Austin City Council worked late Monday to resolve some 2010 budget issues, but much is still left to be done.

What was agreed upon during the work session was a 4.59 percent tax levy increase cap — a number that will now go to the full council on Sept. 8 for approval.

That increase is in the city’s proposed 2010 budget, but council could still adjust the number in coming weeks.

However, after Sept. 15, the tax levy can only be lowered, according to state law.

At the last work session two weeks ago, council members and Mayor Tom Stiehm voiced some support for a zero-percent increase.

But during a presentation to council Monday, Austin Administrative Services Director Tom Dankert warned that a zero-percent increase would be fiscally irresponsible.

Dankert said having no increase now would likely lead to higher costs later — and possibly a much larger tax spike, something citizens dislike, he said.

“Eventually, someone’s going to have to pay the bill,” Dankert said.

Sandy Forstner, executive director of the Austin Area Chamber of Commerce, said a bigger problem are skyrocketing personnel costs.

“We have less employees (than before), but we’re paying more for them,” he said of city workers.

Forstner said the city should deal with controlling these costs when figuring out how to balance the budget.

This discussion spurred more heated conversation about one group in particular — Austin’s firefighters.

The department and the city have not had a contract since the end of 2007, a notion that councilman John Martin called “ridiculous” Monday.

Martin said it’s pointless to discuss a number of potential budget savings involving personnel before even having contracts worked out.

Martin then put forward a motion to have council sit in on negotiations in an effort to speed along the process and oversee negotiators.

Councilman Jeff Austin responded by saying the motion indicated a lack of trust in the negotiating team, which he said is unwarranted because they have been doing good work.

Councilman Jeff King added that problems in the negotiation are not the fault of the negotiating team.

The motion failed, 3-4, and Mayor Tom Stiehm said it’d be best to wait and see how the city’s most recent proposal is received by the firefighters’ union.

Firefighters in attendance Monday said they had yet to see the proposal.

Having been sidetracked some by discussion of the fire department contract, council quickly went through a list of budget suggestions from city workers — a list compiled from a previous public meeting.

Many items on the list were deemed to be already in progress or not feasible and were breezed through.

However, a couple did garner more discussion.

A recommendation to close Riverside Arena led to a motion for the parks and recreation department to do a detailed analysis of Riverside and Packer arenas.

The analysis would indicate which arena gets used more, ways to revamp one if the other closed, and other considerations.

Also getting discussed heavily were proposals to eliminate a vehicle stipend and take-home vehicles, though the council voted 4-3 on both to retain the current policies.

That means that Dankert, city administrator Jim Hurm, community development director Craig Hoium and city engineer Jon Erichson will continue to receive a $400 per month stipend for travel — the only employees covered by the policy.

This is in lieu of public vehicles or a reimbursement program for these four.

Also, council determined it was best to retain take-home vehicles for workers, such as the fire chief, who use the cars for emergencies.

An alternative would have been “pooled” vehicles, but that too would have costs and could hinder emergency responses if employees had to pickup a vehicle instead of going directly from home.

City officials said about 10 employees have take-home vehicles.