It’s a rarity for Butler County’s three commissioners to agree on anything, but on one topic they have concurred, and well they should.

The commissioners all have said a county government staff reduction is likely and appropriate following the privatization of Sunnyview Nursing and Rehabilitation Center.

When Republican majority commissioners Bill McCarrier and Dale Pinkerton launched their initiative a year ago to sell Sunnyview to a private company, they stressed the point that some county government offices and their employees were devoting hours of service to Sunnyview operations. The personnel office, in particular, devoted many hours to Sunnyview and its more than 250 employees — nearly one-third of the entire county government employment roll.

Those hours were factored into the operational deficits for Sunnyview — which ran about $1 million in 2013 — and portrayed as evidence supporting the sale of the county nursing home to a private operator, which is better equipped to run nursing homes at a profit.

The inference should be clear: since the county is selling its nursing home in the name of effective, efficient government, then there should be corresponding reductions in the number of man-hours being billed to Sunnyview by other county departments, and in staff performing these functions for Sunnyview.

Nobody likes staff reductions, particularly those individuals who will find themselves without a job. Managers and co-workers also must adjust to a smaller workforce performing the same range of work duties and office hours, just a lower volume of it.

There might even have been a temptation not to lay off competent co-workers, given that the sale of the nursing home yielded a windfall of $20.4 million — nearly $7 million more than the county’s minimum asking price.

McCarrier, the board chairman, said Wednesday that nothing has been decided yet, but layoffs could occur. Pinkerton and Commissioner Jim Eckstein, the board’s minority Democrat. also have indicated they’re leaning toward reductions.

The commissioners should pursue a staff reduction, doing what they can, in the process, to provide whatever assistance is available, such as relocating displaced workers and providng incentives for early retirement.

Given the circumstance, a staff reduction is to be expected, instead of keeping on employees who are not needed.