The Silver Spring Penguin

While most Silver Springers were carving Thanksgiving turkeys, the county council was carving what’s left of this fiscal year’s operating budget. Two days before the holiday, the council approved $33 million in cuts, $9 million less than what MoCo exec Ike Leggett recommended.

Most of the cuts run across the board and put off backfilling long-vacant county jobs. Other cost-saving measures hit closer to home:

• Downtown Silver Spring’s dining guide. Expect fewer copies of the annual restaurant guide to show up, now that $4,300 has been lopped off its budget.
• Montgomery College’s Campus Connector. The college hoped to give students a free lift between its Takoma Park/Silver Spring and Rockville campuses. But when bids overshot the expected $280,000 budget, the college and county council agreed to nix the idea.
• The police academy’s class of 2009. Fifteen recruits will earn their badges in January, five fewer than previously planned. That allows the county to save $172,000, according to the council and MoCo exec Ike Leggett.
• Reading material for public libraries. Almost $790,000 was cut from library stacks, which county council members chose over rolling back service hours or cutting staff. However, top librarian Parker Hamilton said in November that online and electronic reading material could make up for fewer books.

The cuts to this year’s budget don’t even touch the $500 million gap in next fiscal year’s rolls.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user Jeff Keen.