Good supervisors know how and when to delegate authority.

That’s common knowledge. It’s also a primary goal of the Butler County commissioners in their creation of a new administrative post: chief of economic development and planning. They say the new position combines the functions of two former ones: director of planning and director of property and revenue.

Dave Johnston retired as county planning director at the end of 2015 and has not been replaced. When property and revenue director Ed Ruport retired in 2013, the previous board of commissioners created three new posts — chief assessor, tax director and mapping director — without increasing staff.

The resulting new director of economic development and planning would be in charge of coordinating and stimulating economic development through internal departments and county-related agencies, as well as working with county mapping, assessment, tax claim, recycling and conservation departments, bringing in some or all of them when overlapping is necessary.

The new person would be expected to coordinate efforts among the separate departments but would not have authority over them.

And those department directors who were appointed by the previous commissioners would remain, too.

Those three report to the chief clerk, by the way. The new director of economic development and planning will report directly to the commissioners, not the chief clerk.

Apparently the next step will be to recruit the right person for the job: someone with experience not only in economic development but also in accounting and tax or revenue management.

By the commissioners’ own comments, they’ll seek “a dynamic person,” someone “with the right skill set” to promote economic growth. They will be “asking a lot of this person.”

Those are all buzz-phrases for a big-salary position — a great unknown since the Salary Board hasn’t discussed a pay rate for the position, which doesn’t officially exist yet.

Ultimately, the question at hand is whether this is the right time for the commissioners to delegate their authority — and duties — to yet another administrative position.

There’s no easy answer, and we won’t presume to suggest one. But the guiding measure should always be whether the benefit of a remedy is greater than its cost.