Review of the county budget has a long way to go, but it seems inevitable that York County’s 29 cities and towns will share, in some measure, the discomfort felt by county government and workers.

Last week, District Attorney Mark Lawrence and Sheriff Maurice Ouellette argued that staffing cuts have put public safety at risk. As Ouellette told the York County Budget Committee: “When you dial 911, someone has to be there to answer. We’re really scraping to try to handle that.”

No one can complain that the proposed county budget is insufficiently lean. At $18.8 million, it is reported to be about 1 percent lower than the  budget for the current year. It includes funds to restore two-thirds of the 24 county positions cut when county commissioners faced up to a financial calamity ”“ the loss of $1.3 million in revenue earned by the county for boarding prisoners at the jail.

That shortfall resulted when the state asserted oversight over county jails, and barred the use of jail revenue except on jail expenses. It’s a limit that county officials must take into account this year as well, along with an expected decline in revenue from the Registry of Deeds.

At last week’s budget committee session, attention was focused on the district attorney and sheriff. Both made strong cases that the cutbacks in their departments are unsustainable.

The county pays for clerical positions in the district attorney’s office. Lawrence said his office had 21 support staff a year ago, compared to 14 today. His budget seeks 18, which he described  as the bare necessity for getting by in the coming year. For skeptics inclined to doubt this number, Lawrence provided statistics showing that Cumberland and Kennebec counties each handle a smaller caseload with larger  staffs.

Ouellette is hoping to fill five sheriff’s deputy jobs that were cut in September. As it now stands, he said, staffing is where it was more than a decade ago, while town populations and calls for service are considerably higher, leaving the 10 deputies who share patrol duties struggling to catch up with their calls.

County government this year used  layoffs to blunt the impact of its revenue crisis. Understandably, departments hope to recover some ground in the coming year, even if it means imposing a tax increase on cities and towns.

Although there are more arguments to come, we think the sheriff and district attorney presented reasonable budgets, and good arguments why they should be adopted.

— Questions? Comments? Contact Managing Editor Nick Cowenhoven at nickc@journaltribune.com or City Editor Kristen Schulze Muszynski at kristenm@journaltribune.com.