At the conclusion of the City Council's budget cut session Monday night, Councilors voted to set the FY16 budget at $281,630,124.

That's nearly $2.3 million less than Mayor Jon Mitchell's proposal. 

Multiple departments saw parts of their budget cut, but one that was left alone was the School Department.

Councilor at Large Linda Morad proposed a cut of $921,439, but the motion failed by a 3-8 vote. Morad says the cut is equal to a 1% vacancy savings, a salary cut built into every department's budget except for the school committee. This cut was to show Supt. Dr. Pia Durkin that "her department is no different from any other."

Morad says she's "really disappointed" with her colleagues for not supporting the motion.

Councilor at Large Naomi Carney voted against the motion because she believes that if any money was cut from the budget, the students would be left to suffer.

"I feel that [Supt. Durkin] wouldn't have made the cuts in the salaries where it should be and I think that there's going to be a lot more teachers that would lose and, right now, we can't afford to cut anything from the students."

As for actual cuts to the budget, councilors voted to cut $161,969 from the Mayor's Office, $37,417 from the Tourism/Marketing budget, and $200,000 from the Snow Removal budget.

To round out the cuts, the Council voted to cut $1,127,885 from the General Government Unclassified budget. That money consists of the 1% salary cuts from all city departments as well as various other costs such as those from the Solicitor's Office, court fees, and insurance.

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