DALEVILLE -- The slide show presentation that staffers showed Botetourt County supervisors last week was chock-full of numbers, and the numbers were grim. Halfway through the current fiscal year, the county is staring at a $1.5 million budget shortfall.

"We heard several months ago that it was bad," Supervisor Steve Clinton lamented afterward. "Now we're hearing it's worse than we thought it was."

But if misery loves company, Botetourt officials can take heart in this: Across the Roanoke region and across the state, local governments are struggling to keep balanced the budgets they adopted for the fiscal year that began July 1, even as they face the upcoming fiscal year with increasing alarm. If the fragile economy and looming state budget cuts make the next fiscal year a steep mountain for local governments to climb, the remaining six months of the current fiscal year represent a rocky and treacherous road on the way to that mountain.

Roanoke, for instance, announced two weeks ago that it is facing an $8.9 million budget shortfall, or 3.5 percent of the $257 million general fund budget the city council approved for fiscal year 2010. City officials are looking for ways to slash expenses.

Bedford, Franklin and Roanoke county officials, meanwhile, think their budgets will balance come June 30, the end of the fiscal year -- if things go right and the state doesn't yank back money it has promised. (Salem officials said they don't have sufficient revenue data yet to project whether they will hit their budget target.)

But it's difficult for local leaders to imagine the state won't ask them to make further sacrifices in this year's budget. Gov. Tim Kaine has slashed $7 billion from the state budget within the past two years, and the incoming Republican administration of governor-elect Bob McDonnell will have to find a way to close an anticipated $3.6 billion shortfall for the next two-year budget. Local governments are bracing themselves.

"I'm thinking, optimistically, we might break even," said Vincent Copenhaver, finance director in Franklin County.

Bedford County Supervisor Roger Cheek said the county is trying to spend money only on critical programs as it looks to weather the remaining months of fiscal year 2010. "We're kind of in survival mode."

The Virginia Association of Counties and the Virginia Municipal League conducted a survey of local governments this year that found that to balance their budgets, 70 percent had reduced or eliminated capital projects, nearly 60 percent cut funding to civic and cultural organizations and nearly 60 percent instituted hiring freezes. About 45 percent dipped into reserves.

In crafting its fiscal year 2010 budget, Botetourt County left vacant positions unfilled and pared its construction budget, normally about $4 million, to $700,000. And still the county finds itself looking to fill a $1.5 million gap in its $88.8 million budget.

The county's shortfall was due in part to a $344,000 cut in state funding, but mostly to a $1.1 million drop in local tax revenue precipitated by the slumping economy.

The situation in Botetourt mirrors national trends, according to a survey released last week by the International City/County Management Association. It found that 90 percent of the 2,200 local governments nationwide that responded to the survey are experiencing budget shortfalls for fiscal year 2010, and the governments anticipate a 10 percent drop in revenues from sales taxes, property taxes and income taxes. Their investment portfolios, meanwhile, are bringing in 28 percent less.

The tight budget situation in Virginia comes even though local governments said they budgeted conservatively, meaning they trimmed expenses and anticipated the recession would cut into their revenues. But on top of the troubled economy, the state's budget problems and its spending cuts have dramatically exacerbated the financial situations of local governments.

"It's a tough year, and it's getting even tougher," said Jim Campbell, executive director of the Virginia Association of Counties. "And the next few years are going to be extremely painful."