URBANA -- After three years of cutting budgets, Champaign County Board members Tuesday night heard a dozen separate requests for funding new programs and positions, ranging from cameras in squad cars to remodeling the room where board meetings are held.

Overall the 12 requests, made by department heads, would cost the county $1.1 million in the first year and a total of $2 million over the next four years.

Also Tuesday, the board reduced the size of a proposed increase in marriage license and civil union fees. County Administrator Deb Busey had suggested an increase to the statutory maximum -- $75. That would generate $66,000, Busey said in a memo.

But in a voice vote board members lowered the proposed increase to $30. That would generate an additional $10,000, Busey said.

Board members made no decision on the new program and position requests Tuesday night and likely won't for several weeks. The county's fiscal year begins Dec. 1.

But in a caucus of majority Democrats held before the full board meeting, board members voiced skepticism that the full range of projects could be undertaken.

"Some of this is absolutely essential but I don't know how we'd do it," said board vice chairman Tom Betz, an Urbana Democrat.

Busey recommended that the board defer acting on any of the requests until at least January -- after the end of the current fiscal year.

Among the requests:

• -- A truancy officer in the regional office of education;
• -- A programmer in the county clerk's office;
• -- A computer-aided mass appraisal system for the supervisor of assessments;
• -- An entry-level audio-visual technician in the information technology department;
• -- $52,000 to replace an increasingly defective sound system in the  courthouse's 11 courtrooms;
• -- Staffing requests for the public defender's office, including a part-time social worker, part-time investigator and one secretary;
• -- $155,000 for cameras in 31 sheriff's department squad cars;
• -- $76,069 to restore eight employees in the state's attorney's office to full-time status;
• -- $38,000 for a fully operational county morgue;
• -- $90,000 over two years for required elevator upgrades;
• -- Nearly $100,000 to upgrade the county board meeting room to coincide with the upcoming reduction in the size of the board;
• -- $561,000 for an emergency generator system at the Brookens Administrative Center.

The board also approved a budget amendment of $15,573 to pay for the removal and repair of a spire from the courthouse that was knocked over in a storm earlier this year. So far insurance has covered all costs. Still to be decided, Busey said, is who will pay for the replacement of the spire.

Only one board member, Urbana Democrat Lloyd Carter, was absent from Tuesday's meeting.