PICKENS — The 2009-2010 county budget has a lot of positives, but one downside to the document has county officials sweating the near future.

County Administrator J. Chappell Hurst presented the budget to County Council members for first reading Monday night.

The $35.9 million 2009-2010 General Fund budget presents no tax increase to resident and represents about a 3 percent drop in spending compared to last year’s $37 million budget.

But what the budget doesn’t have is programs that can be cut in times of budgetary need, Hurst said.

“There is nothing left in this budget that could be considered excessive,” he said.

While a pork-free budget would be cause to celebrate in normal times, these are not normal times.

“I envision that, before this year is through, we’re going to see some of the most drastic cuts that we have ever seen in the history of this county and across the state,” Hurst said.

Early in the budget process, the county was dealt a heavy blow when officials learned the county would lose $450,000 in state Aid to Subdivisions funding.

That cut, paired with around $800,000 in downturns in funding from building codes, register of deeds fees and investment earnings, leaves the county with little in the way of additional, unmandated programs.

With little left to cut in the budget, county officials are bracing for rounds of budget cuts that are almost surely on their way.

“The way the state has been reacting, we’re not sure what they’re going to do,” Hurst said. “We’re still contemplating that they’re will be additional cuts.”

Two bills being considered, House Bill 3272 and Senate Bill 435 respectively, could have a drastic impact on the county’s budget, Hurst said.

The bills deal with the assessment of transfer of interest on property sales.

“This would not be a one-time cut,” he said. “This would go into the future. We already

know that if these bills were enacted as written, it would immediately impact us to well over a million dollars.”

The bills, which have not passed yet, would also impact the school district, municipalities and fire districts, Hurst said.

This year’s budget funds no outside agencies, he said.

“We did put that money in the contingency funds because of those future cuts,” Hurst said. “You’re going to need to cut somewhere, and you can either do that all at once by taking it out of contingency or you could deal with on an individual basis.”

Requests that were cut out of this year’s budget include funding the Dogs for Autism-program, which trains dogs to assist people with disabilities, and funding for the Vision 2025 area planning initiative.

Requests from Clerk of Court Pat Welborn for a juror room in the County Courthouse and County Coroner Kandy Kelley for a county morgue were not addressed in the budget, Hurst said.

Other eliminations include the county’s Christmas dinner, wellness programs and continuing education programs, he said.

“All those things are gone,” Hurst said.

Hurst and his staff saved some funds by not filling 14 positions within the county, he said.

While the new budget creates seven new positions, these were jobs that did not requiring adding additional funding, such as four call-in fighters for Dacusville and the Vineyards Fire Departments, Hurst said

Two new positions, a county risk manager and fire coordinator, long-time goals of council, are included in the budget, but no one has yet been hired for these jobs, Hurst said.

“I’ve done premlinary interviews, but I haven’t gone ahead and hired any of these people because I didn’t know what the status was going to be,” Hurst said. “I want to get you to say ‘hire them or not hire them.’”

Should those positions be eliminated, the county would save an additional $125,000, he said.

Council unanimously approved the budget on first reading, with Councilman Jim London absent.

County council will discuss the budget further with county staff during budget work sessions scheduled for April 14, April 28 and April 30.

Each work session begins at 6:30 p.m.