Town Administrator Derek Sullivan has found about $250,000 of spending the town can eliminate between now and the June 30 end of this fiscal year. That puts Wareham half way to its goal of taking $500,000 out of its 2014 budget.

Sullivan told Selectmen Tuesday night that it's still early in an ongoing process and pointed out that the School Department -- responsible for about 65 percent of the total town budget -- has not yet weighed in.

The so-called austerity cuts are part of a December agreement with the state Department of Revenue to certify Wareham's tax rate, allowing tax bills to go out on time.

"What I want people to understand is this isn't the fluff, this is freezing it," Sullivan said.

He said there will be about $150,000 that will not be expended from some fixed cost items and $100,000 in cuts coming from general government departments, such as the selectmen, police, inspectional services, board of health and municipal maintenance.

Wareham public schools are not included in that list. Sullivan said that he does not have an estimate of what the School Committee would be able to freeze.

"It's not something I have control over unfortunately," he said.

Selectman Peter Teitelbaum said the Finance Committee is meeting next week and the School Committee is meeting Wednesday night to go over their fiscal year 2015 budget.

He said going forward there will be a better sense of when a joint meeting can be held between all three parties to get on the same page.

Sullivan said that every line item expenditure must now come through him to be approved.

"I've received requests for windshield wipers that were broken off during the storm from municipal maintenance, it's down to that minutiae," he said.

Sullivan also presented the preliminary budget numbers for this year to the board and said a more comprehensive budget presentation would come next week.

"This is not the true budget presentation it is just delivering to the selectmen in the formal manner the budget numbers," he said.

Sullivan said he has all day budget meetings planned with town government department heads on Jan. 23.

"That's probably one of the most important meetings," he said. "It's to hear directly from each of the department heads and understand what their budget means to the town.

He added, "You get the truest feel of what each department does. I would recommend anybody that can attend to attend that meeting."