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Prince George's County Council members adopted a $2.6 billion county budget for fiscal 2011 Thursday, which avoids furloughs but may not be enough to prevent school system layoffs.

"Although we're not out of the woods, we're restoring many of the cuts we've had to make," said Council Vice Chairwoman Andrea Harrison (D-Dist. 5) of Springdale.

The budget, which takes effect July 1, keeps tax rates at the current 96 cents per $100 of assessed property value, though resident water and sewer bills will rise by 8.5 percent starting in July. For the first time in two years, county employees will not have to take 10 furlough days to balance costs. Furloughs were eliminated this year because new legislation in this year's General Assembly session provided an additional $18 million in state funding for the county.

The fiscal 2011 budget allocates $2,619,453,600 in tax revenue and state money for government expenses, a $4.3 million increase over last year. Members held hearings and negotiations for the plan for over two months.

County Executive Jack B. Johnson's budget includes $20 million for the county to build a new 911 call center in Bowie that will require voter approval in November and $1.64 billion for the county school system, a move officials say will not stave off school system layoffs.

"Let's face it, we're going to lose a lot of positions that are very important to our school system," said Councilman Will Campos (D-Dist. 2) of Hyattsville, who said more school funding would come "once everything starts rising up."

Schools superintendent William R. Hite Jr. noted the county is giving the school system about $6 million more than it originally proposed in March, and $18 million more than it did last year.

"This will lessen the impact of what we've had to do to submit a balanced budget," said Hite, who said the school board will adjust its own budget in the next month.

Johnson was not present at the budget adoption. He was attending the annual International Association of Shopping Centers conference in Las Vegas.

Johnson is prevented from seeking re-election this year to his current post due to term limits, along with members Thomas Dernoga (D-Dist. 1) of Laurel, Samuel Dean (D-Dist. 6) of Mitchellville, Camille Exum (D-Dist. 7) of Capitol Heights, Tony Knotts (D-Dist. 8) of Temple Hills and Marilynn M. Bland (D-Dist. 9) of Clinton. Dean and Knotts are among six candidates running for county executive in the Sept. 14 primary.

The budget keeps spending almost flat for a third fiscal year. Since the real estate market collapse in mid-2007, the county has cut back nearly every department budget by 20 percent, placed a hiring freeze and implemented a controversial move to furlough all county workers, including police and firefighters. Until that point, the county budget had grown by $1 billion since Johnson was elected in 2002.

Unlike other areas, Prince George's County is limited on how it can raise its revenues. Under a charter change voters passed last decade, the county is barred from raising property taxes without voter approval. The move has effectively stopped any tax increase from passing.

The county budget this year is a stark contrast to neighboring jurisdictions such as Montgomery County, where the County Council was forced to furlough workers and reduce spending for the first time in years when its budget was adopted this week.

"I realize this isn't going to dominate the news as much as our neighbors," Dernoga said. "But we worked on this early on. Our neighbors just now are making those decisions."

As it has in past years, the substantial budget negotiations took place behind closed doors in the days before final adoption. County government sources said most changes were handled by four council members on an ad hoc budget committee: Dean, Dernoga, Exum and Harrison, the only lawmaker on the committee able to seek re-election.

Johnson shifted $8.5 million in spending in the day before the budget was adopted, according to documents obtained by The Gazette. The shifts included $2.1 million more for Prince George' Community College, $3 million for the county health department and $100,000 to the county courts to allow judges to continue running a drug court treatment program that allows nonviolent offenders to get court-supervised treatment instead of jail time.

Dernoga said that in addition to finding more money for schools, the council agreed to hire 70 new firefighters in the next year to offset departures due to attrition.

E-mail Daniel Valentine at dvalentine@gazette.net