An update on budget cuts...

After reading Gov. Patrick's speech yesterday at the Massachusetts Municipal Association I learned that the proposed 9.7% cut will be applied to the "Lottery aid" and "Additional Assistance" line items in the FY09 Cherry Sheets.

Note: “additional assistance” provides unrestricted general purpose aid to municipalities

See summary below.

[click table to enlarge]

For Longmeadow the FY09 total of these line items is: $1.51 million .... so it looks like the financial hit will be $146,000. This is only my guess and not an official number.

It is possible that Gov. Patrick may elect to apply some other formula to decide how to distribute these cuts particular given the fact that the city of Boston has such a high amount of “additional assistance” in their cherry sheet allocation. A straight application of the 9.7% cut translates to $22 million cut for the city of Boston of which $16 million comes from the “additional assistance” line item.

For Longmeadow it looks like the underperformance of investment income and excise tax receipts (-$200,000) as FY09 revenue sources + higher than budgeted snow removal costs (-$25,000) that were discussed at this week's SB meeting (reported in an earlier post) will be larger items.

At this point total budget cuts required for FY09 may total ~ $371,000.

Looking forward to FY2010 Governor Patrick said that he will be proposing a level funding of Chapter 70 funds for education and a significant cut in “Lottery aid” and “additional assistance” funding with the net result of a total state aid reduction for cities and towns of 7.1%.

For Longmeadow this FY2010 budget reduction would amount to ~$480,000. It looks like the upcoming FY2010 budget process will be very difficult.

On Wednesday, January 28 the official FY09 budget cuts for each town will be announced. Hopefully, it will be equal to or less than the $146,000 estimate.

Cuts in state aid are announced

Some “relatively” good news…

Today, Governor Deval Patrick has announced cuts of state aid to cities and towns will total “only” $128 million as compared to earlier estimates as high as $500 million.

See full article on Boston.com.

Gov. Patrick also announced that the $128 million in cuts would not affect the state aid to cities and towns for public education but did not indicate how these latest cuts would be allocated town-by-town across the state.

With the new information and applying them equally based upon original state aid allocations ($128M/$5.3B = 2.4%), our "guess" for reduced state aid for Longmeadow is ~ $205,000. Add this number to the $200K shortfall in other town revenue highlighted during the Select Board meeting earlier this week, the town will likely need to cut ~ $400K in expenses for the FY2009 budget year.

It will be interesting to see how the Town Manager/ Select Board and School Committee address this revenue shortfall.

An update from the Select Board

.. and not much good news!

At the Longmeadow Select Board regular meeting on January 20 some additional information related to the FY09 budget crisis was provided…

• Finance Director, Paul Pasterczyk stated that there likely will be a FY09 revenue shortfall of ~ $200K originating from lower investment income (-$107K) and lower excise tax receipts (-$90K). Both of these areas will likely impact FY10 budget revenue as well.
  
• Mr. Pasterczyk updated the SB regarding snow removal costs and stated that the current expenditures were $25K over budget and likely to increase as the winter progresses.
  
• Town Manager, Robin Crosbie updated the SB regarding FY09 budget actions and said that she has asked all town departments to develop budget reduction contingency plans but at this point has not requested specific “appropriation turnbacks” or expenditure reductions. In addition, purchase orders over $500.00 are being carefully scrutinized before she approves them in an effort to curtail unnecessary spending. Ms. Crosbie indicated that a large portion of current expenditures are directed at maintenance and repair items to keep the various departments operational. Bobby Barkett asked if the oversight could be extended to purchase orders > $100…. Ms. Crosbie said that she would followup with each town department.
  
• Ms. Crosbie stated that the fiscal problems currently being addressed by Gov. Patrick that will be impacting Longmeadow and other towns will likely require a detailed review of prioritized town services to determine which ones will be impacted- both in the current FY09 and FY10 budgets.
  
  Ms. Crosbie highlighted that it is possible that the cuts in state aid may not be applied equally across all towns and cities and that a per capita income adjustment or similar factor may be applied… which doesn’t bode well for Longmeadow’s share of the cuts.
  
• Ms. Crosbie wants to maintain current headcount in order to retain key experience and knowledge within town departments. Furthermore, there is no excess in current staffing to provide required municipal services. Clerical staffing is being rotated from department to department when needed to complete specific projects. However, she acknowledged that salaries are a very large factor within the overall town government budget and that large reductions in expenditures will be difficult to achieve without staffing reductions.
  
  In an effort to curtail FY09 expenses, two open job town government vacancies will not be filled.

