LEWISTON — Councilors finished their budget Tuesday night, but they left a loophole in case the state budget requires them to make deeper cuts.

Councilors voted unanimously to approve a $43 million spending plan for city operations and a $54.5 million school spending plan. The overall budget would set the tax rate at about $26.05 per $1,000 of property value — a $39 increase on the tax bill for a $150,000 home.

City Administrator Ed Barrett said an $888,000 reduction in state revenue sharing was one of the cuts the city had to deal with and councilors may not be finished. The state Legislature hasn’t adopted a final budget and some proposals call for deeper cuts in money to Maine’s municipalities.

“We recognized that we are adopting this budget based on current law,” Barrett said. “Should the state not fund those municipal support programs, we would come back and start over.”

Barrett added a paragraph to the end of the council’s budget resolution requiring them to review the budget with an eye toward changes within 60 days of the Legislature adopting the state’s final budget.

“We will try to mitigate the impact on the tax rate,” Barrett said.

Barrett said he was pleased with work on both city and school budgets. On the city side, councilors started working on a budget in March with a budget that called for a 2.1 percent increase in overall spending compared to the 2012-2013 fiscal year.

The budget approved Tuesday reduced city spending 2.2 percent.

“So on the city side, our operating budget is spending more than $700,000 less this year than we did last year,” Barrett said.

School officials began the budget year calling for a 7 percent increase in spending. That was reduced to 5.3 percent in the budget approved.

“The net result is that we started with a tax rate increase of $1.15 and it’s now down to 26 cents,” Barrett said. “That’s an increase of less than 1 percent and it’s an accomplishment we should all take some pride in.”

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