 Life is good all this month at Appalachian Wireless. Get the LG G5 for just one penny with signup or renewal of a two-year service agreement. That's almost $100 off the regular price. Better service, bigger savings. That's today's Appalachian Wireless. Pike County officials have been celebrating a balanced budget for a few weeks now. After today, the process of finalizing that balanced 2017-18 budget is nearly complete. In reading of the $36.6 million budget, which included a $300,000 surplus during the latter part of the budget cycle, was held during a special fiscal court meeting today, and all that's left now is to send the now finalized budget to Frankfurt. We've streamlined our workforce over the last 15 months. We just got to keep an eye to make sure we keep going forward. No wasteful spending, making sure every expenditure is accounted for and every P.O. we issue. We just got to keep our eye on the dollar. The judge executive, Brian Morris, said it's now time to look forward to the next budget. A process he said begins now. This is the first budget cycle that I've been in that went smooth. We've made budget. We're through this budget now. We've got to go to work on next year's budget. It's just as important to stay within our expenditures going forward to make budget next year. That's my goal, is to make sure that the county makes budget next year. Morris said there still remains some uncertainty with how much cold-servants funding the county will receive going forward. He said all that can be done at this point is to remain conservative with the estimates for cold-servants receipts and continue to keep a close eye on the county's dollars and cents. We budgeted last year's numbers, which I think will come in right at it. I think that's the key to our budget. We ain't overestimating our revenue. We finally got our expenditures down to meet our revenue. So as long as we keep them in line, I think the county is smooth sailing from here. The county's budget has to be submitted to Frankfort by the end of the day, Friday. At the Pike County Courthouse, Chris Anderson, EKB News.