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HOLLIDAYSBURG -- Blair County commissioners have cut the county's estimated budget deficit down from about $10.4 million to $9.7 million as they approved much of the prison's $7 million operating budget Tuesday morning.
An updated general fund balance chart presented to the commissioners by finance director Lindsay Dempsie showed projected revenues and expenditures at $53,751,660 and $63,485,646, respectively, for a projected deficit of $9,733,986. The new projected deficit would decrease the county's current unassigned general fund of $17,307,444 to $7,573,458.
The Blair County Prison's budget included line items like non-staff lodging for inmates housed in other counties, overtime increases and a monthly armor bill.
Housing about 25 inmates in Centre County will cost Blair County about $720,000 for the year, according to the budget. When Commissioner Amy Webster asked if this was the line item that already had its price changed, Dempsie said yes.
"We have exceeded the budget and used the contingency and we are out of contingency," Dempsie said.
Webster then asked if this was due to no one using "the ankle bracelets we spent a lot of time putting together," to which Dempsie said "partly."
Commissioner Laura Burke said the issue was that the county has too many people in prison.
"We made the decision not to continue using the gym for temporary housing, which I think was a good decision," Burke said. "We've seen issues decrease since then, but there's a cost to that. So it's a combination -- there's ankle monitoring, there's moving people who are on state detainer, there's making sure we're continually moving people who are sentenced to state (prison) out."
Webster agreed, saying using the prison's gym for housing was a "disaster."
Housing for juvenile inmates was budgeted for about $6,000 a month. Blair County does not have the infrastructure necessary for housing juvenile inmates, meaning they are sent to neighboring county prisons such as Cambria and Centre.
Dempsie said the county was paying Cambria County about $4,650 per juvenile per month in 2026.
Burke and Webster approved the amounts for both adult and juvenile housing. Commissioner David Kessling was absent.
Commissioners also approved both an increase in overtime at the prison, from $1.7 million to $2 million, and its yearly armor bill for $3,800,376, or $316,698 per month.
The IT Department's budget was then looked at, with IT Director Don Weakland immediately telling commissioners that they could remove a line item for five enterprise ChatGPT licenses for $1,200.
"We are not going to be able to purchase ChatGPT enterprise licenses for $1,200," Weakland said. "The minimum is 100 licenses. I'm not asking you to change that quantity."
Weakland then told the commissioners he had "good news" regarding the line item for the county's website budgeted at $40,000. The county currently pays $7,600 a year to the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania to host the site, but would not be able to continue doing so in 2027.
"I spoke with the gentleman who is taking over the CCAP arrangements," Weakland said. "Their estimate to get us a new website and get us migrated, I believe, was $39,500, but he'll give us a hot deal. If we do a five year agreement with them, it'll be $7,500 per year for five years and at the end of the fifth year they'll do a free redesign of our website."
The arrangement would save the county $100 a year and give it a new website, Weakland said.
The commissioners' next budget session is scheduled for 9 a.m. Nov. 13 in the commissioners' public meeting room in the Blair County Courthouse basement.
Mirror Staff Writer Rachel Foor-Musselman is at 814-946-7458.