New London — The City Council passed the first reading of a newly revised budget Monday that reduces at least some of the expected pain for taxpayers.

The $90.8 million spending plan would raise the city’s tax rate by 4.2 mills instead of the 6.1 mills associated with Mayor Michael Passero’s “worst-case scenario” spending plan presented in March. A mill is equal to $1 for every $1,000 of assessed property value.

Passero pulled from the city government budget a $2.2 million contribution to the teacher’s retirement fund to accomplish the savings and help cut the tax hike. He said he anticipated a rejection by the state legislature of Gov. Dannel Malloy’s unpopular plan to shift one-third of the cost of the teacher’s pensions from the state to municipalities.

“I put it in (the proposed budget) a month ago because we had less information on what the odds were that it would pass,” Passero said. “A month later, we’re not getting any information there is support for it.”

Much of the proposed tax hike is associated with the loss of state aid, including a projected drop of more than $2 million Educational Cost Sharing grant revenue. The city also faces a $600,000 increase in debt service, $450,000 hike in health insurance, $470,000 increase in contributions to the Connecticut Municipal retirement System and $325,000 hike in personnel costs.

The city also is increasing its funding to the school district by $1 million to help offset similar losses in state aid in the school district.

The $49.1 million city government and $41.7 million school spending proposals next will move to the Board of Finance for consideration. The City Council still will have an opportunity to suggest further changes.

The city government budget passed with a 5-2 vote on Monday. Councilors Erica Richardson and John Satti each voted against it but for different reasons.

Satti voted against both funding plans and said he remains steadfast to his belief the council should work to make cuts in both proposals. “I don’t plan on supporting any tax increase this year,” he said.

Richardson took issue with the mayor’s decision to pull all of the $514,960 funding for school building maintenance for the city’s eight schools and Board of Education offices.

Councilor Martha Marx responded by reading from the city ordinance, which she said indicates the school district is responsible for budgeting for its own maintenance.

“So I think we have been doing it wrong and I think by putting it in the school budget, we are doing it correctly,” Marx said.

Richardson noted, however, that the maintenance money was not shifted to the school budget but simply eliminated. She said the school district is wrestling with its own budget shortfalls and worried that programming might suffer if the district needed to suddenly shift around money to cope with unanticipated maintenance costs.

“What I’m more concerned about is the astronomical amount of money we spent on the schools if we’re not going to maintain them,” she said. “If it’s not in anyone’s budget, then that’s where the concern falls.”

Passero said he had notified the school district of the defunding and said the city and school district planned to work together to figure out a way to fund maintenance going forward.

“The goal is to have sufficient funds set aside to protect our investments,” Passero said. “We are not just passing off the responsibility to the Board of Education.”

He also said it is likely that the state aid to the school district could be higher than initially projected.

Last year the school district budgeted $111,576 for maintenance — mostly for things not covered by city funding, such as fire extinguisher and extermination services, floor maintenance and parking lot, boiler and alarm repairs. The school board has increased funding in its proposed budget for 2017-18 to $338,585.

g.smith@theday.com