The Norwich City Council by a 6-1 vote Monday approved a $78.46 million budget to fund its city schools and pay the tuition of the students it sends to Norwich Free Academy high school. Most everyone involved agrees it won’t be enough to meet the expenses the school system will face in the coming school year.

Yet what was the council to do? Mayor Peter Nystrom and his fellow Republicans on the council, who hold a 4-3 majority, ran on a platform of holding down an already high tax rate. The council agreed to boost education spending by 3 percent, up from the 2 percent increase recommended by the city manager.

But it is far below the 9 percent increase the Board of Education — both Republicans and Democrats — say is needed.

The overall budget, including education and the general fund expenditures for city services, totals $126.8 million, requiring a citywide tax rate of 41.01 mills, a 1.2 percent increase. The council set the added tax assessed in the central city district, which covers the expense of the paid fire department that serves the downtown and surrounding neighborhoods, at 7.38 mills, a 10.2 percent decrease. Property owners elsewhere in Norwich were assessed a 0.45-mill tax rate to support pensions for volunteer firefighters elsewhere in town.

Moving to lower the excessive central city fire tax was a move in the right direction. But the fiscal struggle facing city schools is fast becoming a crisis.

Addressing it calls for help beyond the borders of Norwich and the involvement of state lawmakers from the area, so far lacking.

The city school system confronts a projected $1.5 million deficit, or more, for the current school year. The council has yet to decide how to pay that, even as it approves a budget that assures another deficit next year.

The school administration has faced spiking special education costs with an increasing number of students needing services and more of those needing extensive and costly help. At the same time, the district is being squeezed by changes in the state formula that saw state special education aid cut.

Health insurance costs are also outpacing revenues.

Unlike most school systems, which can find savings across their kindergarten through 12th grade systems, the Norwich school board must try to squeeze any reductions out of grades K-8. That is because the privately administered NFA sets its own budget and assesses a per-student tuition rate that Norwich and the other communities who use it as their high school must pay.

In its defense, the NFA administration notes that at $12,762 its tuition rate is lower than the per pupil costs at other high schools in the area. To hold down tuition it subsidizes its budget with a $1.5 million gift from the NFA Foundation.

However, unlike other high schools, that tuition figure does not include the transportation costs that Norwich and the other communities must pay to get students to the high school. And the expenses those communities must pay for the high-needs special education students they send to NFA, which can run well into six-figures, are not eligible for the state reimbursement provided to traditional public schools.

The solution to this problem will involve how expenses are shared by the state, including for students at NFA. And it must include a willingness by NFA to reassess how it does business.

State lawmakers need to step up.

Norwich is divvied up among three state representatives — Democrats Kevin Ryan in 139th District and Emmett Riley in the 46th, and Republican Doug Dubitsky in the 47th. Norwich is part of state Sen. Cathy Osten’s 19th District. She is co-chair of the Appropriations Committee.

Add in representatives for the other towns that use NFA as their high school — Bozrah, Canterbury, Franklin, Lisbon, Preston, Sprague and Voluntown — and the collective muscle in Hartford grows stronger. And these towns, and their elected leaders, should be concerned because if the quality of education suffers in Norwich, so too will the quality of students entering NFA.

The state lawmakers from those towns include Sens. Paul Formica, 20th District, and Heather Somers, 18th District, both Republicans; and Democratic Sen. Mae Flexer in the 29th. State representatives are Mike France in the 42nd District and Kevin Skulczyck in the 45th, both Republicans.

It is time for a meeting among these elected leaders and local officials to learn more about the issues driving this situation, laying the groundwork for a united response. The budget approved Monday fixed nothing.

The Day editorial board meets with political, business and community leaders to formulate editorial viewpoints. It is composed of President and Publisher Timothy Dwyer, Executive Editor Izaskun E. Larraneta, Owen Poole, copy editor, and Lisa McGinley, retired deputy managing editor. The board operates independently from The Day newsroom.