LEWISTON – Jim Bennett got most of Lewiston’s post-tax-cap government back Wednesday night with some budget assumptions and $15 million worth of new fees.

The city would charge an annual fee for fire service and a per-foot fee for road frontage. It would also institute a pay-per-bag trash collection program, apartment inspection fees, and increased fees for recreation and the library under the Lewiston city administrator’s tax-cap budget.

Existing city fees, permits and fines would also triple, under Bennett’s plan.

“When we go to a fee-based system, rather than a valuation-based system like property tax, there are definitely going to be winners and losers,” Bennett said. “Unless you pay about $11,000 per year in property taxes now, I think you’re going to be a loser here.”

Now members of the city’s tax-cap panel will review Bennett’s numbers and report back Tuesday. The group is working to build a sample budget based on the property tax-cap cuts.

Bennett presented a budget on Sept. 8 that would eliminate 69 percent of city staff, gutting the police, fire and public works departments and closing the library, the recreation department and economic development programs.

School Superintendent Leon Levesque also outlined a $24 million in cuts, based on the cap. That would mean cutting kindergarten, all arts, after-school, guidance and gifted and talented programs and grades five to 12.

Wednesday, the officials brought the government back. The latest budget would meet all state and federal mandates for education, restore 75 percent of the public works budget and all fire and police budgets. It still halves the library budget and cuts the recreation department budget by three-quarters.

To achieve that budget, the city would lobby the state to change its school funding formula and release $12.8 million in general purpose aid to education. That money could be cut by a combination of the tax cap and the state’s new Essential Programs and Services budget model.

Bennett would also revalue the city, gaining another $5 million in property tax revenue.

The rest would come from fees. New fees, Bennett said, would include:

• An annual fire protection fee of $120 per single-family home. Apartments would pay 17.5 cents per square foot and businesses would pay 25 cents per square foot. That fee would generate about $6 million.

• An annual road frontage charge of $3.75 per linear foot, which would generate about $7.2 million in revenues.

• Full citywide trash collections if users purchased special City of Lewiston trash bags for $1.75 each. The city would do away with the current program. The program could generate $1.25 million

• An annual $50 apartment inspection fee by fire personnel. That would give the city about $450,000 annually.

• All recreation and library fees would double or triple. No library services would be free. The city would hope to generate about $370,000 in both departments

Levesque also called for eliminating all extracurricular sports that can’t support themselves. Athletes would pay between $312 and $909 per activity to play.

The new fee-based budget would return most of the Lewiston’s government, but not all of it. The city would still eliminate 38 employees and the schools 56 – including 18 teachers. Class sizes would increase, City Hall hours would be cut, and it would take city crews twice as long to plow and pave roads.