A thicket of legal issues prevented Wildwood commissioners from giving final approval Monday night the city’s 2015-16 fiscal year budget.

Instead, commissioners recessed the meeting until 8 a.m. Saturday for final budget action.

Delaying budget approval until Saturday means that the city will continue to operate on its old budget for the first three days of the new fiscal year, which begins Wednesday. It also means Wildwood won’t meet a Thursdaydeadline for reporting its final millage rate to the county. Public notice requirements meant the meeting could not be scheduled earlier.

Commissioners did manage to pass utility rate increases.

Although a quorum of three commissioners was present, approval of next year’s millage rate requires a two-thirds vote, or four of five commissioners. After decades of never failing to meet quorum requirements, it was the second time in three months that the commission was prevented from taking action due to lack of a quorum.

City attorney Ashley Hunt spent most of the meeting researching statutes to find the best way to resolve the problem. Meanwhile, the commission completed action on the rest of the agenda, then waited a half hour while Commissioner Julian Green rushed back from the airport to become the needed fourth vote.

But when Green arrived, Hunt advised the commission that they should recess the meeting because the public hearing on the budget and millage rate had been scheduled for 7 p.m., not 8:20 p.m.

On Sept. 14, commissioners gave tentative approval to the $21-million budget, setting the property tax rate at $4.10 per $1,000 assessed valuation. That rate is the same as last year, but higher than the rollback rate of $3.91 per $1,000 assessed valuation, the amount needed to collect the same revenue as last year.

Mayor Ed Wolf said property taxes won’t go up for existing homeowners and the additional tax money will come from new developments. The city is expected to collect $2.5 million in property taxes, up 25 percent from last year.

 Commissioners voted Monday night to hike water and sewer rates for residential and commercial users by 15 percent, as recommended in a recent study of Wildwood’s rates by Burton & Associates. They also approved more modest rate increases for connection fees, infrastructure extension fees, use of reclaimed water and the solid waste user charge.

The city is expected to collect about $6.5 million in utility fees next year.