By April Bethea
abethea@charlotteobserver.com

Gambling on a stronger economy and a reviving sales tax, Mecklenburg commissioners tentatively agreed Thursday to restore more than $14.5 million in planned cuts to schools, libraries, parks and other agencies.

Among the biggest changes: Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools would lose about $15.3 million, compared to the $21.3 million recommended by County Manager Harry Jones.
The Charlotte Mecklenburg Library had $3.5 million restored, lowering its recommended reduction to $11.2 million.

The park and recreation department also had nearly $1.2 million restored.

The changes, approved through a series of straw votes by commissioners, won't become final until the board approves a budget June 15.

The restored cuts were made possible largely because the board's six Democrats voted to increase projections on how much the county will bring in through sales taxes.

That decision overrode the objections of Jones and Republican commissioners who said the move puts the county at risk if the estimates aren't met.

Staff originally projected the county would collect $99.8 million in sales taxes that can be used for county operations in the year that starts July 1. That's about 24 percent less than what was forecast in the 2009-10 budget.

Jones said next year's figure is conservative, but he said that is needed because the county has missed its projections since 2009. He said the sales tax has proven volatile, and raising the projection is "playing with fire."

But board Democrats said that given some signs of improvement in the economy, it isn't unreasonable to expect the county to bring in at least the same amount in 2010-11 as it will this year.

"We're really in a no-win situation," said Vice Chair Harold Cogdell, a Democrat. "If we're not optimistic and positive about what our future holds and we're wrong about it, then we've just put a lot of people out of work; we've just impacted a lot of programs."

The proposed budget outlined by Jones and other county administrators last month called for $81.1 million worth of cuts to departments and agencies, including layoffs of more than 440 workers.

It wasn't immediately clear Thursday how many jobs could be spared is the latest proposl wins final approval.

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