AUBURN – A new city spending cap is a ceiling, not a goal line, according to Mayor John Jenkins.

“We don’t have to spend it all,” Jenkins said. “The point is to try and stay well under it.”

Councilors agreed to a cap on city spending that’s tied to the national Consumer Price Index for the previous year. For the coming budget year, that’s 3.2 percent.

Councilors are currently working through their city budget. Municipal spending, which includes police, fire, public works and other general government, is below that cap. City Manager Pat Finnigan’s budget calls for a $786,357 increase, or about 2.89 percent.

The budget proposed by the Auburn School District calls for a 5.02 percent increase. Combined with shared services with Lewiston and Androscoggin County’s share, Auburn’s overall budget would increase about 4.34 percent.

The city will have to trim about $719,024 off of the total city budget to come in below the cap.

“It doesn’t sound like a lot,” Councilor Bruce Bickford said. “When you hear 3 percent, it doesn’t seem like a lot from the city’s point of view. But it amounts to 73 cents on the tax rate.”

That’s about $140 more on the average tax bill, Bickford said.

Bickford argued for making the tax cap tougher, requiring a five-person majority on the City Council to go beyond it.

Councilor Ray Berube wanted to know why any council should be allowed to spend more than the cap.

“In case of emergency,” Councilor Ellen Peter said. Something like an ice storm might force councilors to increase spending.

“Whatever happens, councilors need to have the flexibility to keep the citizens safe,” Peters said.

Councilors Bob Hayes and Bob Mennealy agreed that individual departments can have bigger budget increases, as long as the overall city spending increase stays under the cap.

But Ron Potvin of 82 Northern Ave. argued for a more restrictive interpretation.

“Each department needs to be held to the cap, to 3 percent,” he said. “That’s the only way the city is ever going to get its spending under control.”

Councilors will vote on the cap on second reading at their next meeting.

Consumer Price Index

The Consumer Price Index is a rating designed to show the cost of living over time.

There are three kinds of CPI ratings; an urban consumer rating, an urban wage earner rating and a more complex calculation called a “chained CPI.” Auburn’s calculations would use the urban rating from the previous calendar year. The Urban CPI for 2006 was 3.2 percent.

The current Urban CPI uses prices and spending from the years 1982-84 as a baseline. According to the most recent report, the Consumer Price Index is 205.4 percent. That is a 0.9 percent increase compared to February and a 2.8 percent increase since March 2006.

The CPI is tracked and monitored by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics in monthly reports using prices of goods and services in 87 urban areas, about 23,000 retail and service establishments and 50,000 landlords and tenants across the country.

Boston is the closest urban area to Maine used as part of the bureau’s CPI calculations.

– Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.