DANBURY — City officials began their weeklong dive into Mayor Mark Boughton’s proposed budget on Monday afternoon with a review of 20 of its general government departments.

Mayor Mark Boughton’s $257 million proposal for 2018-19 is a $6.5 million increase over the city’s current budget, but still includes a slight property tax decrease on the back of an 8.5 percent increase in the city’s tax base after last year’s revaluation.

It is balanced by continuing a city hiring freeze — except for public safety personnel — and maintaining most of the city’s departments at roughly the same financing they have now.

That was the case in the first round of departments the council reviewed Monday, including the mayor’s office, town clerk, libraries, permitting and planning.

Those departments will represent $5.5 million in the next budget and stay essentially flat while absorbing a 2.75 percent contractual employee wage increase with small, scattered cuts. In total, the budget for the group of offices will decrease by $27,000, essentially maintaining what the city does now, city Finance Director David St. Hilaire said.

“The departments have been very tight, most of them had to take some reductions to absorb not only their general wage increase, but all the other cuts we had to do across the board,” St. Hilaire said. “You’re not going to find too many changes in general government. All in all, they do have a sufficient amount of funds to operate as they have been.

“We did cut it very close, but I do think they’re going to be OK,” he said. “If anything extraordinary comes up, we’ll have to deal with that on a case-by-case basis.”

Planning will put off hiring for part of the year, for example, saving $17,000 in would-be salary costs, he said. The Registrar of Voters budget also will drop $14,000 because of a fluctuation in buying furniture this past year that doesn’t need to continue next year, he added.

The City Council gave preliminary approval for those budgets and the rest of the mayor’s proposal at a public hearing later in the evening. The council will give final approval at its meeting early next month.

Last week the council’s education committee endorsed the mayor’s planned $132.7 million city budget for Danbury Public Schools, a $4 million increase over its current budget. School officials had hoped for a $7 million increase, but they conceded last week the increase they do expect to receive is the most help the city can provide as state resources fail to keep up.

About a dozen educators and leaders again pleaded with the council to change their minds and endorse the full increase at the hearing Monday night, but council members didn’t budge.

Council committees will dissect the remainder of the city budget at meetings throughout this week, starting with more general government departments at 7:15 p.m. Tuesday and meetings on Public Works and Health and Human Services at 5:45 p.m. and 7 p.m. Thursday.

zach.murdock@hearstmediact.com