EVERETT — Mandatory furlough days, a hiring freeze and other cost-saving measures took effect for Snohomish County after the County Council voted unanimously to approve them today.

The budget cuts had been a focus for county officials since County Executive Aaron Reardon projected earlier this month that revenues would fall $6.7 million short of estimates. That meant cutting about 3 percent from the county’s $206 million general fund budget.

“This may not be the end of some difficult choices,” Chairman Mike Cooper said. “There’s no promise because we don’t know where this economy is going.”

The council approved by a 5-0 votes a hiring freeze and another ordinance with a host of cost-saving measures.

The bulk of the savings come from 11 unpaid furlough days for county workers – about a 4 percent pay cut for each one. Since employees in the sheriff’s office and at the jail are exempted, their departments are being asked to make cuts from their personnel budgets.

While the ordinance puts the furlough days into effect for unrepresented employees, unions must still vote to approve them. The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, which represents about 60 percent of the county’s 2,900-member workforce, was expected to vote on ratifying a furlough agreement this week.

The ordinance also aims to save $1.3 million by paying for traffic policing with money normally set aside for building and maintaining county roads. Another $900,000 could come from contributing less to employee pension plans.

A hiring freeze also was expected to save about $300,000. The council approved a combination of proposals from Reardon and County Councilman Brian Sullivan.

The final version applies to all county departments with exemptions for temporary election and fair workers; for public works positions to allow them to start more easily on new projects; and county airport workers because they are funded separately from the general budget.

While county councilmen worried aloud that the poor economy would force them to repeat the budget-cutting exercise later this year, Reardon’s office didn’t agree.

“We made very conservative estimates,” said Reardon’s spokesman, Christopher Schwarzen. “Our goal is to do this once to get through 2009.”

Noah Haglund: 425-339-3465, nhaglund@heraldnet.com.