budget crisis

Over the past year, in nearly every state across our country, newspapers have been filled with stories of state legislatures and town committees trying to work their budgets out of the red.

These times of fiscal crisis can be opportunities for us all to work together to rebuild healthy, safe, and appropriately-funded state and local communities, but we can only be effective in these efforts if all involved have access to the necessary budget and revenue information.

Brockton community members have demonstrated their agreement as evidenced by at least two school committee members refusing to meet secretly with their Superintendent, and by the recent opinion piece on in The Enterprise regarding secret school committee meetings surrounding a potential layoff of hundreds of staff:

"As we face a serious financial crisis, the superintendent needs to lead openly, strongly and decisively. He can dispel any questions about his abilities to steer Brockton's system to even higher academic achievements if parents and citizens are certain of his strength and clear thinking under pressure.

But no one can support what they can't see or hear... [more]

Check out our news round up at the top of this page, and you will see dozens and dozens of similar "worry worry worry" stories from all over the state.

Saturday's Globe includes quotes from a numer of Mayors including Scott Lang from New Bedford.

Take New Bedford, which lost $2.8 million immediately and could lose another $8.2 million next year. Mayor Scott W. Lang is asking the city's nearly 4,000 employees to accept an across-the-board 10 percent pay cut this year, the elimination of some holidays, and a pay freeze next year.

If unions do not agree, Lang said, he will have to lay off hundreds of people.

"Crime's not taking layoffs, fires won't be subject to attrition, and the day-to-day necessary services certainly aren't going to diminish as a result of these constrictions to the budget," said Lang, whose city covers roughly half its $285 million budget with aid from the state. "What we need to do is find a way to keep people in jobs, which is the most important task we can accomplish right now in this economy."

What's your advice for the local public officials accross the state? Keep cutting or keep trying to find new revenues?

It is fun to see movie stars on our streets, I can't deny that. But it is so important to know what we are choosing to do without in order to lure the film industry here. In light of the constant claxon of "worst budget in years" and "budget crisis," can we justify giving tax breaks to the film industry?

Just one current casualty is public health. I'm not talking about Health Care Reform which is about insurance and having access to acute or chronic health care, I'm talking about the unique role of government in tracking, monitoring and controlling infectious diseases (among other things).