"....Longmeadow Face(s) hard choices on looming budget cuts

The following story appeared in The Republican on Thursday, January 29
“East Longmeadow, Hampden, Longmeadow, Ludlow and Wilbraham face hard choices on looming budget cuts” (click link to view full story)

Here are some excerpts…

Last week, Longmeadow Superintendent of Schools E. Jahn Hart announced the elimination of at least six teaching positions throughout the district for fiscal 2010. The School Department is currently working with a projected $31.2 million with $28 million coming from the town's general fund. Hart said she does not know what will happen with the layoffs.

"We respond to decisions at a town level, so we will see after the Monday night Select Board meeting what changes we will have to make," she said

Editor’s Note: While the $31.2 million proposed school dept budget for FY2010 is $83,000 less than the FY2009 budget it does not include a COLA increase for teacher’s salaries. A 3% COLA increase could add $550,000 to the school dept FY2010 budget.
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Longmeadow Finance Director Paul J. Pasterczyk said the town is currently working with a $47 million budget. He said the town will take an estimated hit of $335,000 in the next fiscal year, much less than the anticipated $950,000.

Town Manager Robin L. Crosbie said the governor's cuts will not have as big an impact on the budget as they expected."We had already planned for deeper cuts, so this isn't as bad as we initially thought," Crosbie said. "The accounts that were targeted are not ones that we get a lot of money from. We do not get any additional assistance and only a small amount of lottery aid, so this has a fairly minimal impact on us."

However, Crosbie said the town has to look at the future and the reduction in revenues. "There have already been drops in local receipts and because of that we have indefinitely stopped hiring for positions that have become open in town departments," she said.
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Editor’s Note: Hopefully, we may be getting some insight during Monday’s (February 2) Select Board meeting as to how the town plans to meet the expected shortfall in revenue for the current FY2009 budget estimated to be ~$400,000. However, looking at the SB meeting agenda, it doesn’t look like much time has been allocated for discussion of this subject.

Given that the economic situation at both the state and national levels seems to be worsening, the town should anticipate and plan contingencies for still greater cuts in state aid and other town income as we move forward.

The numbers are in!

According to the numbers posted today on the Massachusetts Dept of Revenue website, Longmeadow's state aid for the current FY2009 will be reduced by $169,442 which is higher than my original estimate of $146,000. Below are the official numbers for FY2009 (original), FY2009 (revised) and FY2010 (projected).


Combining this number ($169,442) with the reduced excise tax receipts, lower investment income and overbudget snow removal costs (total = $225,000) that were discussed at the last Select Board meeting adds up to almost $400,000 which must be cut before the fiscal year ends on June 30.

Looking to next year's budget... it doesn't get any better. Comparison of the original FY2009 state aid with the proposed FY2010 state aid shows a shortfall in revenue to Longmeadow of almost $500,000.

According to Paul Pasterczyk, town finance director there is ~ $917,000 of "Free Cash" and approximately $2.13 million in the Operational Stabilization Fund. Both of these sources which are the town's reserves can be used to reduce the current deficit.

While the FY2010 proposed school dept budget is $83K less than FY2009 (see earlier post), it does not include a "cost of living adjustment" or COLA for teachers since their contract ends at the end of the current school year. If a new teachers' contract were negotiated that provided for a 3% COLA increase, it would increase the proposed $31.3 million school budget for FY2010 by $550,000!

The current financial environment suggests that the FY2010 budget process which has been underway for some time looks like it may be very difficult.

Stay tuned!

Longmeadow Public Schools Budget Hearing

The Longmeadow School Committee invites and encourages all residents to attend a public hearing on its FY10 budget on Wednesday, February 4 at 7 PM in the Longmeadow High School Cafeteria. This hearing provides residents the opportunity to listen, learn and provide feedback on the current and future fiscal challenges of the Longmeadow Public School system.

The School Committee is proposing a FY10 budget of $31,239,339. This budget proposal reflects a DECREASE of over $83,000 from the FY09 Revised Budget as well as significant staffing reductions.

Please click the following link to view the DRAFT FY 2010 School Department Budget that was presented the School Committee during their meeting of January 26, 2009.

* IMPORTANT –The current proposed budget is subject to change by the School Committee prior to the Budget Hearing and/or as additional information becomes available (i.e. town and state revenues, etc.).

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