Arlington County, Va., and Montgomery County, Md., have a lot in common. Both are among the wealthiest counties in America. Both abut the District of Columbia and benefit from a tax base that consists largely of government and political spending. But in the current hard times, with both counties facing shortfalls, the two are taking very different approaches.

Arlington, facing a $50 million shortfall in its annual budget, is cutting 46 staff positions. In order to facilitate this in the least painful way possible, the county has given early retirement to 20 employees, the ARLnow blog first reported last week, and plans to reassign others, whose positions are eliminated, to slots that are currently empty.