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Montgomery County's budget will shrink 3.8 percent in County Executive Isiah Leggett's fiscal 2011 budget, the largest reduction since the 1968 adoption of the county charter.

The $4.3 billion budget, released Monday, lays off as many as 232 county employees and most government employees will be forced to take 10 days of unpaid leave.

Leggett's plan includes no pay raises — either step increases or cost-of-living raises — for county employees.

However, union leaders are questioning the legality of that decision since an arbitrator has ruled in favor of the county's police union, giving some employees pay raises.

"He's required to put in what's in the contract," Walter Bader, chief negotiator and past president of Fraternal Order of Police Lodge No. 35, said of Leggett. "He's required to do that. If he doesn't then he is in violation of the law."

The proposed furlough days will apply only to nonuniformed employees and exempts police officers, firefighters, correctional officers and others, Joseph Beach, director of the county's office of management and budget, said Monday.

Beach said county officials are recommending five fixed furlough days, taking place near holidays, and five rolling days that employees can choose. However, the details of furloughs must be worked out with the government employees union.

Leggett (D) told the County Council on Monday that his proposed budget included a "great deal of pain."

"There is pain in the budget for our community and our county employees," he said in a Monday press conference.

His proposed budget fills a projected $779 million budget hole, but Leggett said even if his budget proposal is approved the county is facing a $200 million shortfall in fiscal 2012.

Leggett's proposed fiscal 2011 budget assumes that the county will receive $14.7 million from a controversial ambulance fee that the council rejected last year.

"I'm continually miffed as to why we have not passed that," he told the council.

However, Councilman Philip M. Andrews (D-Dist. 3) of Gaithersburg said Leggett is not considering administrative costs involved in the ambulance fee and that the actual revenue generated from the fee would be less.

He called the fee "bad policy," and said it would likely cause people to think twice before calling 911.

The $450 fee would be charged to anyone who lives outside of Montgomery County and needs a county ambulance, and Leggett has said the county would bill insurance companies, not individuals.

"I don't remember when insurance companies became charities," Andrews said. "They will recoup that cost one way or another. There is no free lunch here."

Leggett first proposed the ambulance fee about three years ago, and said the county could have saved about $50 million if the council had approved it then.

When the council took up the fee last year, the vote was 5-3, and current Council President Nancy M. Floreen (D-At large) of Garrett Park abstained.

Floreen said Monday that she would support an ambulance fee this year.

For fiscal 2010, the council approved a spending plan of nearly $4.5 billion. The largest reductions for 2011 are in the Regional Service Centers and the Office of Human Resources (both 33 percent), the Commission for Women (27 percent), the County Executive's Office (26 percent), Housing and Community Affairs (24 percent), Transportation (24 percent) and Libraries (22 percent).

Fire and Rescue (2.6 percent), Police (4 percent) and Correction and Rehabilitation (4.5 percent) were cut the least.

Other items included in Leggett's proposed budget include:

- Closing the Noyes Library for Young Children in Kensington at least for fiscal 2011. Beach said he does not consider this a permanent closure and said officials want to study how to best utilize the library. "Every library has a children's section," he said.

- Reducing staffing in all of the county's regional service centers to three, reducing total work force from 30 to 18.

- Eliminating the controversial tuition assistance program for county employees, saving $840,000. It recently was revealed that the funds were misused, and the county has sued a police officer seeking to recoup some of the lost funds.

- Taking $100 million from the county's rainy day fund to fill a budget shortfall in fiscal 2010, with a plan to replace $30 million in fiscal 2011.

- An $8.5 million reduction in libraries spending, or 22.4 percent. To save money, library hours will be reduced and library staffing and hours will be reduced on Sundays. Director of Libraries Parker Hamilton said library hours would likely be reduced across the board and that libraries would either open at 10 a.m. or 1 p.m. and close at 6 p.m. or 8 p.m. Currently, libraries might open between 9 a.m. and 10 a.m. and close at 8:30 p.m. to 9 p.m., she said.