By 5pm, it had reduced the rise to 39% and was set to meet into the night in a bid to make further cuts.
Board chairman Neil Gillespie told the meeting he had to be "brutally honest" about the need for some projects, as his priority was to reduce the burden on ratepayers.
Mr Gillespie was particularly emphatic developers' contributions should be allocated to large capital projects being driven by growth, rather than coming just from rates.
Board members subjected the $743,404 Cromwell wastewater budget and the $848,264 water budget to intensive scrutiny because they represented 28.7% and 100.5% increases, respectively.
The board also took the ruler to the $622,398 Cromwell swimming pool budget, which would increase rates 31.2%.
Central Otago District Council utilities manager Peter Greenwood had to advocate strongly to retain some funding for a proposed utilities assets management programme (budgeted at $52,500) because board members were concerned it was not tagged to a specific project.
Board members felt although an asset management information was desirable, it would not have an immediate tangible economic benefit, other than allowing engineers to know exactly where all the old pipes were.
Mr Greenwood argued the programme had long-term cost benefits and would be useful because of high staff turnover, loss of institutional knowledge and instances where developers had been told to connect to council-owned pipes that did not exist.
"Even without growth, we still need to know how things are working," he said.
Board members Terry Emmitt and Vic Coster said it was time to bite the bullet" and set up the asset management system.
When the board broke for a late afternoon tea, the wastewater project had been shaved down to $735,536; the water budget slashed to $609,003, the pool budget to $514,252 and Mr Gillespie was still calling for cuts.
The Central Otago District Council rates summary for Cromwell in 2008-09 was $2.37 million and the staff had prepared a budget for $3.66 million, a $1.29 million increase (54.3%).
Mr Gillespie told the Otago Daily Times before the meeting reconvened last night the final details of the new budget would probably not be available for a few days, once staff had "crunched the numbers" again.
Final resolutions were expected to be made late last night and the budget would then be released for comment, he said.
