We appreciate the fact that the elected members of our Board of Commissioners are trying their best to balance the 2010 budget.

 We also think it is wise to renegotiate outside service contracts currently in place. By doing so they are finding out that the current contracts with outside vendors can be reduced.

 We have said many times before that we regret that employees of county government might have to lose their jobs, but this option is far better than to saddle the taxpayers of Newton County with unnecessary tax burdens.

 That is why it doesn’t make good fiscal sense to cancel the service contract for the counties recycling program and replace the contract with employees who are first going to have their hourly wages cut, which is going to make for disgruntled employees. Secondly, in order for those employees to keep the county’s benefits package, which is really the red herring in county expenses, it is going to continue to cost the county in a big way. Having independent contractors would eliminate the expensive benefit cost.

 We believe that the more government services can be performed by good local contractors the less government costs will be incurred.

 The less tax money that local residents have to pay to the government to run its services mean that there will be more money in those residents’ pockets that will hopefully in turn be spent at local merchants.

 This is a win-win for the whole community.