Given that it has been described as KCC's greatest financial challenge in a generation, there was a curiously low key mood about at County Hall as councillors passed a budget that will see savings of £95m and some 1,500 posts disappearing over the next three to four years.
(Passions did briefly flare right at the end of a seven-hour meeting when the Lib Dems dropped a hand grenade into proceedings and proposed that members forfeit their free lunches on full council days - more on that in a bit.)
True, the opposition parties did their bit by unsuccessfully tabling a series of amendments which, in the main, seemed to revolve around taking money from the £5m KCC has set aside for its Big Society fund and diverting it into other services but the Conservatives swatted away these with inevitable ease.
My sense is that we've not really seen how some of the budget proposals will impact on services over the year. We know some, such as the proposed increase in the fee for schoolchildrens' Freedom Pass and the ending of concessionary peak time bus fares for the elderly.
But there are no figures as yet for how many jobs will go this year and scant detail on some of the income generation plans that are set out in the budget papers. For example, over the next two years, KCC says it will bring in £740,000 extra income from schools and academies. How? We're not told. Talk to most academies in Kent and they will tell you one of the reasons they have opted out is precisely to avoid spending money with KCC.
It also sounds like there are a worrying number of 'reviews' of some services in the pipeline, which could bring further cuts. And although it was hinted at, KCC is clearly concerned that rising inflation will place some of its spending under pressure - such as rising fuel prices. Incidentally, I have hunted high and low in the budget papers for how much money KCC intends to spend on 'international affairs' in 2011-12 and can find no reference to it. Perhaps it's nothing.
The devil, as always, is in the detail. I'm just not convinced we've had all the detail yet.
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I suppose I ought not to have been surprised that the one issue that did spark some rather ill-tempered exchanges during the budget was the thorny issue of whether our 84 elected representatives should continue to have a free lunch on full council days.
But it was rather telling that emotions were running high over the bid by the Lib Dem plan for members to contribute to the costs of providing these lunches, which over the year apparently cost the taxpayer some £12,000. Such was the sensitivity of this debate that the county solicitor Geoff Wild was prevailed upon to say whether it was consistent with the council's rules on debating matters that affect them directly. Really, I'm not making this up.
A highlight of the debate was Cllr Dan Daley regaling the meeting with how he had enjoyed a lunch of boeuf bourgignon and a coffee in the County Hall restaurant at a modest £6.50.
Council leader Paul Carter was particularly irate at what he saw as a bit of opportunistic gesture politics, accusing the Lib Dems of sinking to the lows of the Daily Telegraph (although he did admit that some of the lunches had been 'a bit grandiose').
"This is the only time we come together as a group and the Lib Dems want us to bring our own sandwiches and pork pies," he fumed.
Other Conservatives chipped in with support, saying how important the chairman's lunches were for socialising, with Cllr Susan Carey accusing the Lib Dems of tabling a "mean-minded" amendment.
The Lib Dems may have a point but were rather fatally under-mined when they were reminded that many of them had been spotted at such lunches over the year themselves.
Still, a bizarre and frankly surreal end to proceedings and anyone looking in via the webcast must have been left wondering what on earth was going on.
I will look forward to seeing who avails themselves of the free lunch on offer at the next full council meeting.
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