After hammering through the entire proposed 2012 budget Thursday night, the Manasquan Borough Council was able to cut nearly $125,000 and get below the state-mandated 2 percent tax levy cap, but property taxes would still rise by roughly 4.5 percent from last year.

The 2½-hour session involved some major and minor cuts, along with a few disagreements and compromises, to proposed appropriations for several departmental budgets, resulting in the council trimming $124,688 from the overall proposed 2012 appropriations budget. While taxes would increase by more than 2 percent, the borough is allowed exemptions in certain areas of the budget that do not count towards the state-mandated cap.

The new proposed appropriations budget is $8,186,979 and if approved would mean an increased property tax rate of .363 -- up from .347 in 2011 --  or an extra $80 to the average assessed home of $501,000, according to the borough auditor. That would be a 4.4 percent increase from last year's property tax rate.

The big-ticket cuts included:

• $50,167 by financing the purchase of two new police vehicles over three years and using $6000 from the police trust

• $15,000 transferred from the police budget to the beach utility for police and secondary officer salaries

• $13,000 from police overtime salary and wages

• $10,000 from streets and roads overtime salaries

• $10,000 from the library budget

The council will hold another special meeting on Monday at 6 p.m. to review the borough's capital budget.