The Altoona Water Authority’s decision to hire a company to help obtain grants for authority capital projects is a decision built on good intentions.

It’s in the best interests of all authority customers for that company — Delta Development Group of Camp Hill, Cumberland County — to succeed in the money search.

However, that being said, AWA customers would do well to consider a reasonable question, since some of their water-usage revenue, no doubt, will be spent for Delta’s service and expertise.

That reasonable question revolves around Blair and adjacent counties’ representation in the Pennsylvania General Assembly.

It is no secret that elected officials — members of the state House and Senate — strive not to miss any opportunity to tout what they believe to be their accomplishments and general service, especially during the campaigns leading up to elections.

That’s true for Blair’s and all other counties’ elected officials in Harrisburg.

One such opportunity is when money has been allocated for some worthy project or service. It’s common for elected public servants to rush to the forefront for the purpose of announcing the allocation, whether or not they exerted any energy on behalf of obtaining the funds.

Being at the announcement and possibly being in the photo or news footage makes for good, free campaign materials for those officials seeking re-election — which evokes the following question:

Rather than having to hire a company to seek grants for projects for whatever the public entity, shouldn’t elected House members and senators be doing that kind of legwork on the entities’ behalf, for free?

According to an article in the Mirror’s March 26 edition, the AWA will pay Delta $4,000 a month for 16 months, plus up to a total of $2,500 for “reasonable and ordinary ” expenses connected with the company’s efforts to help secure funding for the authority.

Over the 16 months of the contract, then, the authority will be paying Delta up to $66,500 with no guarantee that the company’s service will bring even $1 to the AWA coffers.

Meanwhile, with their contacts within state government, lawmakers could be just as effective or ineffective, with the state’s coffers, not the AWA’s, picking up the tab.

The authority has numerous other possible “destinations” for the money in question to better benefit AWA customers, and it doesn’t even have to look very long to find them.

The monthly outlay reported doesn’t seem excessive, but the 16-month total delivers another, more troubling perspective to which the authority should have given more thought.

And, again, elected representatives are “hired” by the voters on Election Day to work on their district’s behalf, even if it were to involve one or two or three days of their scheduled generous-in-length recesses from under the Capitol dome to dig into such a task.

Doing so would give them reasonable opportunities to tout their governmental talents and their commitment to working for the people – something that missing the state budget-preparation deadline by months doesn’t do.

Lawmakers’ presence at grant-announcement sessions and in regard to preparing announcement news releases — especially when their efforts attracted grants — would demonstrate more honesty than merely being present for something for which they did no work.

The bottom line is that the authority will be permitted to terminate the Delta deal with 30 days’ notice. The AWA should opt to exercise that option quickly if it ever deems that it is not getting its and customers’ money’s worth.

Good intentions don’t always produce good results, although it should be hoped that these do.