Smokers will pay an extra 80 cents in tax for each pack of cigarettes they buy inside the city limits of Petersburg beginning Oct. 1 — a move the city officials hope will generate $900,000 a year in much needed revenue.

On the same date, residents will face modest increases in taxes on cars, restaurant meals and hotel rooms and will have to pay an extra $6 a month for trash collection, all aimed at generating at least $1.2 million in additional cash Petersburg needs to pay its bills.

At the same time, Petersburg will slash $3.4 million in yearly support for public schools, freeze the hiring of police offices, close its five museums and tourist centers, cut recreation programs for city youths, end a subsidy for a minor league baseball team and extend a 10 percent cut in city employee pay for the full year.

Those are just some of the changes that the Petersburg City Council approved Tuesday night in a bid to dry up most, but not all, of the $12.5 million in red ink that has engulfed the current 2016-17 budget.

The deficit amounts to about $375 for each of the city’s 33,000 residents.

Still, it remains uncertain whether City Council went far enough with the package of cuts and tax increases that won approval in front of a largely hostile audience of more than 500 residents.

The seven-member council stopped $1 million short of eliminating the $12.5 million deficit. They also took no action to create a roadmap for paying off an estimated $14 million in accumulated, unpaid bills from the previous year.

Despite the financial stress, the council rejected a recommendation from their financial consultant, Public Financial Management of Richmond, to close one of its four firehouses and eliminate between 18 and 25 firefighter positions to save at least $675,000.

Barraged by complaints that the firehouse closing would threaten public safety, council members backed off and voted to leave all four firehouses open — leaving it to interim City Manager Dironna Moore Belton to find another way to save the money.

Adding pressure, the council voted to keep paying $183,000 a year to Southside Virginia Emergency Crew (SVEC) to keep the 70-year-old ambulance service in operation in two districts to supplement the Fire Department’s emergency medical services — rather than expanding the department’s service to replace SVEC as the consulting company recommended.

The council also slashed spending on schools by $3.4 million — $700,000 short of the $4.1 million PFM had recommended — again leaving Ms. Belton to find a way to make up the difference.

That leaves one big question that neither the City Council nor Ms. Belton has yet to answer: Whether the debt-besieged city can negotiate a desperately needed, short-term loan to avoid a shutdown of all city agencies except for public safety within a few weeks — a prospect that Ms. Belton told council and the audience is still on the table.

Mayor W. Howard Myers said Wednesday, “We have our fingers crossed that the actions of City Council” will enable the city to secure a loan. He said one financial institution has expressed interest, but it could take 60 days or more to translate that interest into a loan.

Even with the council’s action, Petersburg remains in dire straits, particularly after New York agencies dropped the city’s credit rating to BB, or junk status, in recent days, making the challenge of securing a loan even more daunting.

The city also is barred by state law from going bankrupt.

Ms. Belton has said she is squeezing every penny in trying to lead the city to firm financial footing. She cited the work she has done to reduce the city’s personnel spending by $800,000 a month through hiring freezes, across-the-board pay cuts and elimination of vacant positions.

However, the city’s financial picture remains opaque despite such statements and public discussion before City Council voted to embrace 16 of the 19 recommendations PFM provided.

City Council did not receive, or at least did not make public, any financial report on the city’s condition Tuesday, including the amount of cash on hand to pay bills.

Even now, Ms. Belton has not made clear whether the city will have the necessary $145,000 available to meet a Friday payment deadline to ensure that residents’ trash will continue to be collected. Nor is it clear whether the city will be able to pay off a $32,000 past due bill by next week to prevent repossession of more fire equipment.

Nor has Ms. Belton made clear whether the city will have the more than $1 million it will need to avoid default on bond payments that will come due later this month and next month. If Petersburg were to default, state law would require the governor to take state funds earmarked for the city, including funding for public schools, and use it to make payments on the bonds — the only intervention in a local government’s financial affairs that is permitted under state law.

Amid the crisis, Mayor Myers and other council members spent time Wednesday interviewing candidates to fill the post of city attorney.

Meanwhile, the city was hit with more bad news: Projected collections of delinquent real estate taxes appear to have been overstated by $1 million in the 2016-17 budget.

The notice came from city Treasurer Kevin Brown, who reported the amount of delinquent tax to be collected would decline because of the faulty assessment of property values by a company that the city and the commissioner of revenue hired to do the work last year.