Howard County employees will likely face another year of unpaid furloughs, according to county Executive Ken Ulman.

Howard's nearly 2,000 workers received no cost-of-living pay raise this year and lost four days of pay between Christmas and New Year's Day, while department heads and elected officials gave up five days of pay to save a total of about $1.8 million.

"Based on current projections, I assume furloughs will be repeated," Ulman told reporters after his annual State of the County speech before more than 400 people at Turf Valley Tuesday. He also said he will not ask for tax increases in fiscal 2011, but won't decide until March whether to dip into the county's $47.5 million Rainy Day Fund.

Ulman is also supporting a Maryland Association of Counties push to get a statewide waiver on maintenance of effort rules that require local governments to fund school budgets at or above this year's levels or risk major state cuts. For Howard, that would cost about $8 million more.