GARDINER — The City Council has settled on an $8.8 million municipal budget without an increase in the tax rate.

The council’s first reading of the budget is set 7 p.m. Wednesday at City Hall.

City Manager Scott Morelli provided the council with two budget scenarios in April. One raised the tax rate by 1.5 percent and the other, which councilors approved last month, required cutting $692,000 from departmental requests to prevent a tax increase.

Both included a reduction in the city’s assessment for education and the county, $97,090 and $5,570 respectively.

Morelli said he found $577,000 in potential savings through 57 budget request cuts, but approximately $114,000 more in cuts were needed than his original recommendation.

Councilors “instructed staff to reduce street paving and eliminate the proposed sidewalk repairs in order to help achieve a budget that does not increase taxes, rather than to make numerous smaller cuts that I had initially proposed to achieve the same,” Morelli said.

Morelli’s original proposal would have included a 25 percent reduction in funding for Gardiner Main Street, Johnson Hall, the Boys & Girls Club, Chrysalis Place and two cemetery associations. It also would have eliminated cemetery stone setting, a new service truck for public works and reduce funding for Libby Hill marketing by $4,000.

“Because money was cut from the road paving and sidewalk repairs, we were able to fund these other items, including full funding for the nonprofits that we normally support,” he said.

The paving budget will be reduced from $175,000 to $61,500. He said the city still has $166,000, nearly a full year’s worth of paving funding, in the current budget since officials held off from doing any work last summer.

Morelli said the city had issues with the state about removing a railroad track on Summer Street. Before the street could be properly paved, the tracks had to be removed. The state Department of Transportation had given permission to do so, with the idea that it can replace the track if the state decides to reactivate this line.

“Now that we have resolved this issue, we will be using that money in the coming months,” he said. “So overall, this summer residents will see more roads paved than normal.”

Morelli said Highland Avenue is a state road and although the city does general maintenance on it, such as pot hole repairs, it’s up to the state to repair it.

“We know it is in poor condition and that is why it is the top priority that we have submitted to them for work to be done in Gardiner,” he said.

Mechele Cooper — 621-5663

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