Assuming that Pennsylvania Act 108 will be upheld during an appeal to the state Supreme Court, Butler County commissioners in office four years from now should do what the current commissioners failed to do on Wednesday. They should eliminate the two jury commissioner offices that cost $65,000 a year.

With the current courthouse staff able to absorb jury commissioners’ duties — county President Judge Thomas Doerr has confirmed that — and with computers already doing much of the work for the two elected officials, the county commissioners’ decision Wednesday was not much more than nostalgic loyalty to something whose day has come and gone.

It is not the jury commissioners who ensure that a jury trial consists of jurors with whom both sides in a case feel comfortable. Lawyers in each case question prospective jurors before seating a panel to hear testimony and render a verdict.

Two commissioners’ statements related to Wednesday’s vote didn’t prove the case for keeping the positions — one a Republican position and the other from the Democratic Party. The board of commissioners in office four years hence should right Wednesday’s error — if the current commissioners don’t have a change of heart by Dec. 31, the deadline for eliminating the positions under the current window for such action.

With Commissioner Dale Pinkerton favoring elimination of the two positions and Commissioner Jim Eckstein opposing that action, despite Eckstein’s often-stated goal of saving money, the deciding vote was Commissioner William McCarrier’s.

Last Monday, McCarrier said, “On the one hand I always have concerns about cutting costs. But on the other hand I’m concerned about removing a layer of protection between the people who are being prosecuted in the courts and the people who are being selected as jurors to hear their case.”

The jury commissioners aren’t a layer of protection when it’s the lawyers who select the jurors most likely to deliver a fair verdict.

Last Monday, Eckstein expressed the fear that eliminating the jobs would damage the justice system, or that the county could be sucked into current litigation dealing with the issue. The Pennsylvania Association of Jury Commissioners, which obviously is seeking to protect members’ personal best interests, is appealing Act 108.

Having been unsuccessful in Commonwealth Court, the association has taken the issue before the state Supreme Court.

It’s hard to envision Butler County being subject to penalties even if the law were overturned, if the commissioners acted in good faith under a law properly enacted.

Pinkerton’s position on the issue is the one that makes the most sense.

“Since I heard we have the staff to do the work, I think that’s the way we should go,” he said

The jury commissioners issue is similar to the debate over sticking with the old way of having many tax collectors, rather than handling tax collection through a more efficient central receiving point, like the county treasurer’s office.

Hundreds of thousands, even millions, of dollars could be saved over time by using a more efficient tax-collection system.

Over the next four years, Butler County could save a quarter-million dollars without the jury commissioners on board, and the savings would continue to add up beyond those years. About 20 of the state’s 67 counties already have eliminated their jury commissioners and thus are realizing the savings that two of this county’s three commissioners are willing to pass up.

County taxpayers should remind the commissioners of this poorly thought-out decision the next time the commissioners want to raise the real estate tax.