Published on: Friday, January 15, 2010 By Joe Slaninka

Cut!

In the midst of a looming $608 million budget shortfall in fiscal year 2011, Montgomery County Executive Isiah Leggett proposed $70 million in midyear budget cuts last week that include layoffs, reductions in education spending and the elimination of some Ride On bus routes.

“It is important to understand … I will not recommend exceeding the charter limit on property taxes in the [fiscal year 2011] budget,” Leggett said. “The county’s taxpayers continue to face their own unprecedented fiscal challenges.”

To avoid raising taxes, Leggett proposed eradicating a total of 70 county positions, 44 of which are currently filled. He said the county “will make every effort to appropriately place any affected individuals into vacant positions” and will follow all personnel regulations and labor agreements in the process.

“I think this is the first time we ever had to discuss cuts that involved positions with people actually in them,” County Council President Nancy Floreen said Monday, about potential layoffs. “We’ve never had this discussion before.”

In addition to layoffs, Leggett proposed slashing 39 Ride On bus routes. The routes that face potential elimination would be those that would least affect county residents, officials said. The removal of these routes would save the county a total of $2 million.

The first public hearing at which residents can voice their opinions on the budget is scheduled for Feb. 1 at 6:30 p.m. in the county executive office building, at 101 Monroe St., in Rockville.

Since becoming county executive, Leggett has trimmed a total of more than $1 billion from three county budgets. The fiscal year 2010 budget totals about $4.4 billion.

Last November, the Montgomery County Council made about $30 million in midyear cuts to the fiscal year 2010 budget. If Leggett’s proposal is fully passed, total midyear budget cuts would exceed $100 million.

“This is just a precursor to the fiscal [2011] budget,” Floreen said. “It’s going to be pretty tough.”

Floreen said residents will handle issues they have never had to deal with before so the council will make the budget much more accessible to them by providing budget plans in their entirety on the county Web site, www.montgomerycountymd.gov.

“We get a lot of comment on what we should preserve, but we never get feed back on what not to spend on, and this year should be no different,” she said. “Communication is a huge issue, and we will make ourselves as accessible as possible.”