Knightdale has already approved spending cuts in this year’s budget and they will surely anticipate less money in next year’s budget than in this year’s.

In Wendell, town commissioners will have to decide how to make up a shortfall in the proceeds the town pays Raleigh as part of the water and sewer system giveaway from a few years ago.

In Zebulon, several major spending projects were committed to over the past two years and the town will have to figure out how to pay off those debts while attemptingn to maintain services.

Budget writers in all three towns will be faced with a mandate from commissioners not to raise taxes, at least no more than is absolutely necessary.

And that’s a reasonable demand on the part of commissioners who don’t want to add to the burden of property owners who are trying to make their own personal incomes stretch a little further this year in the wake of job losses, rising prices and reduced investment earnings.

In Wendell, Commissioner Sid Baynes suggested that the staff put together a budget proposal that doesn’t raise taxes and doesn’t spend any money from town savings.

His fellow commissioners hesitated at the idea, unwilling to commit to a plan that would restrict budget writers so significantly.

But Baynes’ idea isn’t so bad. It’s worth a look to see what the town’s spending might look like if the town didn’t raise taxes or spend from savings.

Baynes said he wasn’t asking the staff to limit their budget preparations to such a plan.

If budget writers prepare such a budget plan, everyone might realize how untenable an idea it is to run a town without making use of the town’s fiscal reserves.

The exercise, though it may never come close to approval, could be a meaningful step toward setting municipal priorities in all three eastern Wake County towns.

And setting clear priorities, in today’s tough economic times, is a good idea no matter how you cut it.