Norwich — For the second straight year, the City Council has asked City Manager John Salomone to present proposed cuts of up to 5 percent of this year's $123.79 million budget total that could be enacted for the coming year.

The council voted 6-0 Monday to approve a resolution directing Salomone to propose “up to” 5 percent reductions to the current city department budgets as a target for next year’s total budget. As he did last year, Salomone plans to present scenarios with a 2, 3, 4 and 5 percent spending cut, showing what positions and programs would be cut at each level.

“We’ll put an array of options up there, and hopefully the council can pick things that won’t affect services too drastically,” Salomone said Wednesday.

Salomone said he is reluctant to ask city labor unions for concessions, since many of them just approved new contracts in which members would absorb higher medical costs. He also hopes to spare several newly hired employees, calling some of them “very important."

The move last year — which cut the proposed school, police, public works, human services and recreation budgets, as well as funding for Otis Library — led to packed budget hearings and calls to restore funding. The council did restore funding for lifeguards at Spaulding Pond, but the June vote proved too late to hire lifeguards for the summer.

The effort led to a 0.7-mill drop in the citywide tax rate to 40.52 mills, a 0.38-mill increase in the central city paid fire department tax and a 0.3-mill drop in the volunteer fire district tax.

Republican Alderman William Nash recalled critics calling the council draconian, heartless and evil.

“However, the sky didn’t fall,” Nash said at Monday’s council meeting. “The city went on. Not only did the city go on, it’s hired. It gave raises and we’re still chugging along. I’m not saying some departments didn’t get hurt and some departments won’t get hurt this time.”

But Nash said the nerve-wracking cuts made Norwich the only city with a tax reduction in New London or Windham counties last year.

Aldermen on Monday were divided over whether the budget-cutting exercise should be done on Salomone’s $126.87 million proposed 2018-19 budget, or to try to cut up to 5 percent from this year’s $123.79 million budget. Alderman Joseph DeLucia said the council should be looking to cut the new proposed budget.

But DeLucia and the other two council Democrats on Monday backed the resolution that calls for asking for cuts to this year’s $123.79 million total.

Salomone’s proposed 2018-19 budget calls for a $3 million, or 2.49 percent, spending increase that would raise the total tax rate in the central city to 52.08 mills — a figure aldermen say is too high.

Mayor Peter Nystrom said it's a common business practice to look at current spending, set priorities and cut spending.

“If we do nothing other than accept the city manager’s budget,” Nystrom said, “our mill rate downtown is 52 mills plus. That is unconscionable, and I’ve heard other members of this council say the same thing.”

Part of Monday’s resolution asked the city manager to try to identify possible alternative revenues that also could lower the tax rate. Salomone said he does not plan to propose new or higher city service fees, and he cautioned against using one-time revenue sources to offset operating costs.

Separate from the budget-cutting resolution, the council will consider an amendment to a December 2014 ordinance that set a target for the city's undesignated surplus fund of 12 percent of the operating budget total. The amendment would lower the target surplus total to 10 percent, potentially allowing the council to use more surplus funds to lower next year's tax rate.

Salomone said he would consider that a one-time revenue source. He suggested possibly using surplus funds to cover some of the tax-funded $2.4 million 2018-19 proposed capital improvements budget, which are one-time expenses, rather than department operating budgets.

c.bessette@theday.com