Overall, not much good news from last night’s meeting. In fact, it looks like there will be an additional shortfall of ~ $200K in town revenue that will need to be compensated in addition to what the state announces late next week.

The SB seemed resigned to wait until the "financial tsnami" hits Longmeadow at the end of next week and will take up discussion of what to do next at their regular meeting on February 2.

Stay tuned to the LongmeadowBuzz blog for additional updates.

A Financial Tsunami is Heading Toward Us!

These headlines are from this past week’s Springfield Republican (week of January 12, 2009) and highlight the continuing fiscal crisis facing the the state of Massachusetts. The news stories highlight that there is an need to cut another $1 billion (vs. total budget of $28.1 billion) by the end of January from the fiscal 2009 budget because of shrinking tax collection revenue. This is in addition to the $1 billion worth of cuts already imposed last October which did not include aid to cities and towns.

A total of $2 billion of cuts in the current FY09 ending on June 30 are needed.

Governor Deval Patrick said, “ We’ll apportion the pain- and it’s sure to be painful- as equitably as possible and as broadly as possible.”

This past week the state legislature gave Governor Patrick the authority to cut state aid to cities and towns but limited it to cuts of $500 million for the current fiscal year. Gov. Patrick’s new authority is also somewhat limited when it comes to cutting general education for a single school district. He cannot cut it to less than the “foundation budget” which is what the state calculates is the minimum $$ needed to educate students. While I do not know what the current foundation budget is for Longmeadow schools, I suspect that it is much lower than the current school budget so the budget cut limitation is not going to protect our state aid for Longmeadow schools which is currently $6.2 million.

Here is a possible scenario that is very scary….

In the current FY2009 the state budget is providing a total of $5.3 billion in local aid to cities and towns.

Current FY 2009 financial aid to Longmeadow is as follows:

Schools- $3.9 million

Town- $2.3 million

Cuts of $500 million to cities and towns represent a 9.4% cut ($500 million/ $5.3 billion). For Longmeadow this might translate to state aid cuts of $367,000 for schools and $216,000 for the town- a total of almost $600,000!

Given that the FY2009 is more than half completed, reductions of this size would be very difficult and result in a significant reduction of town and school dept services. If there was significant free cash available to reduce this unanticipated deficit, then the FY2010 budget would be significantly impacted.

My question is:

What are town leaders (Select Board/ Town Manager + School Committee) doing right now to prepare for the tsunami wave that has already been formed in Boston and is heading west towards us?

Let's hope that for some reason that this financial tsnami is deflected and heads in a different direction! We should know by the end of January!

Is there a looming financial crisis for Longmeadow?

Two months ago Governor Deval Patrick announced significant cuts in budgets for most state departments after a $1.4 billion state budget shortfall. At the time there was no impact on local funding for cities and town. However, the Boston Globe reported on December 31 (see online story) that the governor was preparing up to $1.0 billion in additional cuts for the current fiscal year which may involve some cuts in local town/city funding.

From this 12/31/08 Boston Globe article…

“Governor Deval Patrick said yesterday that he was preparing for up to $1 billion in additional budget cuts, raising the specter of reductions in aid to municipalities, more layoffs of state employees, and drastic cutbacks in the services that state government provides to its residents.”

"There's a lot of pain, and it's going to have to be spread around," Patrick told reporters during a 30-minute briefing in his State House office. "Nobody's enjoying this. This is incredibly difficult."

Possible emergency budget cuts being considered by the state will not effect FY2010…. cuts in local budgets to compensate for less state aid will need to be made now! In FY2009. Cuts made in the middle of a fiscal year are much more difficult to make because the budget funding deficit must be made up before July 1.

In the current FY2009 the state budget is providing $5.3 billion in local aid to cities and towns. Current financial aid to Longmeadow is as follows:

FY2009
Schools- $3.9 million
Town- $2.3 million
Total- $6.2 million

In the yesterday’s Springfield Republican (1/04/09), it was reported that local western Massachusetts cities and towns were expecting a 5-10% cut in state for the upcoming FY2010… for Longmeadow that could be as much as $850,000. Let's hope that the Governor Patrick does not cut FY2009 local aid to cities and towns.

















To add some additional worry for the current fiscal year, it was also reported in yesterday’s Springfield Republican that current motor vehicle excise tax collections for many towns/cities are down significantly for the current fiscal year.

