Remember the Taxpayer Protection Act? Well, it's put the county in an interesting and possibly unanticipated position.

The TPA requires the county to keep non-mandated spending increases below the year-to-year increase in the Consumer Price Index. It was introduced by Republicans in 2007 and put on the November ballot that year. Voters approved it.

But what happens if the CPI doesn't increase? And what if it decreases? That's what happened this year. Between August 2008 and August 2009, the CPI fell by 1.5 percent - fluctuating food and energy prices typically have the biggest influence on that figure.

"We're actually working with the law department on that," the county's chief financial officer, Scott Adair, told legislators during a committee meeting earlier this week. What the administration is assuming, and what they're double checking, is that under the TPA, the 2010 budget can't have any increase in non-mandated spending - things like parks, libraries, the sheriff's office road patrol, and so on. (For the record, Democrats and Republicans sometimes quibble over what's included under mandated and non-mandated spending.)

Democratic Legislator Paul Haney, a frequent critic of county financial practices and policies, agrees with that interpretation.

The bigger question, which will loom until County Executive Maggie Brooks presents her 2010 budget proposal later this fall, is how the county will bridge its usual multimillion-dollar budget gap. Last year, administration officials proposed "securitizing" - or selling off - payments owed to the county through payment in lieu of taxes agreements. It was able to avoid doing that due to an influx of federal stimulus funds.