On Tuesday Adams County supervisors announced they would send letters to all county employees, reminding them to conserve energy and look for any ways they can to save money.

That’s because the county is facing a severe budget crunch this year, with 30 departments’ expenditures already being cut quite a bit to trim the overall budget from $17,023,338 to $16,737,163.

Thankfully, that has helped the county stave off a tax increase for the upcoming fiscal year.

That good news comes at a time when, due to economic woes in recent years, taxpayers could scarcely afford such as increase.

And now supervisors are asking employees to take such steps as turning out lights and parking all county vehicles at the end of each day to save on energy costs.

Supervisors pointed out such requests are always made of county employees but will especially be enforced this year.

They’re hoping such small steps will add to big savings for the county.

It might be a pain in the neck for county employees to remember such steps.

And undoubtedly some employees are already following them as part of their daily routines.

But we applaud such steps, though they may be small, in order save taxpayers’ hard-earned money.

And we encourage over local governments to remind their employees to watch carefully the amount of energy, supplies and the like they use.

The tighter they can run the ship &045;&045; hopefully, without cutting needed government services &045;&045; the better off we’ll all be.