Monroe County Executive Maggie Brooks has released an approximate $914 million budget proposal for 2010. Brooks made the announcement this morning.

The proposal holds that tax rate to its current level, $8.99 per $1,000 of assessed value.

Brooks said that the county initially faced a $40-million gap going into 2010. The gap was filled using $30 million in stimulus funds, she said, and $10 million in spending cuts, including the reduction of 25 positions. The cuts will be achieved, Brooks said, through attrition and four layoffs. The layoffs will come from the public defender's office, Monroe Community Hospital, the Department of Human Services, and aviation, Brooks said. None of the positions are critical to the operation of those departments or agencies, she said.

Brooks' proposal must now be passed by the County Legislature.

UPDATE: County Democrats reacted to the Brooks budget during an afternoon press conference. While the proposal holds the tax rate flat, it increases the tax levy by about $7.4 million, which Minority Leader Harry Bronson characterized as a tax increase.

Legislator Paul Haney characterized the $30 million in stimulus funding that would be used to plug the gap as "the mother of all one-shots." The plan, he said, doesn't address funding gaps that'll occur in 2011, when federal stimulus funding runs out.

"This administration has woefully failed in any attempt to have long-term solutions to a chronic budget gap," Bronson said.

Earlier today, county officials said that spending limits and cuts contained in the budget proposal will reduce the size of future gaps.