Let’s just all take a deep breath. Both city aldermen and county supervisors are considering raising taxes this year, but neither board has made a final decision.

It’s a serious issue, one that affects every taxpayer, and residents are right to have questions and concerns about how money is being spent.

But we also need to give the city and county a chance to work through final budget numbers and see if anything can be done to offset current deficits.

As they crunch the final numbers, both aldermen and supervisors need to look at ways to keep their spending down.

For example, Supervisor Henry Watts had a good idea recently to divide the county’s travel budget evenly among the supervisors, to help prevent overspending. Supervisors declined to pass the motion because they were worried that the division was too closely tied to the old beat system of government. But state officials now say such a division is legal, so supervisors should revisit the idea.

There are likely other such ways for the city and county to pare down their budgets, but they may not scrape much from the red column.

Both the county and city are also facing the same problems many of us are: higher costs for such things as gasoline and utilities. They need to decide whether to grant raises to employees who have not seen them in years. In some cases the choice may come down to raising taxes or cutting services; there are no easy answers here.

Aldermen and supervisors have tough decisions to make, and we don’t think any of them look forward to what’s ahead.

But they need to be forthright with taxpayers about the reasons for any proposed tax increase, and they need to be able to make their case &045; and hear any support or opposition &045; in a calm public forum.