A budget is all about prioritizing: The Butler County Commissioners have decided that education trumps senior healthcare; that Butler County Community College has more political clout than Sunnyview; and that glib college administrators get attention more readily than the poor and elderly.

As the county ratchets up its annual contribution to BC3, commissioners are propped and ready to sell Sunnyview Nursing Home to the most attractive proposal submitted by a pack of salivating dogs awaiting a bone.

Remember last year, when the commissioners “extorted” from us a mill — about $1.4 million — more in county taxes? To save face, commissioners trimmed $282,536 from its handout to BC3; thus, for 2013, the college got a whopping $4.64 million; now, it’ll get even more — a 2014 contribution of $4.75 million amounts to about 12 percent of the county’s total real estate tax revenue of $40 million.

Yet, majority commissioners Bill McCarrier and Dale Pinkerton keep yelping there are plenty of private nursing homes in the marketplace, so they reason: “Why does the county continue to fund a nursing home? We shouldn’t be in that business.”

Likewise, one easily could conclude there are plenty of vocational schools, universities and private colleges around the region, so why continue to fund BC3? According to the school’s latest, official audit, as of June 13, it’s sitting on $16.2 million of unrestricted surplus funds — an increase of $491,444 over the previous year.

Meanwhile, according to its website, BC3 continues to expand its “out-of-county, satellite campuses” to three major ones — serving six western Pennsylvania counties — with none of those counties’ commissioners having to pitch in any annual allocation to BC3 as we do.

Furthermore, by selling Sunnyview, our commissioners claim to save future tax dollars by trimming the county workforce of about 900, by about 22 percent. However, since McCarrier and Pinkerton are proceeding to construct a new office annex, one can bet that while those 200 nursing-home employees get transferred to the private sector, it would be delusional to think the county’s salary board — which creates new job positions — won’t be tempted to go on a hiring frenzy, prodded by commissioners and row officers, especially with that extra office space and the huge cash windfall from the Sunnyview sale becomes available.

Although commissioners visualize that county taxes will be saved by unloading Sunnyview, nonetheless, the county’s endgame is basically a “zero-sum” one: All they’re hoping to do is shuffle employees around, so to speak; and pretty soon, we’ll end up with 900-plus county employees again after dedication of the new office annex.

Meanwhile, BC3 gets an increase in funding — which it really doesn’t need — while Sunnyview gets the boot, supposedly to save money. Ironically, isn’t something amiss here?