Many Butler County taxpayers might be wondering how much longer the county commissioners' penchant for keeping a healthy end-of-year budget surplus will last.

With the new-prison project apparently destined to end up significantly above-budget, now county residents have learned that the Sunnyview Nursing Home renovation project is facing a similar fate - to the tune of more than $1.5 million.

Sunnyview project bids opened Monday produced work proposals totaling $3.1 million and possibly $3.2 million. The county's $50 million bond issue covering the new prison, Sunnyview upgrades and other projects includes just $1.5 million targeted for the nursing home project.

Since nobody has been able to find any money-growing trees planted anywhere in the vicinity of the county government center, it is to be presumed that whatever shortfalls the county experiences regarding Sunnyview, the prison or any other budget category will have to be borne by the taxpayers. For most county residents, that prospect is hardly palatable.

There is nothing wrong with the kind of upgrades that are proposed for Sunnyview, such as the addition of more private rooms and a chapel, and making the home better able to care for Alzheimer's disease patients. Such changes will improve the home's ability to compete against other nursing facilities.

But among some county residents the nagging question that continues to present itself is whether the county should be competing against private nursing homes. Those residents question whether the county should be in the nursing home business at all.

The number of nursing home operations that have sprung up since the days when most counties felt the need for a publicly run "county home" have caused some counties to get out of that business.

Butler County's budget successes have enabled the county to avoid such a change, but Sunnyview's $1.6 million operating loss in 2003 isn't a happy scenario amid which millions of additional dollars are currently being seen as necessary.

What the Sunnyview bidding has cemented in place is the fact that the county will have to decide from where it will obtain additional money - or decide how to scale back the project to bring it more in line with the initial $1 million estimated project cost.

The initial estimate would have provided the county, by way of the bond issue, with a $500,000 cushion for extras associated with the project. But now, between the initial estimated total cost and the low bids, a $2 million chasm has emerged that county taxpayers can only contemplate nervously.

The commissioners have a 60-day window in which to consider all of the alternatives before they must render a decision regarding the bids. Whatever they decide, they should offer the taxpayers a clear explanation of the factors leading to their decision and how the decision will impact the county budget, the end-of-year fund-balance - if not this year, then in subsequent years - and taxpayers' wallets and pocketbooks.

Unfortunately, they haven't chosen to do that up until now

- J.R.K.