AUBURN – Reductions in School Department staff, a combined police and fire station and shared administrative staff in three departments would keep property tax increases to a minimum in the next fiscal year.

Creating a storm water fee similar to Lewiston’s and charging residents a fee for trash bags could actually reduce property taxes, acting City Manager Laurie Smith said Monday.

Smith and schools Superintendent Tom Morrill outlined their proposed fiscal year 2008-09 budgets for the City Council at Monday’s meeting. The budget calls for $873,220 more spending in both municipal and school operations and $453,466 more in property taxes. That’s a 1.35 percent budget increase.

Morrill’s budget calls for cutting 29.5 positions, including 17 teachers. That would include a number of currently empty positions the department would not fill, planned retirements and resignations, and a few staff layoffs.

Morrill said he notified most of the staff that would be affected by the cuts. Cuts would include: six elementary school positions, including four teachers; 6.5 middle school positions, including four teachers; seven high school positions, including four teachers; one system administrator and six system positions, which includes four teachers; and three administrators. Those three administrators include two positions that school committee members cut last week.

The cuts were needed to make a $15 million property tax limit that was discussed by city councilors, Morrill said. He was saving information about specific cuts for the 5:30 p.m. School Committee meeting Wednesday.

“We don’t even know what retirements and resignations we’re going to get, so it’s not easy to give specifics right now,” Morrill said.

Committee Chairman David Das said the final cuts were up to his board.

“Just because Tom suggested them, that doesn’t mean we have to accept them,” he said. “Tomorrow, we’ll get into the dirty work of the budget.”

Fees and savings

Acting City Manager Smith said rising fuel prices and utilities, employee benefits and public works equipment added $864,000 to the city’s costs. The total proposed budget increase for the municipal side comes to $892,081, a 3.2 percent spending increase compared to the current budget.

Consolidating positions and some services within the city would negate that increase. She suggested sharing a finance position between the city and the school, crosstraining a city clerk/city assessor position and a planning and engineering assistant. Smith also suggested consolidating maintenance of all city vehicles in public works and consolidating some parks and recreation jobs.

A proposal to put police and fire administrative operations under one roof would mean up to $271,000 in savings right away.

“We believe that there are even more savings down the road, but this would be our first step,” she said.

Finally, Smith opened the door to reducing property taxes by replacing them with fees. That could include adopting a storm sewer fee similar to Lewiston’s and creating a pay-per-bag program for Auburn trash collections. She said she would present more details on both during the next few weeks.

But Councilors Bob Mennealy and Dan Herrick said they didn’t like the sound of creating new fees.

“That doesn’t sound like property tax relief to me,” Mennealy said. “People still end up paying. What matters to them is how much they pay, not who they pay it too.”