SOUTH PORTLAND – There’s been no formal vote as of yet, but at a workshop meeting last week in South Portland, a majority of city councilors informally signaled support for the $37.9 million 2010-2011 school budget.

“It looks as though there’s enough votes to support the school budget,” said City Manager James Gailey, speaking the day after the council’s April 14 workshop.

The school budget, which includes $506,623 to be placed in a capital reserve account to pay for future improvements at the high school and two middle schools, would increase the tax rate of $14.70 per $1,000 of assessed property value by 14 cents.

Gailey said councilors also indicated that they wanted to restore police and firefighting positions in his proposed 2010-2011 municipal budget of more than $27 million. The municipal budget that councilors signaled they would support would increase the tax rate about 1.1 percent or about 5 cents.

The council favored restoring one of two firefighting positions that Gailey had previously proposed cutting, and also one of two positions in the police department that he had proposed eliminating in an earlier budget.

Those were among cuts that Gailey had identified in an effort to meet a City Council directive in January not to raise taxes in the new fiscal year.

Councilors last week also said they wanted to include in the municipal budget funding for a 1 percent cost-of-living increase for the city’s 91 non-union employees, Gailey said.

He said that while the city’s union employees have contract agreements that resulted in wage increases over the past two years, non-union employees have not received any wage hikes.

He said the city has eight unions representing police officers, police command personnel, firefighters, fire command personnel, public works and parks employees, bus drivers, librarians, and public safety dispatchers.

As of early this week, final calculations on how the budgets would impact the tax rate were not available. However, Gailey said the combined school and municipal budgets would add roughly 19 cents to the tax rate.

If that’s the case, that would bring the tax rate to $14.89 per $1,000 of assessed property valuation. That would translate to additional $38 per year added to the tax bill of a $200,000 home.

The council is slated to vote on the school budget on Monday, April 26. The council approves the bottom line of the school budget.

The $37.9 million school budget is nearly $1.6 million or 4 percent less than the current school budget of $37.4 million.

It would eliminate 25 positions, including teachers. Because many of those jobs are filled, it would result in layoffs.

Despite cuts, the budget would entail a tax increase. That’s because of a reduction of more than $1 million in state education aid to South Portland. Also, the budget includes more than $500,000 to be put in the capital reserve account for improvements to the city’s secondary schools.

When the City Council approves the bottom line of the school budget, it will then go the voters on May 6 for a budget validation referendum vote.

Voters must approve the school budget before it can be finalized.

Pending voter approval, the council has tentatively set May 24 as the date to approve the city budget, which includes the municipal and school portions of the budget. The city budget also includes more than $2 million in taxes the city must pay to Cumberland County. County taxes are up more than $24,000 in the new fiscal year.