HOLLIDAYSBURG — Blair County has issued a hiring freeze for all positions as the state budget impasse exceeds 115 days and the federal government shutdown enters its fourth week.

Blair County Prison corrections officers and Children, Youth and Families caseworkers are the only exceptions to the freeze, Commissioner Laura Burke said Friday.

The commissioners are “very carefully” going over the budget to determine what items they can delay purchasing, rather than cutting completely, until the impasse and shutdown situations are resolved, Burke said.

“One of my commissioner friends in another county said ‘it feels very strange to be the highest level of functioning government,'” Burke said. “And I think that’s true.”

The hiring freeze comes amid a spending moratorium implemented by commissioners on Oct. 8.

Commissioner Amy Webster said the move was necessary “if we expect to pay our utilities and our employees through the end of the year.” While they continue to receive purchase requests, Webster said they deal with those on a case-by-case basis.

“A department will say, ‘I only need toner and it’s only $50,'” Webster said. “Well, yeah, it’s only $50 today and you’re not the only department. So if everybody’s asking for $50, $100, $200 every day, it disappears fast and we’re trying to help them recognize if you spend your money now on these things, there will not be money for your employees.”

Webster said she would hate to have to think about furloughing county employees.

When asked if that possibility was imminent, Burke said she didn’t think so, but that’s why “reducing what we’re spending now will hopefully help avoid that.”

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the commissioners furloughed a number of people, Burke said, “but not a large number” and they were all working again “within a matter of weeks because we really couldn’t function without them.”

By operating the county on what she described as a “bare bones” budget, not overspending for decades and refusing to raise taxes, Burke said they have already cut personnel where they can “so it’s very difficult to point out any employees who are not essential for more than a very short period of time.”

“You’re really talking about cutting significant services if we’re going that route,” Burke said. “So that’s something that we definitely want to avoid.”

Even if employees were furloughed, the county would “end up paying anyway,” Burke said, as it is self-insured for unemployment.

Mirror Staff Writer Rachel Foor-Musselman is at 814-946-7458.