HOLLIDAYSBURG — Blair County commissioners agreed to drop a previously discussed 5% cut to several departments’ discretionary spending in the 2026 budget after further investigation deemed it impractical.

Finance Director Lindsay Dempsie presented the final version of the 2026 budget during a Tuesday morning meeting, indicating an anticipated $52,268,306 in revenue to cover $54,463,891 in expenses, leaving a $2,195,585 deficit, which will be covered by the county’s unassigned general fund.

According to Commissioner Laura Burke, county budget administrators were unable to find departments with discretionary spending that could receive a further 5% reduction after several weeks of budget cuts to reduce an initial deficit of about $6.9 million.

The commissioners scrutinized almost every line item in the 2026 budget to find ways to reduce costs deemed unnecessary or excessive.

At last week’s budget workshop, the commissioners considered applying an across-the-board 5% cut to nonessential spending in several departments when a $2.2 million deficit remained after applying the new revenue generated by a 0.25-mill property tax increase.

According to Dempsie, the tax hike will generate about $2 million in new revenue for the county, decreasing the deficit from about $4.2 million to $2.2 million.

Commissioner Amy Webster proposed further cuts to government departments to avoid having to draw so much from reserve funds.

About $14.3 million will remain in the general fund after balancing the budget deficit, according to a projection provided by Dempsie.

The commissioners are anticipating a comparably larger millage increase in 2027 as the work to construct a new county prison begins, Burke said, so keeping the 2026 budget tight is a top priority.

“We’ve cut everything we could cut, but I’m concerned that these departments can still have the resources available to try new things, since we don’t want them to get stagnant,” Burke said.

The millage increase is “disappointing,” but ultimately necessary given the budget deficit, she said.

Burke emphasized that cutting expenses further was impractical, since any additional cuts would have resulted in termination notices for current county employees.

“A reduction in staff is a reduction in services provided,” Burke said.

Many of the smaller departments in county government spend the majority of their annual budgets on staff salaries and utilities, which cannot be reduced without substantial restructuring.

The three commissioners will vote to adopt the 2026 county budget during a meeting on Thursday morning.

Mirror Staff Writer Conner Goetz is at 814-946-7535.