By JOSEPH B. NADEAU

WOONSOCKET — Mayor Susan D. Menard has proposed a budget for 2008-09 that she believes will get the city through the toughest fiscal times in her 13-year tenure in office.

It calls for a tax hike of 35 cents per $1,000 assessed value, and a cut in city spending overall of 1.37 percent from the current fiscal year.
Menard is proposing a total of $114.2 million in general fund spending for 2008-09, a decrease of $1.6 million from this year’s budget.
To make the plan work, the mayor proposes eliminating 10 jobs on the municipal side of local government; level-funding all salaries for municipal employees, including police, fire, public works and City Hall; and giving the School Department roughly half its requested $611,000 increase over fiscal 2008.
Overall, Menard’s budget calls for the city to kick in $12.6 million toward schools operations next year, based on anticipated state support of $47.4 million.
Menard is also calling for a three-year deficit reduction plan to cover the $1.2 million shortfall in the current city budget resulting from the General Assembly’s recent slashes in local aid.
While the city will be using surplus funds to cover that shortfall, Menard said her budget also includes a deficit reduction payment of $427,000 that will restore the city’s $4.5 million surplus, thereby protecting its strong bond rating.
While outlining the proposal in her office Tuesday, Menard said the spending plan was “the hardest one I ever had to put together.”
The mayor said she and Finance Director Robert Strom took a conservative stance in preparing it because the city has sustained the double blow of state aid cutbacks and declining revenues attributable to a sluggish economy.
The move to level-fund salaries is no more than a projection, but Menard said she holds that goal for the negotiations she is conducting with all four of the unions representing city employees.
While not within her purview as mayor, Menard is also recommending the same stance on the schools side given the current climate of austerity in state and local governments.
Meanwhile, she is proposing changes in local tax deferments to boost revenues for the coming year. “This is the 13th budget I have prepared and it represents my fourth tax increase in 13 years,” she said.
Menard’s projected 35-cent tax hike would boost the city’s residential levy from $12.88 to $13.23 per $1,000 assessed value. On a home valued at $265,000, the tax bill would go up about $80 next year.
The same 35-cent increase would apply to the city’s current commercial property tax rate of $31.81 per $1,000.
Menard and Strom said city coffers would also benefit from a proposed change in the homestead exemption that the City Council is expected to consider Monday.
The exemption now applies to all local single-family, two-family and three-family homes. Under the mayor’s plan, only owner-occupied properties would qualify.
Absentee property owners losing the discount on a single-family property assessed at $200,000 could see their annual tax bill go up about $800, Menard and Strom noted.
On the operations side of the budget, Menard’s staff cuts would save the city about $600,000 in salaries and benefits. The mayor also plans to leave vacant six Fire Department positions, alongside possible savings resulting from Police Department turnover.
Proposed staff cuts include a civilian dispatcher and a police traffic clerk from the Police Department; a clerk of vital records in the City Clerk’s office; an elections clerk from the City Board of Canvassers; the now-vacant position of library circulation services coordinator; a senior clerk typist’s post in the Planning Department that is due to become vacant due to retirement; and the recycling coordinator in the Department of Public Works.
DPW will also see the elimination of two engineering aides and a construction manager position, but will add two civil engineers as replacement posts.
Menard’s budget also includes a merger of the Highway and Recreation departments into a single city department led by the highway superintendent and a new deputy superintendent.
The new Highway Department will not hire its usual 10 part-time summer employees. Instead, HD staff will maintain city parks and properties.
The budget also calls for a combination of the current Economic Development Department with the Human Services Department, and the elimination of the economic development director’s position now held by Jeffrey Polucha.
Menard said that change was requested by City Council President Leo T. Fontaine, who under the City Charter is scheduled to replace the mayor when she retires in June.
Fontaine had indicated he would be making that change when he takes over, Menard said. “I disagree with it, and I feel we need an economic development director now more than ever,” she said. 
A portion of Polucha’s salary would go to the human services director, bringing the salary for the latter post from around $64,000 up to $80,000.
Menard’s budget also provides for an expected bill of $250,000 for property revaluation, and an increase in Human Services Department spending to cover recent city retirements and health care costs.
The spending plan anticipates a $700,000 boost from the planned sale of the Mayor Gaston A. Ayotte Little League field at Providence Street and Smithfield Road, and another $150,000 in new revenue from the sale of other small city properties, she noted.
Menard has forwarded her budget to the City Council and School Committee and is planned to present it formally to the council during a public hearing on May 28. The council is expected take action on the budget at a meeting scheduled for June 16.
While the council will have the final say, Menard on Tuesday said she did not see the panel as having many options in light of gloomy revenue forecasts. The state is still working on the final figures for its own budget, with a substantial deficit to address as part of that process, the mayor noted.
The question for the city, she said, is whether it will see additional cuts from the state beyond what it has already suffered.
“I can’t imagine a leaner budget than this,” Menard said of her finished product. “We’ve eliminated 10 positions and it is a lean budget, but it is also a budget we can live with.”