County officials have a choice to make. In fact, they have a lot of choices to make. As they prepare the 2008 budget, they have to find a way to plug a $50 million gap. And another $50 million gap is predicted for 2009.

Legislature Republicans have been looking at "absolutely everything" - including raising the property-tax rate by between 5 and 20 percent, the legislature's Ways and Means Committee chair, Tony LaFountain, said last week. A tax increase isn't "at the top of the docket," but it is under serious consideration, he said.

In previous local-election years, a tax increase might have been a hot campaign issue. Formerly, the county executive had to present the budget for the coming year in October. But last year, Republicans voted to move the budget-submission date to November. Now, voters won't learn whether there'll be a tax increase until after the election, which this year includes selection of 14 County Legislators.

Also under consideration, said LaFountain, are "charge backs" for two programs: Safety Net and the Sheriff's Road Patrol. In both cases, only the municipalities whose residents use the services would pay for them. That would shift the costs from the county to the local level.

Safety Net is a state program for people in need who don't qualify for federal welfare support. The state and county split the costs. Under a charge-back system, the county would no longer finance Safety Net. Instead, the municipality where recipients live would pay the local share. Safety Net was operated that way decades ago, but the Legislature changed that in 1967, saying it was unfair to the city.

Since the majority of Safety Net recipients live in the city, Rochester would bear 90 percent of the costs, says Paul Haney, a Democratic legislator who represents a city district. Under the 2007 budget, that would be more than $17 million. And any talk of shifting the Safety Net costs to communities stokes his worries that the upcoming 2008 budget proposal could "whack the hell out of the city," he says.

County officials considered a Safety Net charge back during 2004 budget talks but dropped the idea.

The Democrats have suggested charging only municipalities without their own police force for the Sheriff's Road Patrol. Currently, Road Patrol costs are shared by all taxpayers, even though the city and nine towns and villages also pay for their own police force.

Republicans are examining the idea, LaFountain said, but it seems like another form of tax increase. "As a taxpayer, that's not saving me overall," he said.

While some taxpayers might insist on budget cuts rather than a tax increase, the county doesn't have much flexibility when it comes to cutting costs. Most of the expenses in the budget are mandated by the state or federal government. Cuts would have to come from the 20 percent that aren't mandated, says Majority Leader Bill Smith. Those include things like the Rochester Public Libraries' central services, the Sheriff's Road Patrol, the Seneca Park Zoo, and county parks.

The county could also try to find new sources of revenue. This year, for instance, the county finished building electric generators at the Mill Seat Landfill, which operate on gas from the landfill, and now the county can sell the power. Adding more generators in the future is possible, he said.

But many new revenue sources are one-shots: sale of county land, for instance, that would provide income only the year it's sold. And the county has pretty much run out of such sources.

Democrats have their own budget-balancing ideas. They continue to push legislation that would turn the Monroe County Water Authority into a county department. The county could get revenue from the newly-founded department ­­by sharing in its profits.

Also on the Democrats' list, says Paul Haney, who is the ranking Democrat on the Ways and Means Committee: requiring the Water Authority to make payments in lieu of taxes on its facilities, collecting Frontier Field rent instead of letting the money go to the Greater Rochester Sports Authority, and increasing use of generic prescription drugs at the county jail.

Programs to reduce jail inmate recidivism could save the county money in the long run, Haney says. It's better to shell out $5,000 up front for pre- and post-release services - such as finding former inmates a spot at a halfway house - if it stops a person from returning for another year-long, $65,000 stay at the county jail, he says.

County Executive Maggie Brooks had hoped to solve a substantial part of the budget problem through a state program known as the sales-tax intercept plan.

Under that plan, the state would pay the county's Medicaid costs, one of the county's largest and most inflexible obligations. But the county would have to give up a large percentage of its sales-tax revenue. And since the county shares that money with the city, towns, villages, and suburban school districts, there's been strong opposition.

Brooks initially proposed increasing the county sales tax to offset the loss, but the State Legislature would have had to approve it, and Democrats in the State Assembly refused to go along.

Republican legislators insist that the intercept option is still on the table, but they would have to vote on the county's participation, and the state's deadline is September 30.

Without the intercept, the county will have to look for other ways to balance the budget.

Bridging a $50 million gap is no small chore. And ending a persistent deficit is an even tougher task. It took years for the county to get to this point, and the county won't get back on track in just one year.

And it will take a combination of strong measures. The intercept alone won't do it, and neither will cuts or shifts in who pays for services or programs. "I don't see any magic bullet that's going to solve the problem," Democrat Paul Haney says.

Republicans and Democrats have their work cut out for them - especially if they want a budget that doesn't pit municipalities against each other or deepen existing divides between the city and the suburbs.

And cooperation between the Democrats and Republicans will likely become an issue as budget talks progress.

"I would hope that both sides of the aisle can come together or compromise on some of these things as they move forward," says Republican Tony LaFountain.

Fighting the intercept

The state's "intercept" program has the potential to rob local municipalities of hundreds of thousands of dollars - in some cases, millions. Municipal leaders - many of them influential Republicans - have spoken out against the program unless there's an increase in the county sales tax to offer that loss, or there's some other guarantee that the municipalities won't lose sales-tax revenue, they say. Otherwise, the intercept would essentially pass the county's burden down to local governments.

When the sales-tax increase was part of the proposal, it was a "no brainer," says Gates Supervisor Ralph Esposito. "It was not a difficult sale for the county executive when she talked to us way back when," he says.

But if the intercept is pushed through without a sales-tax increase, Gates could lose $400,000 to $450,000 - "a good chunk of change," says Esposito.

"Taxpayers aren't going to be real happy if that game's played," says Perinton Supervisor Jim Smith, who is also the president of the county's supervisors association. The association passed a resolution against the intercept.

If the County Legislature approved the intercept, Perinton's tax rate could increase by up to 40 percent, he says. This year, the town budgeted about $1.2 million for sales-tax revenue. And if the property tax rate goes up, says Smith, town officials will let the residents know the county is responsible.

The Fairport Village Board has twice passed a resolution against the intercept because of that impact. The latest, passed August 13, received unanimous support from board Democrats and Republicans.

In Brighton, which gets about $2 million a year in sales tax revenue, the intercept could cause a 20 percent tax rate increase, says Supervisor Sandra Frankel, a Democrat. Or the town might have to consider reducing the size of the police force or cutting library hours.

There's also the question of whether the intercept is legal, Frankel says. The county, city, towns, villages and school districts in Monroe County are locked into a sales tax sharing agreement commonly known as the Morin-Ryan agreement. Frankel and other leaders say that stripping local governments of their promised sales tax revenues would break that agreement.

The Erie County Legislature considered the intercept but decided against it, says Cynthia Locklear, a Democratic legislator representing two Buffalo suburbs. The state comptroller's office says that counties would be better off paying their own Medicaid costs if their sales-tax revenue is growing by 3 percent or more each year. Monroe County is likely to benefit, at least in the short-term, said the comptroller's office, because its sales tax growth has been around 2.7 percent. But Erie County's sales-tax growth has started moving toward 3 percent.

"It (the intercept) started to look like it was far too speculative," she says.

There was another reason, too: a psychological one. And local Democrats have used it as an argument against the intercept.

"To opt into it felt more like you're betting against your own economy," Locklear says.