Warren taxpayers may feel the squeeze this coming year as some municipal salaries, hours and benefits rise, but they will have one year of reprieve before the town begins to pay back the $20 million wastewater treatment plant upgrade approved by voters last November.

The Warren Town Council held its first public hearing on the 2017-18 budget last Tuesday evening, though department heads have not submitted their requests yet and Town Manager Jan Reitsma isn’t required to hand in his budget plan until the end of February.

Instead, Warren Finance Director Michael Abbruzzi led the audience through the realities of this coming year’s budget. Among them:

n Debt service, the amount Warren must pay off on its outstanding debt, will increase by 5.6 percent this year, or $104,000.

n Employee benefits costs are set to rise by 9 percent, or $113,000.

n As of July 1, a contractually-agreed increase in town hall employees’ work hours will increase that yearly line item by 16.7 percent, or $125,000.

n Also as of July, United Steel Workers employees will receive a contractually obligated 2.5 percent raise. Meanwhile, public safety officers are renewing their contract and it is unknown yet whether the pact, when finished, will have a salary increase.

n One bit of good news, at least this year, is that Warren will not begin repaying the $20 million cost of the wastewater treatment plant until next year. During the 2018-19 year, however, taxpayers will surely feel a hit: Debt service for the wastewater project alone will increase Warren’s debt service by $1.4 million per year, necessitating an estimated $1.28 increase on the tax rate. This increase amount, 5.9 percent of the tax levy, exceeds the state 4 percent max levy increase and will require special approval from the state.

Warren, like every other town in the state, is barred from increasing its tax levy by more than 4 percent without special state approval. This coming year, a 4 percent increase would equal a $854,523 spending increase. There was no tax increase last year.

“There’s the good and there’s the almost good of how we enter the next year,” Warren Town Council President Joseph DePasquale said after hearing Mr. Abbruzzi’s presentation.

“Clearly we are going to have to sharpen our pencils and figure out how to make the numbers work.”