Melrose Faces $600K Deficit, Mayor Says

Mayor Gail Infurna couldn't make Tuesday night's School Committee meeting due to illness, but she got her point across anyway. Infurna's comments, read by City Solicitor Robert Van Campen, continued her trend of holding back no punches in painting a dreary picture of the city's immediate financial future without the override passing.

Infurna said Melrose will face an anticipated $600,000 deficit as of July 1 after making an additional 2 percent contribution to the schools. She then noted what cuts would look like to the rest of city services, including the library potentially losing accreditation, the senior center closing, and more.

Read Infurna's full statement as read by Van Campen below:

Good evening.

Mayor Infurna is unable to be here this evening due to illness, but has asked that the following remarks be offered from her in conjunction with Superintendent Taymore’s soon to be presented budget overview.

Stating the obvious, a 2% increase in the City’s contribution to the School Department is not sufficient for the upcoming fiscal year.

We know that a 2% increase from last year, in a year that will see

• an increase in students
• an increase in the number of teachers we need
• an increase in special education costs
• an increase in the need for space and
• an increase to fund a teachers contract, is not sufficient.

Mayor Infurna has been saying for some time that this budget year will be the most challenging in a long time Of course, a logical question will be: “Why can’t the rest of the city departments take a bigger hit, so we can fund our schools in order to provide for the bare necessities?

In order to answer this question, it is critical to understand the City’s current financial position

As of July 1st, although it is making an additional 2% contribution to the schools, the City still faces an anticipated deficit of $600,000. That deficit will require $600k in cuts to the rest of city departments. Because of this, the City is simply not able to provide any contribution greater than 2%.

What will $600k in cuts to the city actually look like? Frankly, we’re still trying to determine that, because the city is responsible for many unavoidable fixed costs such as health insurance, pensions, unemployment, and long-term debt payments. It should be noted that there are multiple line items in the city budget that we are unable to cut – due to legal or contractual reasons. The cuts referenced tonight are intended to provide context to the community as we determine how to navigate a $600K deficit.

As we consider cuts on the City side, it also has to be understood that for every cut we make, there is a domino effect. For example:

If we cut the public works department facilities budget such a cut would not only impact programming in and upkeep of our school buildings, it would actually reduce the amount we as a community contribute toward net school spending – which is the absolute minimum, mandated by the state, we are required to spend on the schools.

If we cut further into the public works department budget, sidewalk and road repairs would be performed on an emergency basis only going forward which puts us even further behind our current three year delay in sidewalk repairs.

If we cut the Melrose Public Library- any cuts at this point- will cause the Library to potentially lose its accreditation.

Cuts to our Council on Aging could result in the elimination of senior transportation. As some of you know, many of our senior citizens rely on this transportation on a weekly basis to get to doctor appointments, the grocery store, and the pharmacy. Larger cuts could result in the center closes entirely. Currently our social worker at the Council on Aging is funded at 5 hours per week. 5 hours – at a time when we’re seeing the baby boomers retiring which only increases the need for the services of a social worker.

Our total Recreation Department contribution from the city is $65k. If we eliminate that contribution, we effectively eliminate programs that would no longer provide services to thousands of participants. In addition, cuts to staff in recreation, or in any department for that matter, create new and unavoidable costs related to unemployment. Ironically, eliminating the Recreation Department in order to save $65,000 would actually require the school department to absorb the loss in facility rentals revenue which is thousands of dollars per year today.

Mayor Infurna is loathe to making any cuts to public safety. In order to keep our city safe, we are contractually obligated to provide a minimum number of officers on each shift. There is simply no room to make cuts in our police department without irreversibly impacting our community.

Cuts to the fire department would mean cuts to personnel. Such cuts would potentially jeopardize our ambulance operation and would also negatively impact fire operations in a way that would take our community many years to reverse.

Over the past 5 years, the city has allocated a disproportionate share of new revenue to the school department, justifiably and in order to meet the district’s ongoing needs. In order to do that, every other city department has gone without substantial increases for years. At this crossroads, our city simply can no longer absorb any further financial hits.

The bottom line is that our community must find new and substantial revenue sources in order to ensure that we continue to resemble the community we have today. If that does not happen, we will regrettably witness the dismantling of critical city services and the school system we are all so proud of.

Thank you.

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Photo by Mike Carraggi, Patch