Boasting of yet another year with no property tax increase, Allegheny County Council yesterday approved a $773.5 million budget for 2010.

County Executive Dan Onorato said the spending plan reflects a $10.8 million or 1.41 percent increase over the current fiscal budget. He called it the starting point for a strategy of long-term financial stability.

"The story here is that for the ninth year in a row now, this council has not raised property taxes even as all our neighboring counties continue to raise taxes," said council President Rich Fitzgerald, D-Squirrel Hill.

Council members Matt Drozd, R-Ross, and Chuck McCullough, R-Upper St. Clair, voted against the appropriations and capital expenditure portions of the budget, respectively.

The one factor that most likely could destabilize county finances in the next few years, if not months is the impending court-ordered reassessment of all 575,000 properties in Allegheny County by 2014.

Common Pleas Judge R. Stanton Wettick Jr. this afternoon is scheduled to hear from county officials about the preparations to implement a property reassessment he ordered last month.

The Onorato administration, which has long resisted any attempt to reassess property -- partly citing the lack of about $30 million needed to fund a reassessment -- has so far requested no funding to comply with Judge Wettick's order, said Councilman William Robinson, chairman of the budget committee.

In September, Mr. Onorato said the county's long-standing practice of balancing its finances with one-time revenue sources is a thing of the past.

Starting in 2011, Mr. Onorato said, he placed the county on a path to realize about $30 million annually from cost savings and new revenue sources.

Those include: $7 million in reduced county debt payments; $5 million in county host fees from the Rivers Casino on the North Side; $3 million from projected revenue from the sale of Marcellus shale rights; $4 million from contributions by nonprofit organizations and annual utility savings of $1 million.

The 2010 budget, however, relies on a one-time revenue source -- an impending receipt of $30 million from the state in reimbursements for capital improvement projects.

Last year, the county enacted drink and car rental levies to close a budget gap in the form of its $30 million subsidy to the Port Authority.

The county's capital budget of $92.6 million provides $41.4 million for bridge construction, maintenance, repair and design, including $19.7 million to complete the rehabilitation of the Rankin Bridge.

It also includes $9.6 million for the rehabilitation of Jack's Run Bridge No. 1, which connects Bellevue and Pittsburgh, and $1 million for construction of a new bridge over active railroad tracks in McKeesport to connect Lysle Boulevard and Industry Road.

The county parks system will receive $10.5 million in capital and maintenance projects for the 12,000-acre system.

That includes $4.8 million to remove sediment from North Park Lake and restore its ecosystem, as well as $1.5 million to renovate the South Park wave pool.

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