Town Administrator Derek Sullivan presented a balanced budget draft for fiscal year 2015 to Selectmen Tuesday that included dramatic cuts to the Police Department, Municipal Maintenance Department, and the Wareham Free Library and the elimination of Council on Aging funding.

"It's easy to anticipate that we're probably looking at approximately 35 to 40 full-time employees being lost with this level funded budget," Sullivan said.

At the meeting, Selectman Peter Teitelbaum took issue with reports in other media outlets that characterized the budget cuts as harmless.

"It's an insult to the people who are likely to lose their jobs under this budget and an insult to anyone who values our town services," he said. "It's a big deal and I hope people understand that."

Despite finding additional sources of revenue, such as $200,000 in fees from the Water Pollution Control District, $78,000 in permit fees from the Harbormaster and a $698,000 reduction in projected payment to Upper Cape Cod Technical School, Sullivan still had to cut $998,000 in expenses to bridge what was initially a $2.5 million budget gap.

If this budget passes at Town Meeting this spring, the council on aging would be cut completely, though senior day care would be able to fund itself for eight months.

The library would be given $125,000 to work with, but Sullivan said trying to keep the library open with such little money might be a wasted effort.

"I don't know if funding at this level is worth it for the town because I don't know what we're going to get for a service out of that," Sullivan said. "We might be able to use that in some of the other departments to keep items up such as public safety."

The Police Department would see $355,000 in cuts to personnel and expenses. Sullivan did say he planned on having two cadets sent to the police academy, who will likely replace two retiring officers in the department.

Sullivan and Selectman Alan Slavin agreed that cuts to the department would have a negative effect on officer's ability to respond to calls.

Additionally, the Municipal Maintenance Department would lose 1.5 full-time employees as well as a loss in funding that would be "a direct hit to services," as Sullivan put it at a previous meeting.

The school budget will be reduced an additional $800,000 to reach level-funding. Selectman Judith Whiteside said the School Committee will present its budget at the March 5 meeting.

The balanced budget, which is a work in progress, is one of two budgets that will be presented to Town Meeting. The other budget will feature a Proposition 2 1/2 override proposal.

The amount of any proposed override has not yet been discussed by town officials, and any proposal would likely include a long-term projection of what the town plans to do with the money.

After the presentation, selectmen briefly discussed some contributing factors to the continuous budget deficits, namely things such as retirement benefits and health care, which increase at a much higher rate than the 2.5 percent the town's tax levy is allowed to go up year to year.

"The things we can't control contribute to the increases. 100 percent of cuts are coming from 10 percent of budget growth in expenses," said Whiteside, referring to the fact that general government and school spending only accounts for roughly 10 percent of the yearly growth in expenses.

Slavin mentioned state and federal regulations that are imposed on the town, with the town expected to foot the bill. He said the something has to be done about these unfunded mandates that are crippling the town and suggested simply opting out of the process all together.

"If they don't want to reimburse us for doing things they require of us we should say no," he said.