Four people.

            That's how many showed up to speak on December 7, at the only hearing on the 2007 Monroe County budget prior to the County Legislature's vote.

            That vote was to take place on December 12, as this issue of City Newspaper was going to press. But given the Republicans' strong control of the legislature, the vote would be almost a formality. And given the small interest in the budget hearing, the public may not care.

            Maybe there was a low turnout because everyone trusts the Brooks administration to create a great budget. Or maybe people don't believe that their input would make a difference.

            But there could be another reason: that hardly anyone has a good handle on what's in the budget. For the first time in recent years, the proposed budget was released after the fall elections. That left scarcely a month for the public to review it, ask questions, and make recommendations before the legislature's deadline for voting on it.

            Dr. Jeff Kaczorowski, executive director of the Children's Agenda, suggested as much at last week's hearing. Kaczorowski is one of a few in the non-profit sector who reliably provide analysis of the budget at the annual hearing. This year, he said, he'd only just finished his analysis the morning of the hearing.

            Kaczorowski had mostly kind words about the budget itself. But he did say that the county relies too heavily on foster care, which, he said, is neither the most effective nor the least expensive way to serve most children.

            Kaczorowski also said that the county doesn't have enough staff in Child Protective Services. Since 2003, child-protective reports have risen by 14 percent, he said, while staff levels have remained the same. In July 2005, the scalding death of 2-year-old AJ Gibson made headlines. While investigations found that the county wasn't directly to blame, the state faulted it for lax oversight. And according to a survey of child-protective caseworkers earlier this year, many caseworkers blamed the oversight problem in part on inadequate staff levels. The average caseload for investigators in 2005 was 25, more than double the recommended 12.

            Criticism from Jim Volpone, head of the Civil Service Employees Association (the union with the most county employees), paralleled Kaczorowski's.

            "We're getting to the point where we believe the county is losing money because of the lack of staff," Volpone said. Without enough staff to properly evaluate applications for social services, he said, staff members often make mistakes. Sometimes they approve benefits that ought to be denied, which costs the county money. Other times they deny benefits that should be granted. And if those residents are eligible for the benefits, they often apply again. That creates additional work.

            Prior to the public hearing, Budget Director Bill Carpenter discussed the proposed budget before members of the legislature's Ways and Means Committee. It was mostly a boilerplate presentation, but the question and answer session between administration officials and legislators revealed one interesting tidbit.

            The county has cited a $24 million revenue item that balances the budget. In the budget document, mention of the sources of this money is vague. County officials have identified a few of them, including the sale of electricity generated at the Mill Seat Landfill and the leasing of bandwidth on the Pure Waters Districts' fiber-optic network. (At Thursday's hearing, county officials acknowledged that they're also considering selling the county's tax liens.)

            What's interesting is that in the case of the Mill Seat electricity and the bandwidth, officials admitted that the money would come not from the sale or lease of those assets, but from "securitization."

            Rather than directly selling the energy from Mill Seat or leasing the excess bandwidth, the county would sell off the rights to the revenue stream for a lump-sum payment. Then, instead of receiving payments each year from those who bought the energy or leased the bandwidth, depending on how the deal was structured, the county would get a single payment, next year, from the sale of the rights to each of those revenue streams. It would use those single payments to close the 2007 budget gap. And it wouldn't receive revenue in the subsequent years.

            "It's a classic one-shot financing technique," said Finance Director Steve Gleason.

            Based on unsolicited bids, Gleason said, county officials estimate that they could fetch between $13 million and $16 million for the sale of tax liens.

            By selling the rights to the revenue from the Mill Seat electricity for the next 10 years, the county could get between $3.7 million and $4.3 million. And selling the rights to the revenue from a 10 or 20-year lease of the fiber-optic network could net between $10 million and $20 million, according to Gleason.

            That would total more than the $24 million needed to close the budget gap. "It is our hope that we don't have to exercise all of these revenue opportunities," said Gleason.

            Whether they do use them all or not, they'll be in the same position next year. While these one-shots close the budget gap this year, they do nothing to address the continuing growth in expenses.

            Gleason, Carpenter, and Maggie Brooks herself all use that problem to push their chosen solution --- a sales tax hike coupled with a mechanism whereby the state takes most of the county's sales tax revenue and pays its Medicaid bills. But important partners like the City of Rochester and many towns and school districts in the county aren't on board with Brooks' plan.