The 2023 Schuylkill County Government Budget and the Biggest Hamburger on the Internet

Here’s another story about the Schuylkill County government budget that doesn’t mention the specifics of the spending plan.

Instead, this is a story about trying to find a copy of that budget online.

If you remember, it was around this time last year that we were fighting to get a copy of the 2022 budget. And the Courthouse was less-than-compliant with our simple request to get a copy of the budget.

It was on display there, but who has the time to go to the Courthouse in the middle of the day to review a 70-plus page document long enough to render any sort of comment on it to the Commissioners?

No one. So that’s why we wanted a copy of the budget, which should be widely available. Well, the scuffed and groused but eventually, after as many days as they legally (technically, maybe) had to withhold it, we got a copy of the budget.

We were hoping to not to have to go through that protracted mess again for the 2023 budget. And thankfully, we don’t.

The 2023 Schuylkill County Preliminary Budget has been online for several weeks now. It’s posted on the County’s new website.

But while that budget document may actually be online, you’ll have a hard time finding it. It took us quite a while. In fact, we had a whole ‘nother story written about how it wasn’t online yet and then it was found.

The Biggest Hamburger Menu Ever

The problem with finding the 2023 Preliminary Budget was that it’s buried amid the biggest hamburger menu the internet has ever seen.

A hamburger menu, for those wondering, is found on most phone apps and sites you visit on your phone’s browser. Typically, it’s 3 little lines and tapping it gets you to the site’s menu.

On most sites, you’ll see a handful of things to pick from on the menu. But on Schuylkill County government’s site, the hamburger just keeps going and going.

Here’s what you see if you tap the burger on the new Schuylkill County site. It’s just one big hamburger. One big, very dry hamburger:

That’s the equivalent of that gigantic heart attack on a bun they used to sell at Hardee’s.

Eventually, we went digging through the menus on the site.

We started at the homepage. That would be the natural first place the County should put the budget but, of course, it’s not there.

Then, it was a search of the Commissioners page since they’re the ones that actually pass the budget. Nope.

After a lot of digging around, we ended up on the Administration Finance Director page and there it was, a link to the 2023 Preliminary Budget.

Conveniently Placed … Not For You

So, while the County did actually come through this year and post the Preliminary Budget online in a timely fashion, it didn’t go out of its way to let it be found.