"The city has agreed to give the Cleveland Browns a $5.8 million lump sum for stadium repairs, but public officials worry about the source of such payments after a countywide tax for maintaining the building runs out in 2015.

City Council voted 16-2 Monday to let the team take the money from a city-administered tax on alcohol and tobacco sales. Cleveland, which leases the stadium to the football team, is required to provide only $850,000 a year for major improvements.

Browns general counsel Fred Nance, who represented the city when the lease was negotiated, said $850,000 was a compromise at the time the agreement was drawn up. He said the amount, equal to less than 1 percent of the building's $300 million construction cost, is not nearly enough to cover what he termed routine work. "