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Mayor Ben McAdams didn't tinker much with Salt Lake County's $1.1 billion budget in a midyear fiscal presentation to the County Council on Tuesday.

Leaving most of the talking to Chief Financial Officer Darrin Casper, McAdams proposed a few additional expenditures here and some cutbacks there to keep in line with an economy that is better than most elsewhere but still is subject to global and national problems.

The midyear budget, McAdams said, "takes fiscally conservative principles and direction from the County Council. … Our funds are healthy, and we're in good shape. The economy is not growing as fast as it has in the past or as fast as we'd like to see it, but it's moving in a positive direction."

Minutes earlier, economists Doug Macdonald and Jeff Thredgold told the council they were projecting a rise of about 5 percent in the county's taxable sales this year, a respectable amount even if it's less than the 6-8 percent they thought was possible last fall.

"We're not really in the sweet spot, because the U.S. economy is not doing all that well," Thredgold said, adding an upbeat note that "We don't see the seeds of a recession."

Adding further data to the unlikelihood of a recession, budget director Rod Kitchens said the county learned Monday that the taxable value of land in the valley went up 9.1 percent since last year (8.8 percent of the library fund).

"That's pretty significant," he said, noting that new-growth valuations totaled $1.5 billion, twice as much as projected.

But as Macdonald and Thredgold pointed out in their remarks, for every positive economic sign, there also are negligible signs of weakness that keep economists and Wall Street analysts uncertain.

Salt Lake County's financial position could be better off if internet sales were taxed, Macdonald said, noting that the percentage of sales over the web went up 1 percent last year.

Given the cautious optimism about the future, McAdams' midyear proposal is looking to put about $430,000 into beefing up data security after a system breach last summer.

About $500,000 is being sought to help Visit Salt Lake do everything possible to impress an important "association of associations" convention this summer, believing these visitors hold the key to many individual associations bringing their own annual meetings here in the future.

McAdams also proposed fixing up the lobby and vestibule of Clark Planetarium, hiring four employees for the library system, adding some lights at Dimple Dell Park and approving the district attorney's request for an employee to focus on a backlog of untested rape kits.

To offset some of these increases, he also proposed a few spending cuts, such as a decision not to buy a $100,000 Zamboni for ice maintenance at parks-and-recreation facilities.

"There are challenges in our future," McAdams said, "but we're well poised to handle them."

The council will have a week to ponder the proposals before taking the budget up again next week.