Based upon the budget information (see page 2 of ATM report) presented at the 2008 Annual Town Meeting, Longmeadow was expecting $2.15 million in excise tax revenue for the current FY2009 fiscal year budget. A short fall of 10% would mean that the town would have to cut $215,000 from the current FY2009 budget.

In past years, the challenge to town leaders has been to prepare a balanced budget that meets the needs of our town for the upcoming fiscal year starting July 1. Let’s hope that we do not have make emergency cuts in town services before July 1 because of revenue funding shortfalls.

Friends of Storrs Library

The Friends of Storrs Library is actively seeking new board members.

The Board meets once a month at the library. Enthusiasm and a love of our town library are the only requirements.

For more information contact :

Beryl Salinger Schmitt:
yipsister@comcast.net or

Karen Jordan:
karinina58@hotmail.com

Rejoice, MAC Users

While PC users have long been enjoying the digital audiobooks available through the OverDrive Media Console, MAC users have been waiting to download and transfer the files using their MACs. The wait is now over! Download MP3 audiobooks at www.longmeadow.org/library. The OverDrive MP3 Audiobook offers iPod®, iPhone™, and iPod Touch support! To download our MP3 content, please make sure you have OverDrive Media Console v3.0 (or newer) for Windows or OverDrive Media Console v1.0 (or newer) for Mac installed on your computer. Simple instructions are available when you click on DOWNLOADABLE DIGITAL BOOKS, AUDIO AND VIDEO at www.longmeadow.org/library.

Some of the more popular titles:

Sideways
The story of two friends, Miles and Jack, going away together for the last time to steep themselves in everything that makes it good to be young and single: pinot, putting, and prowling bars. A raucous and surprising novel filled with wonderful details about wine, Sideways is also a thought provoking and funny book about men, women, and human relationships.

Master and Commander

This, the first in the splendid series of Jack Aubrey novels, establishes the friendship between Captain Aubrey, R.N., and Stephen Maturin, ship’s surgeon and intelligence agent, against the thrilling backdrop of the Napoleonic wars.

Murder on the Yellow Brick Road

It is November 1, 1940. In the famous sound stage ofThe WIZARD OF OZ on the MGM lot, a little man is lying face-up on the yellow brick road. Someone has murdered a Munchkin. Toby Peters is summoned to the scene of the crime by a very young and frightened starlet named Judy Garland. He begins to put together the scanty clues. Within an hour, he is hired by Lewis B. Meyer himself to keep the name of Judy Garland (and MGM) clean of the scandal, and to hold off the police and the newspapers.

We hope that MAC and IPOD users will enjoy this new service. If you have any questions, please call us at 413-565-4181. Farida Pomerantz

Notable Books 2008

The New York Times Book Review has released its list of notable books for 2008. The books are selected from titles reviewed since December 2, 2007. Visit the Storrs Library to see a display of these books or visit the online catalog to review individual titles and request your favorites. Also, don't miss the School Library Journal's best books for children 2008.

Annual Poinsettia Sale

The Longmeadow Gardeners' Annual Poinsettia Sale is scheduled for Friday and Saturday, December 5th and 6th at the Storrs Library. There will be a selection of red, pink and white poinsettias and peach, pink and white cyclamen for sale. All proceeds are used to beautify the grounds surrounding the Storrs House and Library. For questions or pre-order information call the Longmeadow Gardeners at 567-3816.

An inspiring story....

“Macular degeneration is the leading cause of severe vision loss in people over age 60. It occurs when the small central portion of the retina, known as the macula, deteriorates. The retina is the light-sensing nerve tissue at the back of the eye. Because the disease develops as a person ages, it is often referred to as age-related macular degeneration (AMD). Although macular degeneration is almost never a blinding condition, it can be a source of significant visual disability.” Source: http://www.webmd.com/

Jules Brenner, a long time resident of Longmeadow developed macular degeneration many years before his death in 2006. I met Julie for the first time when he attended a Internet class for seniors at Center School in Longmeadow about 10 years ago. In the years after the initial diagnosis, Julie was able to learn how to use a computer, play cards and other normal activities that we all take for granted.

In the 20 minute audio clip produced by Story Corps, his wife Ruth shares their life experiences together with this problem and Julie’s story of perserverance to overcome his vision handicap that allowed the two of them to live a close to normal life.

Please share this blog posting if you know someone who is developing this problem- Julie’s story might make a huge difference.

[For those who are interested… the software that Julie learned through the Veterans Administration educational program to conquer the computer in spite of his vision problems is called ZoomText and I would strongly recommend its use. The local VA contact is Jim Waldron in West Haven, CT at 1-800-645-6373.]