Norwich — When a Republican majority took over the City Council last year, members promised to keep spending and tax increases low.

In his first budget proposal in the job, City Manager John Salomone granted their wish, proposing a $123.9 million budget that represents a 2.3 percent increase over last year’s spending, and about a 0.7 mill rate increase for most town residents.

Salomone presented his budget to the council Monday night, a proposal he said is “as flat as you can get."

Planned contributions to the city's pension fund, the school budget and capital improvements were the main contributors to the spending increases, Salomone said.

The proposed budget would mean a 0.7 mill increase, to 48.06 mills, for residents who live in the central fire district, and a 0.72 mill increase to 42.11 mills for those in the town consolidated district served by volunteer fire departments.

But the mill rate increases will be offset for many city residents by a cap on motor vehicle taxes passed by the state last year, Salomone said.

A family with two cars worth the median value of $4,800 each would see a decrease in their property tax bills of about $93, he said.

That decrease should mean a lower tax bill than last year for the average Norwich resident with a home and two cars, but it won’t be guaranteed in years to come, Salomone said.

“The situation is, at the state level, tenuous, and this is a big number that the state is going to be reimbursing,” he told reporters before Monday's City Council meeting. “We hope that they can continue this program beyond a few years. If not, then we’ll be paying the difference ourselves.”

The general fund mill rate would increase by 1.78 percent — or 0.73 mills — in Salomone’s proposal.

The additional fire tax rates would go down by 2.04 percent for residents in the town consolidated district, and down by 0.42 percent for residents in the city central district.

The budget proposal includes no layoffs, but would eliminate several positions that are either currently vacant or will be soon following retirements.

Salomone said the director of planning and neighborhood services position will be eliminated following Peter Davis’ retirement last week.

“It’s an attempt to do more with less,” he said.

The proposal also would eliminate four police officer positions that became vacant this year, a vacant part-time clerk position in the Human Resources Department, a vacant records clerk position in City Hall, one vacant firefighter position, two Human Services positions that will become vacant this summer and two laborers from the Public Works department.

The proposes slashes the Board of Education’s request of $78.6 million to $75.5 million, reducing the requested increase from 6 percent to about 2 percent.

The 6 percent hike is not feasible, he said. He suggested the city could share services, such as snow plowing and ground maintenance, with the school district to save costs.

“The increase of 2 percent is higher than any increase in the general fund,” he said.

The Board of Education requested its $78.6 million budget, arguing that much of the increase would go toward medical insurance and tuition increases for special education students in highly specialized out-of-town programs.

Superintendent Abby Dolliver said last month she planned to issue notices to 74 nontenured teachers, informing them that their contracts might not be renewed for next school year pending deliberation of the city manager’s budget.

Revenue to the city was higher than expected, allowing him to keep the budget as flat as possible, Salomone said.

The city’s grand list increased by $27 million, or 1.6 percent.

The city also benefited from personal property audits and a software that linked building permits with the assessor’s office to tax property additions more quickly, he said.

A charter change in November 2015 allocated 2 percent of the budget to capital improvement projects. That translates into an additional $700,000 that goes into the capital improvement budget, he said.

“That was approved by the taxpayers — they thought it was a prudent thing, and I would agree with that,” Salomone said.

The proposed capital budget still would only fund $2.4 million of the $9 million in capital requests the city received, he said.

Salomone, who served as the Newington town manager after running several cities and towns in New York and Connecticut and working as the director of finance in three towns, said he has followed a pattern of crafting conservative municipal budgets.

“My budgets are known for being pretty realistic,” he said.

The first hearing on the budget proposal is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. April 13 in the City Hall's Council Chambers.

The council will meet with individual city department heads at hearings scheduled over the next two weeks.

m.shanahan@theday.com