Like a parched man asked for water, Howard County is facing possible state budget cuts without the desperate devices that helped officials survive their own fiscal crunch last year.

"We made many of these cuts last year. There's nothing left except programs," said Raymond S. Wacks, the county budget director.

Faced last year with a projected $18 million shortfall for the fiscal year that ended June 30, Wacks rounded up more than $5 million by getting cash back from four county departments.

He got $1.7 million from a Recreation and Parks fund that had grown from user fees over a period of years. Wacks also imposed new annual administrative charges for services rendered to several departments.

Recreation and Parks paid another $500,000, while the fire department, which is funded by a separate property tax, paid $1.3 million. Housing coughed up $340,000 worth of similar charges out of county real estate transfer taxes it receives annually by law, and county schools gave back $1.5 million.

Combined with improving revenues and other belt-tightening measures, such as leaving 100 jobs vacant, County Executive James N. Robey was able to announce in late September that the deficit was gone, and the county's reserve - the $28.5 million Rainy Day Fund - would not be touched.

But if Gov.-elect Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. does not get General Assembly approval for slot machines at racetracks, county officials figure that the looming $1.8 billion state deficit could force Ehrlich to revisit promises not to cut state aid to counties.

If that happens, the county could be faced with the unpleasant choices of imposing more drastic cuts of its own, raising taxes or using the Rainy Day Fund.

"That's the unknown," Robey said, adding that although he hoped last year's cuts would be short-term, they may have to continue another year.

"Right now, I think we're at the mercy of the state," Robey said, adding that if slot machines are not approved then the budget situation in Maryland "will be an absolute circus."

Council Chairman Guy Guzzone, a North Laurel-Savage Democrat, said the fact that the County Council made only minor cuts in Robey's budgets over the past few years shows that the county is not overspending.

"We have been working with a clean budget without a lot of fluff," he said.

Councilman Christopher J. Merdon, an Ellicott City Republican, is hoping Howard's GOP connections to Ehrlich will help, but Wacks is still looking for ways the county can help itself.

"Hopefully, we can find some more hidden pockets, but they're getting harder and harder to find," Wacks said.

Bruce M. Venter, Howard schools' chief business officer, said that any state cuts could hurt because county schools get about $90 million in state aid.

The $1.5 million the schools gave back last year "was a stretch," Venter said.

Schools Superintendent John R. O'Rourke took pains at Robey's annual budget request hearing Tuesday night to describe how he had spent that afternoon reading about volcanoes and a dog with two fifth-graders who once had trouble with reading, but are now at grade level.

"It was a remarkable experience," O'Rourke said.

It was also a plea for money that O'Rourke buttressed with a comment that "support for schools translates directly into support for Howard County's economic life" because it is the schools that draw the big employers and their jobs.

And Robey got an earful of what people in this prosperous county expect - from more library and community college services to more classrooms.

Paul Bosworth of Worthington pulled no punches as he described the 400 homes expected near his neighborhood's crowded elementary school.

He, like others, wants three new elementary schools by 2006, and he pointed to Robey's oft-repeated statement that he has provided every new classroom for which the school board has asked.

Charles I. Ecker, the former county executive, said Robey is in a better place now than Ecker was a decade ago, when a recession and big state budget cuts came in midyear.

Without a Rainy Day Fund or the ability to raise new revenue, Ecker "got rid of 200 positions. ... The following year, we furloughed every county employee [except teachers] for one week," he said.

Robey is in better shape, Ecker said, since he is still forming his budget for next year. "You have more lead time," he said.