AUBURN — City Manager Clinton Deschene’s proposed $1.3 million in budget adjustments did just what councilors wanted, reducing a proposed tax rate increase to 25 cents for both city functions and Auburn schools.

Councilors on Monday set it aside anyway, voting down Deschene’s proposals and tabling work on the city’s budget until a May 19 meeting.

“I just think it was too much in the staff cuts,” Councilor Leroy Walker said after the meeting. “I think we have too much in spending for overtime and I want to tackle that instead of talking about staff reductions.”

Councilors will take the matter up again and vote on the proposed school budget at that May 19 meeting.

Auburn’s City Council is considering a draft 2014-15 budget that calls for $76.4 million in total spending — $38.6 million in school spending and $37.9 million for city departments.

That would push the tax rate up about $1.05 per $1,000 of property value and collect more than $41 million in property taxes. Property taxes on as $150,000 home would rise $157.50, based on that proposed budget.

Councilors have said they want to keep any tax increase below the inflation rate. That would require $1.7 million in cuts from the proposed municipal budget and $300,000 from the schools.

Deschene said Monday that his proposed budget amendments met those requirements and restored some popular services. Curbside recycling would be back at current twice monthly levels. Deschene said the city would hire an outside contractor to do that work, with an eye toward expanding to a weekly automated curbside recycling in 2015 or 2016.

Deschene’s amendments would have reduced training in many departments, done away with a $4,500 plan to provide tablet computers for city councilors and cut most services shared with Lewiston.

“I did what I could to sustain the council’s directive of $1.7 million,” Deschene said.

His proposed cuts would have reduced the city’s property tax rate by 14 cents per $1,000 of property value. Combined with a proposed 39-cent tax rate increase for schools, it would increase the city’s property tax rate by 25 cents per $1,000 of value. That’s about $37.50 more for a $150,000 home.

Councilor Adam Lee said he voted against Deschene’s amendments because the council was being asked to vote on it as a block. He wanted to consider items on the list line-by-line.

Walker and Councilor Tizz Crowley agreed, and presented their own list of 98 budget amendments. They’ll all likely be brought back before councilors at the May 19 meeting.

Walker said most of his proposed amendments were aimed at targeting city staff overtime. He reduced overtime in most department budgets, putting that part of expense in a special account controlled by the city manager.

“I don’t want to take it all away, I just want to put more oversight into how they use it,” Walker said.

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