By CHARLES HACK

HOBOKEN - After a rancor­ous debate, the City Council voted 6-3 to punt a decision on whether to adopt a resolution to shave $1.5 million from the city's $76 million draft budget until the next meeting.

Miffed that they were only presented with the proposed budget amendments at the be­ginning of the caucus meeting, some council members ques­tioned Councilman Michael Russo's motivation for the timing of the proposed cuts.

"We take offense at things being dropped on our laps at the last minute," said Coun­cilman Peter Cammarano. "As a matter of principal it should be withdrawn."

Russo, who sits on the revenue and finance commit­tee, countered he had com­mitted 400 man hours to pre­paring his amendments and that he had to go the city clerk to place the resolution on the agenda after the city's corpora­tion council had refused to do so.

Cammarano said that it would be irresponsible to send the amendments for state ap­proval without time to consider them. Councilman Christopher Campos said the council needed time to consider differ­ savings could be achieved by keeping costs down to 2005 levels.

The budget is 0.8 percent lower than last year but 2.4 percent higher than what was actually spent, officials said.

Russo said that his budget amendments would help avoid the necessity of selling the mu­nicipal garage at Observer Highway and Willow Avenue, which the administration had proposed to plug a $3 million deficit and repay some $13 million of financing already raised on the property.