A Lawrence City Commission meeting gets underway Tuesday, Sept. 16, 2008. The city revenues are expected to fall nearly million short of the budget.

The recession has found the coffers of Lawrence City Hall.

After posting modest growth in 2008, new city reports show that the city’s sales tax collections have begun to falter in 2009.

And they’ve got company. Nearly every other major revenue source for the city is running behind budget with about four months left in the city’s fiscal year.

“It is a get-by year, that is for sure,” City Manager David Corliss said.

Corliss, though, said the city’s budget is still far from a crisis stage. He plans to order about $1 million worth of cuts to the city’s general fund, but he said the cuts won’t involve layoffs or direct reductions to city service levels.

Instead, Corliss said the spending reductions will involve delaying purchases of some pieces of equipment and keeping some vacant positions unfilled for the rest of the year.

“It really will be line by line, dime by dime,” Corliss said.

The cuts — which amount to about 1 percent of the city’s general fund — are necessitated by nearly across-the-board declines from the city’s major revenue sources. Here’s a look:

• Sales tax revenues are down about 4 percent from the same time a year ago. Through citywide and countywide 1 percent sales taxes, the city has collected $13.5 million versus $14.1 million at the same point a year ago. Those numbers don’t include the three new sales taxes that voters approved in April. When those numbers are factored in, the city is expecting total sales tax collections to come up about $265,000 less than what the city had budgeted.

• Revenue from licenses and permits — such as building permits — are projected to fall about $365,000 short of budget.

• Income from interest earnings are expected to be about $560,000 less than budgeted.

The city has about $12 million in a fund balance account that it could dip into this year to avoid making reductions to the 2009 budget. But city commissioners have said they don’t want to dip into those fund balances — the equivalent of a savings account — and actually still would like to see the fund balance grow some in 2009.

“I appreciate the fact that we’re monitoring our expenditure levels closely,” City Commissioner Mike Amyx said. “I think we can do this and still carry out high levels of service.”