CROWN POINT | Lake County Council President Christine Cid, D-East Chicago, had hoped to finalize a 2009 budget Thursday, but instead had to adjourn a workshop meeting with council members still bickering.

The council voted Thursday afternoon to slash more than $948,000 in current spending, including 12 full-time jobs in the budgets of the county's criminal and circuit courts, the board of commissioners, county assessor and St. John Township assessor's office, and the sheriff's work-release program.

However, council members lost ground in their austerity plan when they approved a county jail budget that added more than $342,000 to the bottom line.

They declined to act on the budget for the sheriff's police after Cid and other council members debated whether any of the sheriff's reorganization resulted in true savings or, as Cid put it, " just moving people around."

The sheriff said last week his proposal would cut $2 million in spending next year and remove 48 payroll positions from the local tax burden through job elimination, privatization and shifting expenses to new and current user fees.

Council members also disagreed about creating a new job that would entail soliciting federal money for county government projects.

No new workshop date was announced. The council must cut $15 million from its current budget by year's end because state-mandated property tax caps will reduce the county's operating revenue by that amount.

The council has until the end of November to pass a 2009 budget.