How Will GOP Lehigh Commissioner Candidates Avoid Deficit Spending?

Lehigh County Republicans who go to the polls for Tuesday's primary election will be able to select four of eight candidates to advance to November's general election. Patch asked the candidates for succinct answers to three questions to help voters make an informed choice.

Our first question dealt with possible privatization of Cedarbrook nursing home.

Here is the second of the three questions:

With so much uncertainty in federal and state funding, how would you ensure the county is not faced with deficit spending?

Dean N. Browning (incumbent): As the only candidate in the race who will be able to have any impact on the budget for 2012, I will implement the cost control recommendations that result from the top to bottom review the commissioners are currently doing for every department within county government.  In addition, it will be necessary to limit the growth in wages which is the county's biggest single cost item.  Before this year is over, the current commissioners and I will be approving contracts for the county's four main unions.  We need to make sure those contracts put our union employees on par with those in the private sector who are paying the bills for the county.

Norma Cusick: In order to ensure that the County is not faced with deficit spending in 2012, a balanced budget must be submitted using a zero-based budget format for my consideration. Every commissioner should be responsible for reviewing the costs of programs and services and recommending their priorities and preferences with cost estimates to the executive. If this process is not followed I will vote to send any unbalanced budget back to the county executive and require him to submit a budget without deficit spending.

David C. Najarian: The budget format must identify those services which are funded by the state, the regulatory scheme by which they are mandated, their sources of funding, and further identify and prioritize programs which the county has elected to opt-in versus those which are clearly mandatory.  Budget forecasts, including those on the revenue side, should be presented with weighted averages, worst and best case scenarios and contingencies as the present budget format includes only raw numbers which can not be examined without context. Comparison of actual income/expenditures to budget should be examined openly at each meeting of the board.

Vic Mazziotti: Human Service funding from the federal and state governments are fund "pass through" programs.  When such funding is reduced, the county reduces the expenditures for such programs, as they have in the recent past and will likely do in the near future.

Brad Osborne: Since raising taxes is not an acceptable way to balance the local budget, County government must begin today to examine its operations and make improvements in efficiency and eliminate non-essential programs.  The Commissioners’ responsibility is to communicate to the administration NOW that they expect cost reductions to be an integral part of the 2012 budget proposal.

Scott Ott: The only way to avoid deficit spending is to spend less than you take
in, but that's not enough, because we need to do that without adding greater burdens on the beleaguered taxpayers. Most of the state pass-through money funds programs that the county performs for the state.  As the state dials back funding, more efficiency and innovation must drive cost reductions. Lehigh County commissioners should fight state efforts to mandate programs for which it does not provide complete funding.

Lisa Scheller: Currently, services are provided with pass through funding from primarily the state, which mandates how the funds are used. As funding is cut, the county will simply have to reduce the spending on these programs and services.

Mike Welsh: I believe county government should focus on core government services and get out of the business of funding programs that are not necessary or should be supported by the private sector or the community at large as a means to end deficit spending.

Read the Patch profiles of each of the eight GOP candidates for Lehigh County Commissioner.