the Community Development Corporation of Butler County, the county's library system and United Way.

These commissioners, who have been running the county long enough to find a way around such a drastic notion, need to be responsible and find a better way to control costs.

The bottom line: They must abandon this lame excuse for "responsible" fiscal management.

The current board of commissioners, although a lame duck due to the impending departure of two of its three members in January, shouldn't act lame during its final month in power, but that is what is happening.

It's troubling that James Kennedy, the only current commissioner who will be remaining on the board, is at least partly responsible for the suggestion that big funding cuts to the community college, library system, United Way and other agencies is a viable, acceptable option.

It is to be hoped that Commissioners-elect Dale Pinkerton and James Lokhaiser get a quick grasp of how to resolve 2008 budget challenges better than the three current commissioners are demonstrating. The new board, after it assumes control, will have the right to reopen next year's budget. It's difficult to imagine that the past community-mindedness of Pinkerton and Lokhaiser would allow them to accept the contributions-cutback proposal on the current commissioners' budget table.

Bloated might not be an accurate description regarding Butler County government, but it is reasonable to believe that most county departments could absorb some funding reduction for the coming year, if they tried, to help the county avoid a tax increase — while allowing the county to continue funding the community college and others.

The commissioners should be up-front with the taxpayers. Funding to these important organizations is not what's creating next year's budget challenges. It is the prison project, whose total cost was underestimated from the get-go, at least partly due to the decision to build the jail in downtown Butler rather than on county-owned land near Sunnyview Home.

Kennedy and outgoing Commissioner Glenn Anderson are the two commissioners responsible for that decision — and for any future tax increases related to the new jail. Thus Kennedy should now be at the forefront in trying to minimize the adverse consequences to the taxpayers stemming from that decision.

But that minimizing of consequences should not hurt the community. Funding cuts to the library system, college and others are unwarranted and shortsighted.

William O'Donnell, county chief clerk, said the commissioners insisted on a no-tax-increase budget, so the funding cuts were his only option to make that directive possible. But what did the commissioners do to try to avoid that option?

They opted for a scare letter and diversionary tactics rather than an honest approach to the problem.

The letter can be judged as a feeble exercise to deflect blame for 2008's financial challenges from the prison project, where it belongs.

Most taxpayers understand the importance of the agencies and community college and would be willing to bite the bullet on taxes so those entities would not be hurt. However, whether 2008 really will provide serious budget challenges remains a topic for debate.

The commissioners have avoided discussion about the 2007 end-of-year fund balance that will be reflected in next year's budget.

During budget preparations for 2007, the commissioners estimated that the fund balance on Dec. 31, 2006, would be $6.4 million. The actual balance going into this year was $8.4 million. In addition, on Dec. 31, 2006, the county had a reserve account of $350,000, and the 2007 budget contained a contingency line item of $500,000 — money not targeted for any specific purpose.

There is a $5.5 million fund balance built into the 2008 budget, and it's anyone's guess at this point what the actual balance will be. That will not be known until April, according to Controller Jack McMillin.

Historically, the actual fund balance, or surplus, has been significantly higher than the beginning-of-the-budget-year estimate.

In December 2005, when the commissioners were preparing their 2006 budget, the estimated fund balance built into the 2006 budget was $6.4 million. When the books were closed for 2005, the balance turned out to be $7.7 million.

In December 2004, the estimated fund balance plugged into the 2005 budget was $6.7 million. The actual 2004 fund balance was $7.9 million. Meanwhile, in December 2003, the anticipated surplus money for 2004's spending package was $6.9 million. The actual 2003 fund balance was $9.9 million — $3 million higher.

But these commissioners have never made a point of emphasizing their end-of-year good fortune as they've made budget and tax decisions. Yet, that reserve money has provided wiggle room for unanticipated needs and problems and has given the commissioners the luxury over the years of being able to increase the size of the county's workforce, which in the years ahead could come back to haunt the county.

All considered, the budget-preparation witnessed last week at the county government center is an embarrassment. The commissioners should admit it and reject the implied threats in that poorly thought-out letter.