About $750,000 in new spending is included in the city's water and sewer budgets to create a new "dig crew" to do preventive work and repairs, buy supplies and hire consultants for some work. City officials and the state comptroller have repeatedly warned that the city must get its finances in order by ending its deficit spending. The city's water and sewer funds do not impact the city property tax rate. The sewer rate increase is to raise funds to pay for long-range upgrades required by the state to deal with sewer overflows entering the Hudson River. Neil Bonesteel, the engineer for the city's public utilities, outlined the proposals to the City Council at Thursday night's budget review overseen by Councilman John Donohue, who chairs the Public Utilities Committee.