Adams County Board of Supervisors members are to be commended for their unwavering determination to reduce unnecessary spending.

Supervisors have spent countless hours working to understand each line item of the budget in an attempt to micromanage it into control.

This type of no-stone-left-unturned-review is good. This may be the first time they’ve done it in a long, long time, if ever. But we’d be wise to remember that you cannot save your way to success.

Smart investment is required, in business, in life and in government.

And in this case, an investment in time and some non-conventional thinking about how that “saved” money could be best spent could change our community forever.

Let’s flip on our bright lights and look down the road to where we want the county to be. When we start doing that, we move from just “managing” county affairs to true “leadership.”

One obvious need is clear: We should explore options to merge certain government functions.

Does it make sense that we have emergency dispatchers for both the City of Natchez and the county sheriff’s office?

What about purchasing large pieces of equipment for maintenance and roadwork?

The last time we checked the county has two pothole patchers, but are they ever used to help fix city roads — which are also, by the way, in the county? We don’t think they are. There’s a territorial nature, currently, between city and county government that ultimately is harmful to our community.

Our community can be even better than it already is, but we must work together and be smart about our government and how it spends money.