RADFORD -- Among the budget-balancing ideas floated so far this year, few have caused as much reaction as Mayor Tom Starnes' suggestion that the city's 232 full-time employees take three days off without pay next year.

"That's one day every four months," Starnes said Monday, the second time he's brought it up at a meeting.

Councilwoman Laurie Buchwald answered out of personal experience. For 10 months, Buchwald said, she had to cut eight hours from her work week. She was a nurse.

"I've been on that end, and you do what you got to do," Buchwald said. "I was a single mom. I pared my budget where I could.

"It stinks and I don't want to do it to anybody. But I also know as an individual it can be done."

Starnes said, "It's being done all over the state."

Buchwald, who spoke in support of the idea when Starnes brought it up a week earlier, agreed.

"It's being done everywhere," she said. "It's better than laying somebody else off."

Councilman Bruce Brown said that's not the choice facing the city. The exchange proposed would trade furloughs for tax cuts. The furloughs, Cox wrote in a report to council last week, could have an effect on employee morale.

Besides, Brown said, it would hurt employees more than it would help the city. A laborer, for instance, makes $22,000 a year.

"I'm not in favor of going that direction," Brown said. "That's $91,000 out of a $47 million budget with folks that are living pay check to pay check. ... I'm just not ready to go there."

-- Tim Thornton