Cowlitz County’s anemic budget outlook isn’t expected to get any better in 2010 despite some signs of a national economic recovery.

“We’re not seeing signs of recovery yet,” Finance Director Claire Hauge said Tuesday, warning county commissioners of another round of tough budget decisions.

Decreases in real estate taxes and investments are expected to reduce 2010 revenue by about $930,000 from 2009, Hauge said. And 2011 revenue is expected to remain flat.

Those projections mean the county must trim about $2 million per year from county department heads budget requests for 2010 and 2011. And it’s unclear how many of the 25 new jobs requested will actually be approved.

Each department head routinely submits budget requests at this time each year, typically asking for more than they end up receiving. Commissioners balance those requests with the projected revenue to build the budget.

For 2010, departments heads asked for $39.4 million from the general fund, a 5.7 percent increase from the 2009 amount after May’s bruising budget cuts. For 2011 the requests are 7.5 percent more than the 2009 budget.

The requests include replacements for some of the positions cut during the 2009 budget reductions, which eliminated 42 positions in May. County officials had previously cut 32 jobs in December 2008.

The sheriff’s office, for example, is requesting five deputies and five court security positions for 2010 after seeing those jobs reduced or eliminated completely in 2009.

Commissioners will meet with elected officials and department heads in the next two months to discuss each request and how to balance the budget. The final budget will be presented Dec. 1.

Making budgeting harder is the fact the county can no longer use its ending fund balance reserves to balance the budget, Hauge said. Officials need a minimum of $4 million on hand to pay bills in between the two tax collections each year. The county almost had to borrow from other funds to make payroll in April and may need to do so in September — even though it has a $4 million balance, Hauge said.

“Having the ($4 million) minimum fund balance makes me very, very nervous,” she said.

“We will not be utilizing reserves to balance the budget,” Commission Chairman George Raiter said. “We can’t.”