With no big controversy to draw out crowds of people, last night's hearing on the proposed 2009 county budget was relatively tame.

Last year, residents turned out in droves to protest a now-defunct plan to reduce the amount of sales-tax revenue given to suburban school districts. This year, there were only a few speakers - one urged the Lej not to raise taxes, while another suggested that the county look at expanding plastics recycling to generate more revenue and prolong the life of the Mill Seat Landfill.

But it's what wasn't mentioned during the hearing that surprised me.

Nobody brought up county funding for the Cornell Cooperative Extension. Over the past decade or so, the county's made steady cuts in its contribution to the agency. In 2006, the Lej approved cutting the contribution in half.

This year, the agency made a good-faith effort to retool its operation and refocus its mission, at least in part to try to get some of that funding back. But the 2009 budget proposal still holds the county's contribution at $250,000.

With a difficult budget year and slow economy, it could be that Extension supporters are relieved there were no further cuts.

Nobody said anything about library funding, either. Each year the budget includes a $6.6-million contribution to the county library system's central services. That contribution has been flat for at least the past five years and supporters have advocated for a bump in the funds. Again, maybe folks are just relieved to see that the contribution wasn't cut.

Also on the budget scene, WXXI's Rachel Ward has a really interesting story about the county's plans to securitize payment in lieu of taxes (PILOT) agreements to help plug a $33 million budget gap. A securities expert tells her that municipalities typically use PILOT income to back bonds instead. The county, he says, would serve as a "guinea pig" for this approach, and they'd be doing so in a volatile market. (County spokesman Noah Lebowitz told Ward that no municipality has ever tried this approach.)

There's a pretty likely reason why the county's not going the typical route: bonding requires the approval of two-thirds of the Legislature. With a single-vote difference in the chamber, that means some Democrats would have to vote in favor of the measure, which they probably wouldn't do. The Lej will still have to approve the sale - last night county Chief Financial Officer Scott Adair told legislators that he expects to raise $10 million by securitizing $12 million worth of PILOT payments - but that requires a simple majority of votes.