It's taken awhile, but Democrats have finally brought out the big gun - the one that I've been waiting for - to counter County Executive Maggie Brooks' budget proposal: a financial control board.

"We must change the way the county is managing its finances or have a control board or bankruptcy," says Democratic Minority Leader Harry Bronson.

The county's debts and obligations could equal its assets - cash, investments, property, and so on - within 10 years, Democrats say. (That's a bad, bad thing.)

For the record, Democrats say that don't want a control board. Local politicians of all parties would have to sacrifice local input, they say.

They spelled all this out during a press conference this morning. Along with their dire warnings, they criticized the Brooks administration's reliance on one-shot revenues to balance budgets. They reiterated that they think that the county should re-evaluate some leases and try to limit departmental spending.

County spokesman Noah Lebowitz defended the county executive's proposal, saying it's better to use one-shots if they're available than to raise taxes. Under the plan, the county would fill a $32-million budget gap by selling tax liens and future revenues from payment in lieu of taxes (PILOT) agreements. Democrats, he says, have offered no real reforms or solutions.

"Saying that we should reduce spending by a certain amount is not a serious budget proposal," Lebowitz says.

Getting back to the idea of a control board, it's unlikely that Monroe County will see one in the near future, especially since Democrats don't want it and they'd be the ones most likely to press their Albany colleagues for it.

Erie County got its control board during the chaos surrounding then-County Executive Joel Giambra's 2005 budget proposal. The county was facing a large budget gap, but legislators couldn't agree on the exact size. To fix it, Giambra proposed drastic cuts - closing libraries and eliminating the sheriff's road patrol among them - or raising the sales tax.

That backfired. Legislators asked the State Comptroller's Office to audit the county, which found a budget gap of $118 million -higher than anyone thought. The office's report also criticized a pattern of misleading revenue and spending figures and recommended the control board. The State Legislature and the governor followed through.