CROWN POINT | Lake County's refusal to submit to a state-foisted income tax last year is responsible for the millions in cuts the county government now must make, some officials proclaimed Thursday.

And as if by a circular chain reaction, one county commissioner believes those same budget cuts may force the county to adopt the very same income tax it once opposed as taxpayers experience cuts in service.

The Lake County Council already has found millions of dollars in spending reductions for next year and expects to press forward for millions more this coming week.

Surveyor George Van Til was at the head of a line Thursday of officeholders and department heads offering up their own spending reductions.

"My cuts include two full-time positions, a vehicle and part-time expenses -- and it totals $475,000," Van Til said.

Councilman Larry Blanchard, R-Crown Point, said the county fairgrounds, the health department, and the Ross and Calumet township assessors were among others offering cuts toward a goal of $15 million in reductions before year's end.

"We have still got a good $7 million to $8 million to go, but we're closer than we were at the start on Aug. 5," Blanchard said.

County Commissioner Gerry Scheub, D-Schererville, said Thursday he believes taxpayers can thank him and Commissioner Fran DuPey, D-Hammond, for starting this wave of budget slashing for their vetoing last year of a proposed 1 percent county income tax.

An income tax, paid by county residents and workers, would have raised about $80 million and ended a state-mandated freeze on the county's property tax levy.

"You wouldn't be seeing all this activity if we hadn't stood our ground," Scheub said. "Fran was under a lot of pressure to change her vote, and I admire her courage."

But Commissioner Roosevelt Allen, D-Gary, the sole commissioner to support last year's income-tax push, said he believes pressure for such a tax will build next year when the public is faced with massive service cuts resulting from a state-forced reduction in property taxes.

"With the rising cost of oil, and salt and other products, I don't see how we are going to continue to operate under those circumstances unless we adopt (an income) tax," Allen said. "We don't have enough revenue in our budget to respond to any local emergency.

"Griffith was asking for money, and we didn't have any," Allen said, referring to severe storms and a tornado last week that decimated parts of the town. "An income tax is our only other source of alternative revenue."