NASHUA – The Board of Aldermen Thursday night approved a $346 million fiscal 2022 city budget following more than two hours of discussion among members and a handful of residents who rose to speak.

The result is a spending package that, in the end, all board members present praised, despite concerns voiced earlier in the process.

To fund the budget, city taxpayers will incur a roughly 3.5 percent increase in next year’s tax bills.

The amount to be raised through taxes is roughly $290 million, while the remaining $55 million would come from special revenue such as enterprise funds.

“This is more than we would like, there’s no question about it,” Mayor Jim Donchess told aldermen, referring to the hike in property taxes. “But given what the state has done, it’s about the best we can do.

“We cannot devastate city services,” he added, referring mainly to the police and fire departments.

Donchess has repeatedly criticized the state for passing down costs to cities and towns, blaming legislative budget-creators for shorting Nashua some $4.4 million.

“This has been a very tough year going in, because of the actions taken by the state,” he said Thursday, accusing the state of “using us as a cash register.”

Since the aldermaninc Budget Review Committee’s June 23 hearing on Donchess’s proposed budget, the specter of possible reductions in police and fire staffing prompted some committee members to appeal to their colleagues to restore roughly $240,000 of the funding that Donchess cut from his proposed version of the budget.

Members who favored the restoration generally cited the harm they feel the cut would cause to the safety of residents, suggesting it could get to the point where the fire department may need to take an engine out of service on occasion.

Donchess has questioned whether his proposed cuts could have such a drastic effect on firefighter staffing, and has also pointed out that “the police and fire budgets have gone up significantly over the years.”

Dean Shalhoup may be reached at 594-1256 or dshalhoup@nashuatelegraph.com.