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Saying that fiscal responsibility can "rear its ugly head" seems incongruous or nonsensical. In most cases that's true.
But Blair County taxpayers are being dealt evidence again that that statement is not as preposterous as it might seem.
Those individuals too young to know, or those older taxpayers who have not allocated enough attention to county government business over the decades of their adult lives, might express puzzlement about how "fiscal responsibility" and "rearing its ugly head" can be used correctly in the same sentence. However, increasingly, that puzzlement is being explained, if not directly then through decisions that current county leaders are, in essence, being forced to make.
And, up front, it must be stated that current county leaders -- although some taxpayers might now or eventually regard them as fiscal villains -- are not the problem. These current leaders are merely being proactive in regard to issues that should have been addressed properly years or decades ago but weren't, hidden under past leaders' shallow and politically self-serving proclamations of being fiscally responsible.
That "fiscal responsibility" is -- and will be -- costing current and future county taxpayers plenty more, rather than many millions of dollars less, because major issues now rearing their ugly heads were "kicked down the road" for such a long time.
The fiscal "bite the bullet time" is here and "another kick" only will make matters worse.
The challenge current leaders are dealing with is attacking the problems as they need to be attacked, while doing all they can to minimize the harm to taxpayers' wallets and pocketbooks -- and bank accounts -- now and going forward.
Still, all tax-related pain will be impossible to avoid, but there were times in the distant and not-so-distant pasts when aggressive responses to needs would have made today's needed actions much less daunting and much less financially burdensome.
Unfortunately, turning back the clock so the right actions can be pursued during a better time frame is impossible.
Anyone who has followed county news over the past couple of years is familiar with the new-county-prison project's ups and downs and, more importantly, with the major problems and issues that have dogged the existing prison, which should have been replaced decades ago but was allowed to remain amid the "fiscally responsible" chants at election time and budget time.
There's nothing wrong with being fiscally responsible if those two words are not hiding needs and issues that ought to be addressed head-on and in a spirit of transparency and frank discussion open to the public. However, when that doesn't occur, the door is opened for major headaches like what exist on the prison front and, also now, Blair County's employee parking garage on Mulberry Street.
While the world of change orders is not just a Blair County thing -- it extends to projects extending from this county in all directions -- it's reasonable to wonder how much a $226,305 change order approved by the three current county commissioners Aug. 6 could have been much smaller if enough attention had been directed to that facility over the years.
The change order increased the total of the general construction contract associated with the garage to $2.21 million.
"The employee parking garage, which opened in 1999, has long been a victim of water leaks and concrete deterioration associated with snow and ice treatments," an Aug. 7 Mirror article noted.
"Bad judgment calls" has not been a phrase tied to when the garage was constructed, but perhaps there were some that contributed to the garage's woes.