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Eagle — Eagle County’s work force is going to shrink next year. But how much it will shrink hasn’t been set in stone.

County department leaders now are working to finish their 2010 budgets. Those managers have been asked to cut their budgets enough to trim about $3.3 million from county spending by 2012. That means cutting expenses wherever possible. Because personnel costs add up to about two-thirds of the county’s gener­al fund spending, it means some people have to go, too.

County Manager Keith Montag said he hasn’t seen the final work from the department managers but said that a combination of expense cuts, layoffs and early retirements will be needed to keep the county’s budg­et out of a deep hole in 2012.

The county’s administrators and com­missioners have been working since March to come up with ways to trim budg­ets for the next few years to head off a big crunch coming in 2012 and 2013 when lower property tax values are going to take at least a 20 percent chunk out of property tax collections.

The theme that came out of a March retreat with the Eagle County commis­sioners — held at the Sylvan Lake visitors center — was “back to basics.” Montag said that’s been the rallying cry for county depart­ments ever since they started work on the 2010 budget.

Montag said the department leaders have done great work to find savings. They were originally asked to find savings of 3 to 5 percent outside of spending on employees. But as the magnitude of the 2012 budget deficit became more clear, Mon­tag said it became apparent that cutting costs from office equipment, programs and consultants wasn’t going to be enough.

That means cutting people.

“It’s not something we take lightly,” Montag said.

So what will fewer people and less dis­cretionary county spending look like?

Montag said there may be fewer road-­grader trips on the county’s unpaved roads. Motor pool vehicles will go more miles before being replaced. There could be longer waits for county services. And the county’s spending on community grants — which totaled about $800,000 this year — will be cut “dramatically,” Montag said.

“We hope people won’t notice most of this,” Commissioner Jon Stavney said. “But some will.”

The most obvious place cutbacks already are in place is with the county’s ECO Transit bus system. Even after putting more than $1 million from the county’s general fund into the system this year, administrators cut service and raised fares to cover a decrease in revenue.

The cutbacks also already have hit Eagle County Clerk and Recorder Teak Simon­ton’s office. Simonton said two people left this year and won’t be replaced. In addi­tion, one person has been laid off.