Lancaster County is only about $22,000 shy of balancing next year's general fund budget, and officials expect to have that covered by Monday, when the entire $252.8 million spending plan is presented to the public.

The plan calls for departmental cuts of 2.75 percent, about $1.3 million in savings from a new high-deductible health insurance plan and a 9.3 percent tax increase — the first to be considered by the current board of commissioners.

The budget also includes raises of 2.75 percent for employees and doesn't call for layoffs.

Maggie Weidinger, the county's director of information technology and budget services, went over parts of the plan with the county commissioners on Thursday.

"The message, at least to the departments, is we have a really, really, really, really tight budget next year. So I think it will be important from a management perspective that departments manage their budgets tightly," she said.

Commissioners Dennis Stuckey and Craig Lehman support the plan; Commissioner Scott Martin opposes it.

Stuckey presented the tax increase, raises and cuts late last month after he said a plan offered by Martin was likely to mean layoffs and affect county services.

Martin's plan had sought cuts of 5 to 10 percent and didn't include raises or a tax increase.

Under the plan being considered, for a home assessed at the county average of $148,000, a property owner would pay about $553, or about $48 more, next year. The millage rate would increase from 3.416 to 3.741.

Lehman said the county has been financially responsible, citing cuts and ongoing savings of about $10.6 million.

"What the county really has done is cut more than $1 for every $1 of revenue that's being proposed for 2013," he said.

"... You would be hard pressed to find any government, at any level, that has been so fiscally disciplined anywhere, in my opinion," he said.

Lehman, saying he read recently that private sector raises are projected at 3 percent, called the 2.75 percent raises for county employees conservative.

Martin countered "employees have made out quite well in the five years that we've been here compared to our private sector colleagues."

He also said departments that don't fall under the commissioners' control have to look for savings.

"Five years of cost savings and ideas shouldn't be just from Dennis and I," he said.

Looking to the future, Weidinger said, expenses likely will increase in 2015. For instance, she said, the county is facing a reassessment in 2017 and that may be performed in-house.

The budget will be presented to the public Monday at 6 p.m. and is scheduled for adoption Dec. 31.
dnephin@lnpnews.com