Mercer County budget vote moved to Dec. 18.

MERCER, Pa. – Mercer County commissioners have moved final adoption of the 2009 county budget from Dec. 4 to Dec. 18 to allow more time to meet with department heads and try to cut costs.

The preliminary budget is available at the courthouse for public inspection.

In the meantime Fiscal Director John Logan is meeting with department heads to trim budget requests. Logan told commissioners Wednesday he hopes to cut some money out of requests to meet the anticipated increase of $219,000 in employee health costs next year.

Some of next year’s insurance rates will not be announced until next spring. But Logan based his figure on the 7.5 percent increase already announced from the insurance providers that cover about 40 percent of the employees.