With a possible $3.7 million deficit looming in the 2027 budget, Lehigh County officials are tightening belts throughout government offices.<\/p>\n
County Executive Josh Sigel stopped short of calling for a hiring freeze, but ordered all departments to \u201ccarefully evaluate\u201d vacancies before advertising open positions.\u00a0Other changes, beginning Sept. 9, include deferring nonessential purchases and nonessential travel, and keeping an eye on overtime.<\/p>\n
The initiatives are designed to protect essential services, improve efficiency and create sustainable savings, Siegel said in a statement.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur goal is to modernize how the county operates, eliminate unnecessary costs, and ensure that taxpayer resources are focused where they have the greatest public benefit. These measures are part of an intentional effort to improve efficiency while continuing to prioritize public safety, essential services, and the needs of our residents,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Public safety departments, such as the Lehigh County Jail, and nursing home positions are exempt from the new policy. The county will also institute \u201cmodernization\u201d protocols, according to Siegel\u2019s statement, including:<\/p>\n
\u2022 Conducting performance and operational audits to identify unused, underutilized, or duplicative technology, systems and resources;<\/p>\n
\u2022 Reviewing contracts before they\u2019re renewed to evaluate service needs, pricing, terms, renegotiation opportunities and potential consolidation;<\/p>\n
\u2022 Auditing utilities and energy usage to identify ways to reduce consumption and lower operating costs, and;<\/p>\n
\u2022 Buying in bulk and eliminating duplication.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery organization should periodically take a fresh look at how it does business,\u201d said Jessica Baraket, county administrator. \u201cThese are practical steps that any well-managed organization should take. We have an opportunity to identify areas where departments can work together more effectively, share resources, and eliminate unnecessary duplication.\u201d<\/p>\n
Siegel said his office will work with department leaders to put the new practices in place and will create a system to track savings.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe county will report these results to the public, providing transparency and accountability and demonstrating the tangible impact of its efforts to make the best possible use of taxpayer resources,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Siegel will deliver his proposed budget to the Lehigh County Board of Commissioners on Monday, then there will be a series of public hearings in September. Under the county\u2019s home rule charter, the budget must be voted on by Oct. 31.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With a possible $3.7 million deficit looming in the 2027 budget, Lehigh County officials are tightening belts throughout…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":273136,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[119,121,120,60,433,182,883,139,28,50,432],"class_list":["post-273135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-allentown","tag-allentown","tag-allentown-headlines","tag-allentown-news","tag-business","tag-lehigh-county","tag-local-news","tag-local-politics","tag-news","tag-pennsylvania","tag-politics","tag-top-stories-tmc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=273135"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273135\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/273136"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=273135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=273135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=273135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}