Ahhhh, the sickeningly sweet aroma of skunk outside my window late this night brings to mind all the joys of summer.
When we first adopted our rescued black Labrador retriever, Rodney, he was hit by our rather unfriendly, neighborhood skunk one night while sniffing around bushes that I’m sure, on hindsight, he rather wished he hadn’t.
The poor dog, having previously survived being a stray in Alabama and a gunshot wound to his right rear leg, was rubbing his face rather hard on my concrete patio. I suspect our skunk was not of a fan of traditional doggie greetings, if you will.
Yes, our skunk is skulking about and our gardens bloom. No, faithful reader, the rather masculine looking, stinky mushroom has not yet made an appearance but our dandelions are looking quite smart smack in the middle of our lawn.
Now that Memorial Day is past I have hauled out all my white shoes, filled the propane tank, dug out my gardening gloves, made camp plans for my children, and pestered all my neighbors with pools for invitations. School is nearly out. And I swear the ice cream man has my neighborhood on dinner-hour radar.
I did not think that, come late June, Tewksbury would still be without a budget. The budget is a bit skunky, stinking like the anal glad emissions of that crepuscular animal.
The School Committee, having given lists of 5% and 10% cuts to the Finance Committee, seems reluctant now to actually decide upon which cuts. And who can blame them? Without a number, the committee cannot decide what needs cutting. Without a number, the finance committee cannot make a recommendation.
Yet, Town Manager David Cressman announced the projected $3.5 million budget shortfall in October of last year. So how is it that we find out in October, just three months into the fiscal year, that the town is effectively skunked for the upcoming three years at least, and still eight months later we’re relying on a last ditch effort from the legislature to save our Braunschweiger.
We could blame the creation, and rather pallid execution, of the Blue Ribbon Committee. Or panel. I forget. And frankly, that is the hallmark of the Blue Ribbon Committee…it was forgettable.
The Committee, made up of smart business-people, took four months comprised of twenty hours of meetings, to conclude what the Board of Selectmen already knew. Without a significant source of new growth or an override, Tewksbury’s budget outlook was pretty skunky. The Committee validated the projected shortfalls, recommended that the schools try to be preserved, and that the town search for sources of new growth.
To borrow a phrase… well, duh.
I can’t help but think the Board of Selectmen effectively twiddled its thumbs while the fiscal dam in Tewksbury sprung a leak. And then another and another.
And once again, here we are ready to hand most of the problem to the schools. Here’s news, the schools are not actually supposed to be revenue generators for the town. The Town needs to raise revenues to support services.
Jack Dunfey got up at town meeting Tuesday and said something no one wants to hear, and I’m pretty sure he was not entirely happy to say. That an override is necessary, if not imminent. The override picture will become clear over the next few months as the new Budget Task Force gears up.
In the meantime I’m anxious to hear some fiscal creativity from the candidates for the fifth seat on the Board of Selectmen. Dennis Francis, another U-25 alum, is the first to pull papers for the job. I’m sure we’ll hear soon from David Gay of the planning board and Ed Doherty, who has no shortage of ideas or creative ways of expressing them.
The next election, in September, will likely sparkle even more than the last. And the way this town is going, we may not have an answer about the budget before then, though I’m hopeful.
The new board seems to have a healthy sense of urgency and the task force is made up of motivated residents with necessary expertise. We’re all in for a hot, skunky summer. And the lack of budget resolve really makes it stink.
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Monday, May 14, 2007
School Violence and Budget Bootstrapping
This week Tewksbury made news all over Massachusetts with the antics of three (give or take) students writing threatening messages and smashing a stripped down D-Cell Alkaline battery to smithereens. Moreover, while administration, police, faculty, students, firefighters, bus-drivers and staff distinguished themselves with quick response times, appropriate action, and an enormous effort to communicate with families, the real news in Tewksbury is not about what happened at school. But, its about to be.
Every year the budget process represents, to I suspect many residents, a boring footnote in springtime activities. It is tedious, mind numbing in complexity, and regularly produces the same results: months of dire warning, panics, arguments on town floor, and then, often, a surprise influx of money.
Not this year. Every single person that’s involved with the budget that I’ve spoken with at various school committee meetings, selectmen meetings, finance committee meetings, and Town-wide budget subcommittee meetings agrees that for Fiscal year 2008 Tewksbury is in trouble to the tune of $3.5 million. Out of a $77 Million budget, $3.5 seems like a drop in the bucket. However, for a town that has cut back new growth, and a school department that has developed an unfortunate talent for reductions after four years of forced cuts, well there is not much left.
