* The City Council, attorney, clerk and manager.

* Audit services.

* Employment/work force development.

* Budget and management services.

* Equal opportunity and equity assurance.

* Grants to community organizations or "non-city agencies."

The budget calls for $11.4 million to pay for all these departments and initiatives.

Council members flagged a host of items of concern for further discussion later this week or next.

DEBATE DU JOUR: Though the non-city agency grants account for only $785,000 of the proposed $356 million budget, they sparked the most heated conversations Tuesday.

Thirty-six of the 60 agencies that applied for funding will receive city checks. But many of the them saw their allocations cut by as much as half in the proposed budget, which almost assuredly will make for a heated public hearing Monday.

The cuts are part of the city's plan to wean agencies -- particularly those focused on the arts or recreation -- from city taxpayer funds. Agencies that received money last year will receive less this year, even less next year, and zero the year after that, according to a plan the City Council adopted.

"Our goal was to try to build their own capacity for fundraising so they wouldn't be always looking to the city for the same basic funding," council member Mike Woodard said.

But council member Farad Ali said it was hypocritical for the city not to help fund programs that provide alternatives to bad lifestyle choices, such as recreation programs that divert children from gangs.

Mayor Pro-Tem Cora Cole-McFadden suggested that some of the groups might have received less money because they primarily served African-Americans.

The long discussion frustrated council member Howard Clement.

"We spend more time on minutiae than on departments that have a real profound impact," he said. "I'd like to see us give as much time to the police budget. This is just a total waste of time."

Clement noted that the proposed budget contains an 11 percent property tax rate increase.

"We're going to whittle that down, and this is where I'm going to start."

WATCH FOR: The council to try to find $500,000 to continue paying for projects called for under the Cultural Master Plan. That funding lapses this year. Council member Diane Catotti called the lack of arts funding in the proposed budget "pathetic." Woodard said the money was a safety net for some of the programs being phased out of the non-city-agency funds.

ON TAP TODAY: An all-day session starting at 9 a.m. at City Hall. Planning, inspections, public works, water management, parks and recreation, community development, neighborhood improvement services, solid waste management and the capital improvement plan all are scheduled for review.

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