CANTON — Ending several weeks of budget debate, St. Lawrence County legislators made a few more spending cuts Monday before endorsing a tentative 2013 budget that increases property taxes by 13.5 percent.

The roughly $249.2 million spending plan is expected to be approved by the full board Monday following a 7 p.m. public hearing in the legislative chambers.

If approved, the county’s tax rate will climb from $8.72 per $1,000 of true property value to $9.81.

As an example of the impact, the owner of a property with a $100,000 true value will pay $109 more next year in county property taxes.

Veteran Legislator Alexander A. MacKinnon, R-Fowler, noted that despite the double-digit tax hike, the actual spending increase is 5.3 percent over this year’s budget, climbing from $236.6 million to an estimated $249.2 million.

Unlike past years, he pointed out the board didn’t have $4 million to use from a reserve fund and it agreed not to include $1 million in tribal gaming revenue that didn’t come through this year even though it was in the budget.

Mr. MacKinnon said the proposed budget corrects several problems identified this year with the county’s Public Health and Community Services departments.

“To me, this was a correction year,” Mr. MacKinnon said. “We haven’t raised taxes high enough in the past and now we have more accurate numbers. I think we’ve yanked the county back into fiscal prudence.”

He predicted that after 2013, the county should be able to keep property tax hikes in the 5 percent range.

Ms. St. Hilaire disagreed, saying without an additional revenue source, such as an increase in sales tax, the county could face tax hikes in the 16 percent to 18 percent range every year.

“This is not a one-year thing,” she warned legislators. “It is going to recur until you start getting more revenue. We don’t have enough revenues to run this operation.”

During the meeting, legislators agreed to whittle about $465,185 more from the budget, which lowered the tax levy hike from 14.4 percent to 13.5 percent.

The modifications, proposed by Legislator Frederick S. Morrill, D-DeKalb Junction, included reducing the Social Security payments allocation by $250,000, cutting health insurance costs by $212,674 and increasing revenue by $54,736 by raising town chargebacks for election expenses.

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