As reported in the Capital, County Executive Leopold will be presenting his budget to the Anne Arundel County Council this Friday, which will include recommendations for employee pay cuts as well as funding reductions for schools and libraries.   The budget also includes  a property tax increase that according the the county’s budget officer, enables the county to recapture revenues lost due to declining home values.  Members of the school board, library system and employee unions are already speaking out about the budget proposal.

The library system is putting the impact of possible cuts front and center on its website and expects a public outcry over any deep slashing of the system’s budget, Hayes said. Town hall meetings on possible library cuts drew about 850 people over the past few months.

School leaders already have tossed around doomsday options if schools received the cuts the county has signaled. At recent meeting, school leaders bandied about the possibility of furloughs, teacher layoffs and suspending special magnet programs.

“Everything’s on the table,” schools spokesman Bob Mosier said.

Some county unions have lobbied for a jump in the county’s income tax instead of another year of pay cuts for employees.