The Jamestown Board of Public Utilities board will meet Monday to discuss, among other things, a request by the City Council for $482,000 in BPU profits.

All sides should approach this meeting with a clear head, putting aside the rhetoric that has filled discussions over BPU revenue payments to the City Council over the past few years.

Last week, BPU board members said they didn’t want to take any of the previously requested money from the BPU’s electric division because of a rate case pending before the state Public Service Commission. That meant the $250,000 request from the city to the BPU board included in Mayor Sam Teresi’s proposed budget would come from the BPU’s water division, a move that BPU officials said would increase a water rate hike from the planned 2.3 percent to 7 percent. That meeting was held before the City Council sent a request to the BPU for an additional $232,000, but the taking the entire amount from the water division budget would mean an even bigger rate increase.

The utility’s profits haven’t been as strong the last two years as they have been in others years, and we fully understand the need to protect the BPU’s cash position and to keep the utility’s balance sheet strong. We also fully understand the BPU has serious capital needs that must be taken care of soon. And, we would also hope that the city will be able to discontinue requesting revenues from the BPU in future years to allow the BPU to restore the cash position it needs.

Unfortunately, 2016 is not that year. And, we know the BPU, even in a weakened position, is in better position than the city’s general fund budget.

Greg Rabb, D-At Large, council president and BPU board member, is on the right track when he mentioned the BPU’s Customer Service Center renovation as a project that may need to be postponed, at least for a year. Council members must cut what they can from the 2016 city budget to make the tax increase as low as possible. The BPU board, meanwhile, needs to examine its 2016 division budgets for non-essential projects that can be put off a year so that the revenue payment to the city isn’t merely a shift from one government entity to another.

It’s time for both groups to put their collective heads together to minimize the impact of this difficult budget year on city taxpayers and BPU users. That effort must begin Monday.