Toronto Mayor Rob Ford backed down on a few controversial cuts to city services at a 20-hour-long city budget meeting that ended early Tuesday morning.

During the marathon meeting, where more than $100 million proposed service cuts were being debated, Ford said he wouldn't support library closures and reductions to snow and street cleaning.

A plan to nix 2,000 subsidized daycare spaces was also pulled so the city can lobby higher levels of government for funding, reported The Globe and Mail.

The concessions signal an about-face for Ford who has said in the past that all proposed cuts will remain on the table.

Despite the slight retreat, Ford stressed that the city needs to take decisive action to remedy a projected $774 million budget shortfall.

"I understand some people are very upset at me," he said at the end of the meeting on Tuesday. "You can ridicule me. You can call me names — that's fine. But this should have been done 14 years ago folks, in 1997."

The city manager said that a 15 to 20 per cent tax hike could get the shortfall down to $500 to $600 million, but Ford vowed that the most he'd raise taxes next year would be 2.5 per cent.

But that promise didn't deter more than 200 citizens from showing up to City Hall to tell the mayor's powerful executive committee what they thought of the proposed cuts suggested at Monday's meeting.

Representatives from Tenants for Social Housing and Toronto Animal Services were among the crowd of speakers that poured into City Hall.

City Manager Joe Pennachetti presented Monday's service cuts report, which is based on a comprehensive core service review conducted by consulting firm KPMG.

At the start of Monday's meeting, the executive committee voted to reduce the speaking time of each deputant to two minutes. The original time limit was five minutes.

KPMG's original report drew the ire of many citizens for suggesting several controversial savings including police staffing reductions, library closures and transit cutbacks.

Tension over the initial review culminated in a similar marathon city hall meeting in late July. Monday's meeting managed to wrap up three hours earlier than the previous meeting.

Council will vote on the recommendations on Sept. 26.

With files from CTV Toronto's Natalie Johnson