From Palouse with love: Hanson ships slices of home to soldiers on Afghan front

A pile of Afghanistan-bound boxes sits in Doreen Hanson’s home.

Whitman County commissioners Monday authorized a $40,935 engineering study to find efficiency opportunities in courthouse campus buildings.

Though the county cut the spending plans of individual departments by 2.61 percent this year, Commissioner Pat O’Neill justified the study expense by saying it will prevent the need for further cuts in future years.

“Once we fix these things, we’re going to free up a lot of money in savings that are going to make future cuts that less drastic,” said O’Neill.

The year-long study by Seattle-base...