Not raising taxes to shore up Hall County's revenue shortfall might just mean eliminating the county's backup plan.

A spending proposal that likely will see the light of day for the first time at the final budget hearings today comes with a number of cuts to "rainy-day funds."

The proposal, reportedly quilted together with suggestions from Commissioners Ashley Bell, Craig Lutz and Scott Gibbs, seeks to keep general operations moving on despite an $11.5 million cut.

To do help them do so, the proposal eliminates a $200,000 contingency account for unforeseen expenditures as well as $300,000 originally set aside for rising fuel costs.

It also likely cuts in half a similar reserve for expenses incurred in death penalty trials to $100,000, though county officials couldn't say Wednesday exactly how much would be cut.

"We're still ticking and tying numbers here in our department," Interim Finance Director Lisa Johnsa said. "All of the numbers are still a little fuzzy.

With or without the specifically designated "rainy-day funds," the county will begin the next fiscal year Friday with about $9 million in reserves, Johnsa said.

In the case that fuel costs rise or the county has other necessary expenses outside of its budget plan, the commission could choose to use some of that $9 million on a case-by-case basis. Spending of contingency funds and fuel and judicial reserves are approved in much the same way

Taxpayers might never notice the shifting of funds.

But it isn't what Johnsa, who once directed Gwinnett County's finances and taught governmental finance courses for the University of Georgia's Carl Vinson Institute of Government, calls a "best practice" for budgeting.

"Is that horrible? Is that mismanagement? No. It is none of the above," Johnsa said. "... It is something that I have made aware that it's not the best practice."

Fund balance sometimes helps governments get through the lean summer and fall months as the government awaits the influx of revenue from property tax payments. A good fund balance, which finance professionals suggest should be between one-sixth and 25 percent of an entire year's expenditures, keeps the cash flowing and eliminates the need for short-term loans.

"In business, you don't want to live paycheck to paycheck," Johnsa said. "You should have funds set aside in the event of an emergency."

By late Wednesday, commissioners said they had no final plan for funding the county government in the fiscal year that begins Friday.

There was a rough draft of a proposal by Bell, and there were a number of other ideas from most of the other commissioners, they said.

But no one who spoke Wednesday to The Times could say exactly how the final spending plan will look like when it's passed tonight.

"All of the commissioners have been throwing in ideas," Bell said. "There's definitely some cuts in this budget that I don't agree with. But part of this process is compromise with other commissioners. It's been a give-and-take."

Before Bell's proposal, there have been two official budget possibilities that commissioners have considered, both of which have left those rainy-day funds intact.

One plan, made public on June 2, sought to shore up the $11.5 million budget shortfall with austere cuts to county employees, and the recreation, emergency services and public works departments.

When residents cried foul, commissioners allowed Chairman Tom Oliver to officially put forth his proposal. Oliver's proposal cut about 56 jobs, but filled about $8 million of the perceived budgetary hole with revenues from a tax increase.

Oliver doesn't have the necessary three votes of support to pass that plan, though it is still officially on the table.

And somewhere, there remains the possibility that commissioners will install a partial roll-up in the tax rate without going as far as Oliver's proposal.

Aside from Oliver, who proposed a tax increase late last month to shore up county coffers, Commissioner Billy Powell is the only commissioner to publicly say he would support a roll-up in the tax millage rate.

A millage rate roll-up is a tax increase that allows the county to recuperate losses from declining property values without increasing property tax revenues from the previous tax year.

It's uncertain whether a third commissioner would come through to support a higher tax rate. At least two commissioners, Lutz and Gibbs, have said they are against a tax increase of any kind.

Bell has said he would consider a roll-up, but only if he thought it was a necessary move.

Gibbs has not returned calls from The Times seeking comment this week.

Even if all his proposals aren't adopted tonight, Bell's spending plan, as a whole, seemed this week to have at least the most support and input from other commissioners.

And though Bell and Powell both said Wednesday they had cooperated on a final budget plan, there is no overarching agreement between the commissioners.

Bell is concerned about cuts Powell and Lutz support to the Department of Family and Children Services. He is also against a plan to cut $120,000 in funding to the Hall County Community Services Center. The plan could set off a domino effect for cuts to the center, which is the umbrella organization for Meals on Wheels, the Senior Center and Hall Area Transit.

Powell also said he is uneasy about Bell's plan to transform the Parks and Leisure Services department and the government's contingency account.

"All they need is one ice storm, and last year we had what? Three?" Powell said.