In this column last year at this time, I wrote that a crude analogy could be made between giving birth to a baby and developing a government budget. The baby is incubated in joy, followed by a long and tedious growth process in the womb, and finally, in due time, through much agony and pain, the baby itself is born.

This new budget baby has not been with as much stress as last year’s, but it struck me that each year, the ‘child’ that has been born the previous year has “grown up.” Some of the previous budgets have become ‘adolescents’ that do not act the way they originally were expected. For example, building acquisitions of previous administrations have created the present board of commissioners with some continual thorny problems. The best budget would be one that only gets stronger and stronger as the years go on, demonstrated by the benefits that are gained by it.

So, how this one-year-old, the 2017 budget, look like now? Did it live up to its expectations to this point in time? Actually, there are lots of positive signs. It starts with the three commissioners themselves, who have invested in training through CCAP, the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania, and are seeking innovation solutions such as coordinating priority listings with other counties in the Commonwealth and developing a three-year budget process.

Leadership is important, but the real strength of the county is the experience of the staff. Every department earns its keep and is headed up by outstanding individuals. Several times this year, this column has featured the efforts of the Adult Probation Department, directed by Ed McCoy and his team, and the Juvenile Probation Department headed up by Ed Robbins. The state probation officers supervise a maximum of 50 people each, whereas the county employees in the same field averages 120-130 each and one officer actually supervises 500!

Sheriff Mark Lusk and his office served 5,000 visitors, issued 3,757 licenses to carry firearms, made 3,219 prisoner transfers, served 1,200 active warrants, and made 98 sheriff property sales. They average handling one phone call every two minutes, every single hour of the workday for an entire year!

Some of the county’s work is not so obvious or glamorous. Karl Demi, the director of Information Services, figures out the best way to keep the computers running smoothly in the most economical way possible. Mya Toon, Lycoming County’s Chief Procurement Officer, must get the most bang-for-the-buck out of contracts that the county enters. These employees and others like them save the county enormous amounts of money through their expertise. (Case in point, when the 2018 budget was being presented for approval at the December 7th Commissioner’s Meeting by Beth Johnson, Director of Fiscal Services, she noted that the budget deficit was lower than expected due to some savings that were discovered and could be applied to the budget).

Much of the county’s budget comes from outside sources, and this comes out of Planning and Community Development Department, directed by the leadership of Kurt Hausammann, Jr. This department finds millions of dollars in state and federal programs that benefit the county. People like Josh Schnitzlein, Lycoming County Hazard Mitigation Planner, uses federal funds to seek the best ways to help residents cope with flooding issues like in the Muncy area, and Mark Murawksi, the county’s Transportation Planner, developed a plan to use Act 89 funds to address 40 structurally deficient bridges in the county in nineteen different municipalities.

The Lycoming County Resource Management Services must safely dispose 106 tons of waste daily, some 286,000 tons per year. Fortunately, this is one of the most environmentally friendly waste disposal facilities in the nation, and thanks to the director, Jason Yorks, it will remain that way.

This list could continue on and on. The one-year old budget baby born in December of 2016 is quite healthy indeed. It might be a big budget, but the county does a very big job. And they do it well.