They better sign the dang agreement. YEESH! This is bull and I can't believe that it has even come to this!

This article, particularly its critical opening paragraphs, seem contorted, equivocal, and very confusing to me.

Lancaster County commissioners are expected to vote today on whether to sign an agreement with the state Department of Public Welfare's Office of Developmental Programs to administer [Who will administer? The state or the county?] portions of the state-mandated mental retardation program on behalf of the office [on behalf of which office? The department? The county? The state? Will the county administer on behalf of the state or will the state administer on behalf of the county, under the proposed agreement?]

If the commissioners vote to give up the administration duties [So it's a county program, at least parts of which would be transferred to the state. Otherwise, the county wouldn't be "giv{ing} up" anything], they'll have virtually no say in how county residents covered by those parts of the program are served because the state office on July 1 took control of the millions of dollars doled out for the program each year to Lancaster and Pennsylvania's 66 other counties [So.. the county currently has control over only a portion of the program - which they're thinking of giving up as well - because the state swallowed up the remainder {i.e. therefore currently not county controlled portion} of the program when they took control of the funding? I can only make sense of this by talking of portions because otherwise the fact that you have two conditional statements, signaled by two premise indicators - "if" and "because" - raises the question: Is it the case that the county commissioners would, hypothetically, lose their say if in fact they vote to give up administration duties? Or did they already lose this say when the state took over the funding?]
"The state took the money, but they want us to keep doing the work," Commissioner Craig Lehman said. "It's not a good situation, but I think the right thing to do for the individuals with learning disabilities in our county is to sign the agreement."

...
"The state wants to control all that money and then edict what's going to take place," Laughman said. -- Hey Jim, "edict" is a noun.
...

The agreement the commissioners are expected to consider today would enable the county to continue [So the county would retain control under the agreement..] to administer services to county residents, but it would have no control over the spending of money for those services [by virtue of the state's July 1 enactment, NOT by virtue of a vote to ratify the agreement].
Can't the state enter into public-private partnerships in the same way that the county can? Of course, the state is far removed, geographically..
And Laughman invokes the red herring of slots! Ha. Oh boy. Haven't heard THAT one in Lancaster County before..