The level of mid-year local aid cuts Gov. Deval Patrick announced Wednesday for Fall River was within the $2.5 million to $3 million range Mayor Robert Correia said he’s been anticipating for several days.
Fall River will receive $2,890,146 less in state aid, virtually the entire cut from its lottery and supplemental lottery aid. Included in that amount is $223,244 of additional assistance.
The new lottery aid is $24.7 million, nearly 10 percent less than what was originally budgeted.
“It’s not as bad as it could be, but it’s bad enough,” Correia said.
“These are difficult times for all of us. It’s also an opportunity to do things differently, that make more sense and saves us money,” Correia said from the Statehouse, where he went early Wednesday to hear Patrick’s announcement directly.
Patrick’s proposed fiscal 2010 budget would reduce the city’s state aid by $6,271,271 from the $127.55 million in the original 2009 budget.
In both cases, Chapter 70 aid to education remains unchanged, kept at $93,641,102 for the current year and 2010, noted Correia and his city administrator, Adam W. Chapdelaine.
Chapdelaine said he’s working with the municipal financial team to present Correia recommendations and options “in the next 24 to 48 hours.”
“That would be a starting point,” Correia said.
Correia said he expects to present proposals to the City Council for reducing this year’s budget within “the next two to three weeks.” He also shared the process and priorities he plans to use for making the cuts.
For the past few months, the city has held off filling jobs such as the assistant collector and assistant auditor, and Correia estimated “at least 10 jobs” remained unfilled.
As he did last year while trimming $3.5 million from the budget, Correia said he expected to look first at attrition, then city expenses before looking to lay off employees.
He also said he expects that some municipal services will be reduced, but declined to give specific examples.
“I’d like to find ways of doing things better and more economically,” he said.
Correia also said his plan is “to reach out to as many people as possible” for ideas to cut nearly $2.9 million with five months left in the fiscal year. That will include attending neighborhood group sessions, meeting individually or in small groups with city councilors, with department heads and financial directors, he said.
Correia said he had not scheduled his state of the city address, and was awaiting the anticipated state cutbacks. He hopes to address the council and the public with that traditional message in February, he said.
“These are going to be difficult times for all of us,” Correia said.
Chapdelaine said the budget strategy he expected the financial team to propose would include one-time savings cutbacks. “We need to address balancing next year’s budget, while balancing this year’s budget based on the cuts,” Chapdelaine said.
Patrick is trying to close an estimated $1.1 billion shortfall in receipts this fiscal year.
Correia referenced Patrick cutting the state budget $1.3 billion last year as the economy was dropping. “Those cuts didn’t reach us. These did,” Correia said.
Michael Holtzman at – heraldnews.com
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