Members of the Hallowell Finance Committee have asked City Manager Gary Lamb to work with department heads to find an additional 7% to 10% in spending to freeze in the current municipal budget, beginning a final push in a four-month effort to limit increases to property taxes. The next Hallowell City Council meeting is scheduled for this Monday at City Hall at 1 Winthrop St., shown above in 2016. Andy Molloy/Kennebec Journal file

HALLOWELL — Finance Committee members have asked Hallowell City Manager Gary Lamb to work with department heads to find an additional 7% to 10% in spending to freeze in the current municipal budget, beginning a final push in a four-month effort to limit increases to property taxes.

Councilors voted last month to save a substantial portion of city spending to roll over to next year’s budget. Earlier plans to immediately reduce taxpayer burden after a 20% property tax increase this summer were deemed illegal, so city officials froze funds as next year’s tax rate.

Lamb’s instruction to come up with new cuts is not new: In August, the City Council asked Lamb to work with department heads to propose about $70,000 in cuts to the budget.

Lamb’s suggestions were scheduled to be considered at the following meeting, on Sept. 9, but councilors learned during the meeting that the city could not reduce taxes during the current fiscal year and decided to pause discussion on cutting the budget.

At-Large Councilor Maureen AuCoin, also a member of the Finance Committee, proposed Wednesday to make a percentage cut, rather than continue to amend line items in the budget.

“We say that each department has to come up with 10% cuts, and that would be the goal, with a minimum of 7%,” AuCoin said. “And then, we as a council back away and stop micromanaging. We allow the city manager to have the opportunity to make some of those changes, as well as the responsibility to be responsible for those changes.”

The cuts would exclude departments with fixed costs, such as debt service, salaries and benefits, along with departments whose spending has already been cut by more than 10%.

The Finance Committee, which includes Ward 1 Councilor Kate Dufour, Ward 2 Councilor Michael Frett and AuCoin, asked Wednesday for the new spending freeze, including the $190,000 the City Council approved last month, in front of about 20 Hallowell residents, many of whom have been attending meetings consistently since the tax increase was passed.

Some residents expressed similar concerns to those voiced during previous meetings. John McNaughton, a vocal opponent to the tax increase, said he would like to see the City Council make more than a 10% budget reduction, and aim for what residents sought with their original petition: The equivalent of a tax increase of 10% or less.

To help accomplish these goals, McNaughton said, the council would need to freeze about $340,000 in spending, on top of the $190,000 approved last month, which he said would require cutting from some of the city’s more critical departments.

“I appreciate that we’re dealing with some of these things now, because if you do the math out over time, double-digit increases literally just become unsustainable,” McNaughton said. “And in some of the conversations that I’ve had with people, things such as the Fire Department, the Police Department and some of these critical infrastructure departments start to be put on the table for discussion.”

Dufour, the chair of the committee, said near the end of the meeting that she expected Lamb to come up with about $150,000 in new cuts, much less than what McNaughton had recommended.

Any newly proposed frozen spending would need to be approved by the full City Council, but committee members and Lamb agreed that preparing numbers by this Monday, when the council is scheduled to hold its only meeting in December, was unrealistic. Lamb said the council might need to hold an additional meeting Dec. 16 to finalize the spending freeze.