Which brings us to a somewhat perplexing question raised by quite a few folks involved in the budget process: why do we continually hit the essential services, public safety and schools, and leave non-essential services practically alone? The police department will likely have to cut 4-5 officers, the fire department may have to close a station for all or part of a year, and the school department is looking to cut around 30 teachers and staff.
Cuts like these affect public safety by significantly reducing response times. If the town loses an ambulance and the remaining crew is in south Tewksbury, who will answer the call in north Tewksbury?
What about the burgeoning drug trafficking in town? Already an estimated four officers according to Chief Donovan understaff the police department. How do we handle school threats appropriately, keep the drug dealers on the run, or stop bank robberies when we do not have enough smart and capable men and women wearing our uniforms and watching our backs?
With all these cuts, why is the library safe? Why the Senior center? Why the Recreation department? Sure, those departments are all having their budgets cut too, but the library is only cutting one part time employee, one teenager that shelves books, and not staffing the Assistant Director position. I use the library often and I respect the people that work there and value the service they offer, but the library is not a golden goose we cannot touch. I am not alone; there is real dissent among the groups of people working on these budget reductions about what to cut and why.
John Mackey said it best, that if we keep cutting the biggest departments soon we are going to cannibalize essential services. Before we throw education and public safety under the bus, we need to reconsider what is essential. Before we tell kids they cannot have textbooks or charge families a fee for nearly everything (full day kindergarten, pricier hot lunches, bussing, athletic fees, activity fees, parking fees) we ought to share some of that pain across the town. I am not a fan of rubbish fees, but I am less a fan of lower property values because the perceived (incorrect) value of education in this town hurts home sales.
Much of the problem boils down to a mental partitioning many of us make when thinking about the budget: the Town Side versus the School Side. As if the two are adversaries. How can that be? Homeowners pay property tax to one office, not two. We all share in the indivisible goods provided by the services in the town. Parts of those indivisible services include education, though at first glance that may not seem the case. Massachusetts and Federal laws require the town to fund special education, to pay for placements at the regional vocational school, to pay for health insurance, pensions, and so forth for employees. Yet, every year the school is given its chunk of revenue and told to deal with it. So while fixed costs rise well beyond the control of the school department (tuition for out of town placements rose by nearly 50% in one year), the department is required to cut every year to essentially level fund. Still, the town is mandated to provide education for all eligible children.
Every time the school department and committee members talk about the impossible position for schools at public meetings, “town side” managers roll their eyes and undermine the nature of the beast, that it is the Town’s responsibility to educate, not just the teachers and parents.
The various demographic groups must share the burdens of the budget shortfall. Not to do so is discriminatory, punishing families for having children and choosing to raise them in Tewksbury. Now, after years and years of substantial cuts in the operations budgets to fund ever rising fixed costs, the cuts are hitting other departments, harder in the public safety area. No one likes or frankly, supports these cuts. However, with slow growth in town, a reduction in funds from the state, and no one-time monies ready to dig us out of the hole, the town still has to present a balanced budget.
I’m encouraged by the direction of the new Board of Selectmen and a real attempt to create a sustainable financial plan to put these budget woes behind us with what I call Selissen’s Manifesto, the Three-Year Plan Task Force.
Like so many, I am hopeful that Cressman’s office can pull a rabbit out of its hat in the form of some accounting gymnastics or obtain some help from the legislature. But I am not holding my breath. The more residents that come to town meeting can raise these questions and make significant changes on town meeting floor about budget reductions. Residents can ask committee members why certain cuts were chosen and residents can vote down the budget.
When this budget comes to Town Meeting floor on Monday, if the money articles are not deferred, passage will result in a very different town come July 1. In some ways, essential services will be stripped down and smashed against a wall until unrecognizable, just like that D-cell battery at the high school.
Every year the budget process represents, to I suspect many residents, a boring footnote in springtime activities. It is tedious, mind numbing in complexity, and regularly produces the same results: months of dire warning, panics, arguments on town floor, and then, often, a surprise influx of money.
Not this year. Every single person that’s involved with the budget that I’ve spoken with at various school committee meetings, selectmen meetings, finance committee meetings, and Town-wide budget subcommittee meetings agrees that for Fiscal year 2008 Tewksbury is in trouble to the tune of $3.5 million. Out of a $77 Million budget, $3.5 seems like a drop in the bucket. However, for a town that has cut back new growth, and a school department that has developed an unfortunate talent for reductions after four years of forced cuts, well there is not much left.
