Carbon County’s new budget isn’t flashy, but its priorities are pretty straightforward.

Its goals: Pay the folks who are actually doing the work, live within taxpayers means’ and cut out the long-empty jobs that skewed the payroll.

Sitting as the Salary Board earlier this month, commissioners eliminated 14 vacant positions in order to help fund a 2.5% raise for nonunion employees and honor union contracts. The move saved the county between $650,000 and $700,000 a year.

It was a sensible, tough call that residents can be comfortable with, even though they need to keep an eye on what might come next.

In addition, it was a nod to the real people who show up every day because county services can’t run on autopilot.

The commissioners decided to move money away from positions that have sat vacant and channel it toward the people who actually answer phones, file court papers, plow roads and care for vulnerable residents.

Though some might disagree, commissioners sent a simple message to employees — if you’re here doing the job, we’ll do what we can to keep your pay moving a little closer to the cost of living.

They did it without layoffs because those 14 positions were already empty. The remaining workers already picked up the slack.

Other municipalities may have used pink slips and layoffs to balance their budget. In Jim Thorpe, commissioners trimmed on paper what they already stopped using in practice.

It wasn’t creative accounting. There weren’t any tricks or shell games to hide anything.

Those who have monitored the spending plan know that authorized positions and the salaries attached to them still count toward the final budget numbers even though they’re not occupied.

Had the commissioners left those empty slots on the books, departments could shift that money to other costs or overtime. The budget would look larger than what’s really happening.

Eliminating those jobs made the budget more honest and a clearer lens to see what it actually takes to run the county at current staffing levels.

And it gives the commissioners a chance to keep future tax increases lower than they could’ve been — especially in light of spiraling health care and pension costs.

The new budget isn’t the commissioners’ first foray into keeping costs down. For about two years now, the county has been under a hiring freeze where officials evaluate whether to refill jobs when someone leaves.

In last year’s budget, the county cut six full-time and nine part-time spots. Remaining workers — like the ones who got the 2.5% raise — picked up the workload and kept the county functioning.

But all that doesn’t come without consequences.

Fewer people can translate into longer wait times for case reviews or slower permits. Employees pushing harder to get things done might make errors more common.

So far, it seems, the county is managing to function.

In the long run, though, leaning on shorter staffs to do more with less isn’t a sound long-term plan for its workforce.

This year, the commissioners did an admirable job of keeping people working, giving them a pay hike that taxpayers can afford and kept the budget real.

The real work ahead, though, is to stick to the plan: Monitor workloads, keep an eye on potential errors, do what they can to limit service delays and above all, talk to the workers about ways things might improve.

If eliminating the positions shows up as slower services or an exodus of overworked employees, it might be time to rethink the spending proposals, maybe by retraining or upgrading systems.

For now, county leaders deserve credit for taking those hollow spots out of the budget spreadsheet.

And it’s up to the taxpayers to make sure that a leaner government doesn’t turn hollow down the road.

ED SOCHA | tneditor@tnonline.com

Ed Socha is a retired newspaper editor with more than 45 years’ experience in community journalism.

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