LEWISTON – Councilors will send city staff back to their budgets looking for ways to cut a bit more.

“Our department heads are smart people,” Councilor Robert Reed said. “They know what they need to have to work and they know what they can squeeze a bit more to save some money. I say we set an amount and see what they can come up with.”

Councilors so far have trimmed about $785,000 from the city’s fiscal year 2009-10 budget since City Administrator Jim Bennett first presented it in February. It still calls for $277,730 in spending increases that would boost property taxes. As it stands, Lewiston’s tax rate would increase by about 15 cents, raising taxes by about $13.72 per year on the average home.

Councilor Larry Poulin presented councilors and Bennett with a list of 40 proposed changes to the budget that could potentially trim an additional $68,662.

“These are not big cuts, but they do add up,” Poulin said. Poulin’s cuts include reductions in some equipment repairs, snow removal cuts, overtime reductions and similar belt tightening. He also aims to trim $8,815 in 11 departments by reducing the number of city-funded cell phones.

“The city operated before cell phones were invented,” Poulin said. “There are land line telephones and radios we can use. I think we can get along.”

Bennett said he needed time to look over Poulin’s list, and planned to review them with councilors at Thursday’s budget workshop.

“Just looking at it, it looks like we have either the chief of police or the deputy chief with no cell phone,” Bennett said. “I don’t think we want to do that.”

Councilors said they would take Bennett’s report and determine how much more they needed to cut to keep taxes from increasing.

“Then we can set a rate for all of the departments, and we can tell them to just find a way to cut 2 or 3 percent,” Councilor Denis Theriault said.

Councilors are getting close to their budget deadline. According to the City Charter, they need to adopt the budget by the end of May. They’ll meet again Thursday to review the proposed Lewiston Auburn 911 budget. They have a regular business meeting scheduled in one week and another budget workshop meeting scheduled for May 7. They’re scheduled to adopt the budget on May 19.

Councilors said they hope to review proposed department head cuts at the May 7 meeting.