PICKENS — Though the county budget is currently balanced, with no tax increase, further rounds of state cuts could change all that.

County officials, who discussed the budget during a work session Tuesday, worry further cuts could put the county in a financial hole with no clear way out.

The county budget has been prepared using previous state funding formulas, said Finance Director Ralph Guarino, Jr.

“The House has a bill that’s going to cut that by $50 million,” he said.

If the state cuts $50 million from its budget, the county could be hit with a $1,150,000, Guarino said.

To council members, that cut is bad enough but County Administrator J. Chappell Hurst warned that the cuts may not stop there.

“If I had to guess, I’d say it will be at least that $50 million,” he said.

If faced with a $1.1 million cut, the county has two options, Hurst said.

“You can add enough millage to compensate for it, 2.8 mills,” he said. “Or you can cut another $1,150,000.”

As the budget is already bare-bones, cutting another $1.1 million will be extremely difficult, Hurst said.

“There’s nothing in there (to cut further,)” he said. “You’re talking about shutting down services that you’re currently providing.”

Guarino and Hurst have prepared a list of possible further budget cuts to make up the $1.1 million.

If Gov. Mark Sanford does not take federal stimulus money, legislators may cut as much as $122 million more out of the state budget — resulting in a $2.8 million county loss.

That cut, combined with a bill that would change the “point of sale” — the transfer of interest on property sales — could affect the county to the tune of $4 million, Hurst said.

Raising taxes — an option no one on council is comfortable with — would not raise enough revenue to cover the loss, Hurst said.

“If you get both of these things, it will take a combination of taxes and those deeper cuts,” he said.

“You can’t get that number from the cuts we’re willing to do,” said County Council Chairman G. Neil Smith.

“Do we raise taxes, cut services or reduce government size?” said Councilman Sam Wyche.

The answer could be all of the above.

Smith said, if the county is hit with the $2.8 million cut, he would reluctantly vote for a tax increase.

“I can’t see how we’re going to make the numbers work,” he said. “I’m anti-tax, but I would vote for a tax increase to alleviate some of that pain. But it’s not going to alleviate all of it. There’s no way.”

Under Act 388, the maximum the county could raise through a tax increase would be $1.2 million, Guarino said.

“That’s another $1.6 (million) you have to cut,” Smith said. “That’s painful.”

Wyche suggested dipping into the county’s reserve to help meet the cuts.

“Postpone these painful decisions a year,” he said. “The climate may be different in a year.”

“What if its worse?” said Councilwoman Jennifer Willis.

Other council members said dipping into the reserve to cover operations would be a bad precedent to set.

“It’s taken a while to build that fund balance up,” Guarino said. “You can go through it very fast.”

Willis suggested staff look into the hours the county administration office is most-visited by residents, and said the county may have to shift to a four-day workweek in order to handle the cuts.

“Do we go to four days and close Friday? I think probably not,” Willis said. “Do we close Monday? Do we close Wednesday?”

Council members are angry that the state may pass along such a large cut to them, stating that it means four years of balanced budgets at the county level will come to nothing.

“Home rule … required counties to balance their budgets,” Ponder said. “Legislators don’t play by the same rules. We’re pushed from the bottom by the municipalities and from the top by the federal and state governments. We’ve got some hard to decisions to make.”

Though county officials have dealt with earlier cuts by leaving positions vacant or combining jobs — eliminating 14 positions without laying anyone — further cuts will cost county employees their jobs, Hurst said.