Which brings us to a somewhat perplexing question raised by quite a few folks involved in the budget process: why do we continually hit the essential services, public safety and schools, and leave non-essential services practically alone? The police department will likely have to cut 4-5 officers, the fire department may have to close a station for all or part of a year, and the school department is looking to cut around 30 teachers and staff.
Cuts like these affect public safety by significantly reducing response times. If the town loses an ambulance and the remaining crew is in south Tewksbury, who will answer the call in north Tewksbury?
What about the burgeoning drug trafficking in town? Already an estimated four officers according to Chief Donovan understaff the police department. How do we handle school threats appropriately, keep the drug dealers on the run, or stop bank robberies when we do not have enough smart and capable men and women wearing our uniforms and watching our backs?
With all these cuts, why is the library safe? Why the Senior center? Why the Recreation department? Sure, those departments are all having their budgets cut too, but the library is only cutting one part time employee, one teenager that shelves books, and not staffing the Assistant Director position. I use the library often and I respect the people that work there and value the service they offer, but the library is not a golden goose we cannot touch. I am not alone; there is real dissent among the groups of people working on these budget reductions about what to cut and why.
John Mackey said it best, that if we keep cutting the biggest departments soon we are going to cannibalize essential services. Before we throw education and public safety under the bus, we need to reconsider what is essential. Before we tell kids they cannot have textbooks or charge families a fee for nearly everything (full day kindergarten, pricier hot lunches, bussing, athletic fees, activity fees, parking fees) we ought to share some of that pain across the town. I am not a fan of rubbish fees, but I am less a fan of lower property values because the perceived (incorrect) value of education in this town hurts home sales.
Much of the problem boils down to a mental partitioning many of us make when thinking about the budget: the Town Side versus the School Side. As if the two are adversaries. How can that be? Homeowners pay property tax to one office, not two. We all share in the indivisible goods provided by the services in the town. Parts of those indivisible services include education, though at first glance that may not seem the case. Massachusetts and Federal laws require the town to fund special education, to pay for placements at the regional vocational school, to pay for health insurance, pensions, and so forth for employees. Yet, every year the school is given its chunk of revenue and told to deal with it. So while fixed costs rise well beyond the control of the school department (tuition for out of town placements rose by nearly 50% in one year), the department is required to cut every year to essentially level fund. Still, the town is mandated to provide education for all eligible children.
Every time the school department and committee members talk about the impossible position for schools at public meetings, “town side” managers roll their eyes and undermine the nature of the beast, that it is the Town’s responsibility to educate, not just the teachers and parents.
The various demographic groups must share the burdens of the budget shortfall. Not to do so is discriminatory, punishing families for having children and choosing to raise them in Tewksbury. Now, after years and years of substantial cuts in the operations budgets to fund ever rising fixed costs, the cuts are hitting other departments, harder in the public safety area. No one likes or frankly, supports these cuts. However, with slow growth in town, a reduction in funds from the state, and no one-time monies ready to dig us out of the hole, the town still has to present a balanced budget.
I’m encouraged by the direction of the new Board of Selectmen and a real attempt to create a sustainable financial plan to put these budget woes behind us with what I call Selissen’s Manifesto, the Three-Year Plan Task Force.
Like so many, I am hopeful that Cressman’s office can pull a rabbit out of its hat in the form of some accounting gymnastics or obtain some help from the legislature. But I am not holding my breath. The more residents that come to town meeting can raise these questions and make significant changes on town meeting floor about budget reductions. Residents can ask committee members why certain cuts were chosen and residents can vote down the budget.
When this budget comes to Town Meeting floor on Monday, if the money articles are not deferred, passage will result in a very different town come July 1. In some ways, essential services will be stripped down and smashed against a wall until unrecognizable, just like that D-cell battery at the high school.
Police State
Fortnight in Review
By Jayne W. Miller
Crime in Massachusetts. Not being an attorney, a politician, a criminal, or thankfully, a victim, I may not be in a position to write something pithy about crime in Massachusetts.
Yet, I’m a parent and I write stories every week about crime and I’m concerned. The number of murders in Boston is on the rise. Burglaries, home invasions, gun-related violence and especially crimes against children are on the rise all over Massachusetts. In Tewksbury two level three sex offenders, previously convicted and served time for crimes against children, live within a half mile of an elementary school. Our police have arrested more than eight suspects in six drug busts in two weeks. Drug busts for cocaine and heroin trafficking. These aren’t kids getting high in the basement; they are people trying to erode the fabric of suburban life in Tewksbury.
