Douglas County commissioners Monday reiterated their intention to approve a budget that won’t increase the mill levy or gets as close to a zero increase as possible.

They directed County Administrator Craig Weinaug to come up with $186,000 in cuts to his proposal for the 2008 county budget. Commissioners themselves tentatively recommended $565,045 in possible cuts. The mill levy approved last year in support of the current year’s budget was 30.013 mills. Weinaug’s initial budget proposal for 2008 called for an increase of 0.738 of a mill.

Commissioners Bob Johnson, Jere McElhaney and Charles Jones said they were especially interested in holding the line on the mill levy because levies in the Lawrence public school district and city of Lawrence are going up.

“We want to do what we can to lighten the load on the taxpayer,” Johnson said.

Weinaug said he could “tweak” the budget by making line-item reductions to save about $30,000. Additional cuts may cause a “backlash” commissioners will have to deal with, he said.

Commissioners will meet at 5 p.m. Wednesday to continue budget discussions before going into the regular agenda at 6:35 p.m.