Westbrook will be seeing a tax decrease this year, but it will not be as much as the city administration had originally hoped.

A contentious budget process came one step closer to the end Tuesday night when the City Council’s Finance Committee voted to send the budget to the City Council for final approval.

The committee voted, 5-2, to send the $47.5 million combined school and city budget to the council for final approval. Councilors Gary Groves and John O’Hara voted against the budget, while Councilors Brendan Rielly, Drew Gattine, Suzanne Joyce and Council President Jim Violette voted in favor of the budget.

Under the budget approved by the Finance Committee, Westbrook’s tax rate will be $23.43 for 2005-2006, a reduction of 33 cents from the 2004-2005 tax rate of $23.76. The budget calls for $26.8 million to be spent on schools with $20.6 million going to the municipal budget.

The budget comes in higher than the one proposed by Mayor Bruce Chuluda in April that sought to flat fund the city and school budgets, with the exception of allowing for increases to pay for new debt service.

The committee passed the city budget virtually unchanged. Councilors removed and added items to the budget, with a net effect of adding $5,726 to the budget.

The big difference came with the school budget. Chuluda’s budget placed the school budget at $25.8 million. The budget adopted by the School Committee came in approximately $1 million higher than that figure.

One of the biggest factors behind the school budget’s increase was an approximately $900,000 increase in salaries and benefits. The budget also calls for $133,000 to be spent to establish an all-day kindergarten program in Westbrook next school year.

Chuluda said he was displeased with the results of the vote, saying he felt the school budget should have been sent back to the School Committee to see if there were any further cuts to be made. “I’m certainly disappointed, and I’m not satisfied that the School Department did as much as they could to hold their budget down,” he said.

The major sticking point with the school budget was over the use of $2.1 million in additional state money for educational aid. Chuluda had proposed using the entire $2.1 million for tax relief. School Superintendent Stan Sawyer said the school needed to use $980,000 of that money to meet rising salary and benefit costs as well as to meet spending goals in certain areas targeted by the state.

On Sept. 13, the council voted, 6-0, with Violette absent, to approve a resolution saying that 100 percent of the new state money would be used for property tax relief. In passing the budget, a majority of the council said they felt they had fulfilled that promise by approving a budget that lowered the tax rate.

“We are giving tax relief to the taxpayers of this city,” said Violette. “I’ve been sitting on this council eight years, and this is the first time we’ve lowered the tax rate. We can all hold our heads high and we can look at the taxpayers and say we’re getting there, we’re trying.”

O’Hara said he disagreed with the budget, and he felt more should have been done to uphold the September resolution and use all the additional money for tax relief. “This time around, the citizens need property tax relief and that’s what we voted on,” O’Hara said. “I can’t support (this budget), and I won’t break my promise.”

Rielly said he felt the council kept its pledge to provide tax relief to residents. “There are no broken promises in this room,” he said. “We’ve tried to cut everything we can and further cuts on the city side and the school side interfere with the provision of services in my opinion.”

Sawyer said he was pleased with the results of the budget vote. “I was very pleased that five members of the City Council felt that the school budget was appropriate and they realized the School Department and the School Committee took a lot of time with the budget this year,” said Sawyer.

School Committee Chairman Colleen Hilton said while the School Committee is primarily charged with looking out for the welfare of the schools, it is also concerned about the burden it places on taxpayers as well. “My goal had been to deliver the best possible budget in the most fiscally conservative manner that we could live with,” said Hilton.

Hilton said the School Committee is already making plans for the 2006-2007 budget and looking for ways to save money next year.

While he disagreed with the budget approved by the committee, Chuluda said he would sign the budget if it was approved by the City Council. Last year, Chuluda exercised his power to veto a portion of the budget when he vetoed the trash collection budget as part of a dispute over a pay-per-bag trash collection program. The council quickly overrode that veto, and Chuluda said he does not plan to use his veto power this year because he believes any veto would once again be overridden.

“There are not enough votes for me to consider a veto this year,” he said. “Other than being symbolic, it would serve no purpose this year.”

The City Council must approve the budget at two readings before it can be adopted. Chuluda said the council would vote on first reading of the budget at a special council meeting on June 1 with the second reading expected to be on the agenda for the regular council meeting on June 6. Both meetings are scheduled for 7 p.m. in room 114 of Westbrook High School.