Douglas County government is holding off on filling employee vacancies and new hires planned for 2008 might be delayed.

Combined revenues from sales and mortgage taxes are down from projections made earlier this year by an estimated $500,000, County Administrator Craig Weinaug told county commissioners this morning.

A comprehensive review of expenditures and revenues is under way, Weinaug said. That review should take about a month, he said.

“What happens is I tend to get the bad news before the good news,” he said. “I kind of want to see if maybe the good news items offset the bad news items.”

Weinaug said he knew of only one unfilled position that exists now. That position is in the Register of Deeds office. The workload for that position is seasonal and not filling it isn’t reducing services, he said.

Weinaug also noted that the county was more conservative than the city of Lawrence was in estimating sales tax revenue. He said he does not expect the county to face the same difficult decisions the city made earlier this year when cuts were made to the 2007 budget.