The Butler County commissioners, having felt the necessity to raise the real estate tax by three mills this year, shouldn't ignore any dollar of potential income. But that is what the commissioners did when they agreed to lease the parking lots at South Washington and West Cunningham streets to the Butler Parking Authority for $1 a month.

Last year, the county bought the lots from the authority for more than $400,000. The land on which the lots sit will be used for construction of a new county prison, construction of which could begin in June.

The lease in question expires in March but can be extended on a month-by-month basis, and presumably will be until the land actually must give way to the construction.

Since the county wasn't given a cut-rate deal on the lots' purchase price, the commissioners should have arranged a lease deal in which the county received a percentage of the lots' parking revenue, including ticket revenue.

What the county earned from such a more thought-out arrangement could have at least paid for a few reams of paper, a quantity of Manila envelopes or a few five-gallon containers of the bottled drinking water that routinely are delivered to the county Government Center.

Every dollar of income counts when elected officials ignore belt-tightening and, instead, demand more money from the taxpayers.