The budget was approved by a vote of 7-2 more than two months after the council initially met with department heads.

Osceola's Mark Root and Lakeville's Dennis Schafer voted against the budget amendments.

"This whole budget was rammed down our throats and rammed down department head's throats because it had to be done by the 31st of this month," said Schafer. "In my 22 years on the council we always met August, September."

"It's been a long and drawn out process and its been a very complicated process that has really been filled with a lot of transparent negotiation, and that's why I feel good about it," Councilman Raphael Morton said.

35 jobs were eliminated in the amended budget. Initially the budget cut more than 50 positions.

About 20 of the jobs were already vacant.

Nearly $1 million will be saved from the 2009 budget.

One controversial cut was the chaplain's job at the county jail. Initially the budget cut the position from the sheriff's department.

The council voted to keep the position for six months.

"The issue is not if we need a chaplain or not, the issue is could that job be handled by someone volunteering," said Morton.

Morton said the council will continue to review the position and could decide to keep the position for the entire year.

Sheriff Canarecci did not attend the vote.

County Commissioner Dave Thomas said the cuts reflect the need to make ends meet in the county. The cuts from the amended budget, combined with the income tax increase should help balance money in 2010.

After that the budget was approved by the county council, it went to the county commissioners, who met on Wednesday to review the budget that was passed Tuesday night.

The commissioners approved the budget 2 to 1, but there's some disagreement as to what this means for the future.

“It not only is good for 2010, but also puts this county on firmer, more solid ground, for facing the problems of 2011,” said Commissioner Thomas, who voted yes on the budget. “The budget is 1600 lines of expenditures and obviously, in that number of lines, some people may not be happy with every one of them, but most of them are right on and they’re what the community needs."

“I don't think that it does, I mean, that’s one of the things we're trying to do is put ourselves in position to not be right back here next year, but we already know going in that our budget is about $2 million short for 2010,” said Commissioner Andrew Kostielney, who voted against the budget proposal. "We doubled our taxpayers’ local income tax recently but we didn’t do what I think was our job of cutting a little more out of the budget than we did."

Thomas says rough estimates at this point show a cut of about 40 positions, and that about 20 of those were unfilled, leaving about 20 people out of work.