Stothert said she sees the proposed budget as a sign of progress. Last year, her goal was to get the city’s finances in line without having to increase taxes. This year, she said, there was more room to begin working on her campaign promises of cutting Omahans’ tax bills.

“Our plan was to fund everything efficiently with a very lean budget and provide property tax relief,” she said. “And that’s what we were able to achieve — and at the same time still put money into cash reserves and paying down our debt.”

Under Stothert’s plan, the city tax levy would drop from 49.92 cents per $100 of assessed property valuation to 48.92 cents. That amounts to a $15 tax reduction on a $150,000 house.

The mayor asked most city departments — with the exception of police and fire — to cut just over 1 percent from their budgets. In the final plan, most of those departments saw their budgets increase by about 1 percent. An exception is the Human Rights and Relations Department, which would add one employee and get a budget boost of about 9 percent.