If the new Butler County Board of Commissioners is serious about reducing costs, it can't ignore the unnecessary expense of providing health care benefits to part-time solicitors.

Those benefits should be eliminated. An article in Sunday's Butler Eagle revealed that doing so would save county taxpayers more than $100,000 a year.

While providing such coverage years ago might have involved only a small expenditure, the rising cost of that coverage makes such a benefit for part-time employees beyond the range of reasonable.

In the process of examining the total legal-expense picture, this county's commissioners also should consider eliminating row office solicitors altogether, if state law permits. County solicitor Julie Graham is capable of handling routine issues involving those offices. If anything necessitates outside legal help, the county could then pay hourly rates.

Even now, the $650 annual retainers currently being paid to row office solicitors doesn't pay for unlimited services.

Some other fourth-class counties — based on its population, Butler County is a fourth-class county — have, in response to the spiraling cost of health care coverage, eliminated such coverage for part-time solicitors, while this county has ignored this potential for savings.

Facing a budget crunch three years ago, Beaver County stopped paying medical benefits for its non-employee solicitors.

A number of years ago, Cambria County, reacting to rising health care costs, eliminated solicitors' benefits. P.J. Stevens, Cambria commissioners chairman, expressed the opinion that county government should not pay benefits for anyone who isn't a full-time employee.

Washington County doesn't provide benefits to its department solicitors, and some current county officials can't recall a time when the county did provide such coverage.

Cumberland County allows row office solicitors to buy medical coverage through the county's insurance program, but the solicitors pay the premiums.

Presumably the Cumberland solicitors' use of the plan's benefits could impact the overall cost of the plan.

Butler County taxpayers will be interested in seeing whether an advisory committee reviewing the reopened 2008 county budget will make a recommendation regarding county-paid row office solicitors' health benefits. It has been learned that the committee will issue its report and recommendations at Wednesday's commissioners meeting.

Dale Pinkerton, chairman of the new Butler commissioners board, said he feels that at the present time the county needs an in-house solicitor. Graham is paid nearly $100,000 a year to provide that service; the cost of her benefits exceeds $30,000.

But whether that always will be the case, once the troubled prison project is completed and other issues are resolved, the commissioners should be open to re-evaluating the need for that full-time position.

Cambria's solicitor ($37,038 salary in 2006) and assistant solicitor ($22,600 salary in 2006) are part-time employees who did not receive benefits. Washington County's solicitor is not a county employee, but a contract worker, and thus does not receive benefits. The solicitor's salary in 2006 was $100,000.

In 2006, Cumberland County paid its full-time solicitor a $72,300 salary with benefits.

Only a full-time assistant solicitor in Beaver County receives county benefits. The main solicitor and one other assistant, both of whom are part-time employees, receive no benefits.

Hopefully Wednesday will be the first day of a new cost-cutting era for Butler County government. But even if the committee doesn't come forward with a plethora of lower-spending ideas, the benefits issue for part-time row office solicitors should remain in the spotlight.

Part-time solicitors, who have the financial wherewithal to pay for their own medical, dental and eye-care coverage through their regular law practices, shouldn't be at the courthouse financial trough for a freebie benefit at the taxpayers' expense.