Tewksbury, located so very close to Lowell and with two major highways running though it, is becoming a gateway town for druggies and deadbeats to do business. With an understaffed police force relative to the level of crime in and around town, these losers are picking Tewksbury as a great spot to stop, sell some major drugs near a school, and move on. At what point do gangs come in, start staking out territory, and begin protecting their turf with knives and guns? Gang violence, along with nearly all other forms of crime, is up statewide.
I don’t want to be an alarmist and I seriously doubt the bloods and crips will take up arms on either end of 38, but the point remains. Police are working incredibly hard to catch these losers while chasing other crimes around town such as a rash of automobile break-ins, home invasions, even a carjacking. In Wilmington another burned body was found, but no arrests have been made in this baffling case.
This violent crime is way beyond the greedy hands of little league president and major league alleged embezzler Wilford Daley. We are facing drugs and violent crime. Right now these levels are not out of control but they are on the rise. Our lackluster governor seems more interested in lush draperies and Cadillacs than promoting public safety or hiring those 1000 more officers he promised during his campaign.
We cannot build a fence around our towns or run customs offices at every off ramp. We cannot run background checks on folks that drive our streets; we cannot stop criminals and high risk recidivists from living in our midst. But we can put more feet on the ground. We can hire more police officers, add to our force, and ensure the safety of our elders, our children, our businesses and our neighborhoods.
Tewksbury’s finest is doing a commendable job with the resources they have. But we know they don’t have enough. As our budget process gets underway we already know from preliminary figures that we do not have the funds for two badly needed officers to help combat the drug problem this community faces. As a community, we need to seriously consider our needs and how to balance them with our means. As residents and taxpayers we must engage in the budget process and look for creative solutions for shortages that exist throughout the budget, not just for police.
It does not take much to lose a way of life, safety, or peace of mind. Just apathy.
By Jayne W. Miller
Crime in Massachusetts. Not being an attorney, a politician, a criminal, or thankfully, a victim, I may not be in a position to write something pithy about crime in Massachusetts.
Yet, I’m a parent and I write stories every week about crime and I’m concerned. The number of murders in Boston is on the rise. Burglaries, home invasions, gun-related violence and especially crimes against children are on the rise all over Massachusetts. In Tewksbury two level three sex offenders, previously convicted and served time for crimes against children, live within a half mile of an elementary school. Our police have arrested more than eight suspects in six drug busts in two weeks. Drug busts for cocaine and heroin trafficking. These aren’t kids getting high in the basement; they are people trying to erode the fabric of suburban life in Tewksbury.
Tewksbury, located so very close to Lowell and with two major highways running though it, is becoming a gateway town for druggies and deadbeats to do business. With an understaffed police force relative to the level of crime in and around town, these losers are picking Tewksbury as a great spot to stop, sell some major drugs near a school, and move on. At what point do gangs come in, start staking out territory, and begin protecting their turf with knives and guns? Gang violence, along with nearly all other forms of crime, is up statewide.
I don’t want to be an alarmist and I seriously doubt the bloods and crips will take up arms on either end of 38, but the point remains. Police are working incredibly hard to catch these losers while chasing other crimes around town such as a rash of automobile break-ins, home invasions, even a carjacking. In Wilmington another burned body was found, but no arrests have been made in this baffling case.
This violent crime is way beyond the greedy hands of little league president and major league alleged embezzler Wilford Daley. We are facing drugs and violent crime. Right now these levels are not out of control but they are on the rise. Our lackluster governor seems more interested in lush draperies and Cadillacs than promoting public safety or hiring those 1000 more officers he promised during his campaign.
We cannot build a fence around our towns or run customs offices at every off ramp. We cannot run background checks on folks that drive our streets; we cannot stop criminals and high risk recidivists from living in our midst. But we can put more feet on the ground. We can hire more police officers, add to our force, and ensure the safety of our elders, our children, our businesses and our neighborhoods.
Tewksbury’s finest is doing a commendable job with the resources they have. But we know they don’t have enough. As our budget process gets underway we already know from preliminary figures that we do not have the funds for two badly needed officers to help combat the drug problem this community faces. As a community, we need to seriously consider our needs and how to balance them with our means. As residents and taxpayers we must engage in the budget process and look for creative solutions for shortages that exist throughout the budget, not just for police.
It does not take much to lose a way of life, safety, or peace of mind. Just apathy.
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