Governor Patrick, in making his cuts of one billion against the state budget, impacted Methuen in several ways. The Methuen cuts are as follows:
1) Cut of $150,000 for Methuen Parks and Recreation. This money was to be used to complete the purchase of new playground equipment started last year, with some of it likely used to assist in the building of the new locker room at our stadium.
2) $200,000 cut for environmental remediation at the Appleyard site in our downtown. This money was to be used to complete the remediation work started on this important site, giving additional parking and open space to our downtown area, and converting a mini brownfield to productive use.
3) $25,000 cut to Methuen’s YMCA.
4) A $37,500 cut to Methuen’s Arlington Neighborhood for after school programs and homework assistance for children from our neediest neighborhoods. This cut is on top of the loss of CDBG funding this year, and will have a severely negative impact on the services provided.
5) A 25 percent cut in our community policing allocation of about $400,000. This grant funds four full time officers, as well as community and neighborhood initiatives vital to the concept of neighborhood style policing. We will begin taking steps today to re-program this money in light of the cut, but the Governor was correct when he said that this will impact our ability to deliver “community policing patrols”.
6) The Special Education circuit breaker was cut $13 million, and that will have an adverse impact on Methuen, but to what extent is not clear yet. I have asked the Superintendent to analyze the cut and its relationship to Methuen.
We will continue to analyze the Governor’s package for its impacts on Methuen and make the appropriate cuts. This is a difficult time, with the likelihood of more difficulty before the economy turns. We will take appropriate action in Methuen to ensure that our budget remains in balance with a minimum disruption of service.
Bill Manzi.com 
Minimum disruption? 4 Officers…tough times…tough times for those 4 guys. I believe 3 of them already had to battle with layoff talks once before…also found out through the eagle tribune, and not from the horses mouth. The eagle tribune runs a better human resources Dept than the city hall does. No compassion…muscle was cut, and the fat is still fat!
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Your Honor,
If the state cuts these funds then cut the programs. It may be disappointing but it has to be done.
The bottom has fallen out of the state welfare distribution by our federal overlords.
Remember the cities and towns are running deficits in good times covered by state welfare payments. Instead of raising my real estate taxes you raise my state income taxes.
Now is time to get down to basics.
This has convinced me that prop#1 needs to pass to teach our state senators and reps that we won’t put up with runaway spending.
Vote Yes on Prop# 1.
Jules
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Your Honor,
We have to start thinking about a recall petition for the governor.
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Unfortunately the Tribune got the story wrong here. The $400,000 plus that we receive does fund four officers, as well as other items related to community style policing. The 25 percent cut means we will re-program the budget, and save the four jobs. We will cut some programming, and not the bodies. I hope to announce that tommorow. However I did not say that a 25 percent cut against the allocation would result in four layoffs. What I said was that if the cut was 100 percent it would result in 4 layoffs. After the Governor’s speech it was not clear to me or the Tribune reporter how much had actually been cut. That might have contributed to the error.
Finally let me say that Chief Lavigne had spoken to the three at the academy during the budget cycle about the potential cuts and so your contention that they had to find out from the Tribune that there were budget problems is false.
As far as the Tribune running a better HR Department than the City you should consider that in Methuen we have done better than most in keeping our staffing levels intact. Your post reminds me of something that Governor Patrick said during his announcement of the cuts, which will cost the State 1,000 jobs. He said that he had received many letters and phone calls from elected officials throughout the State urging him to take strong budgetary action, as long as that action spared their particular section of the budget. It would be funny if it wasn’t such a budgetary disaster. We have compassion, but we will do what is best for Methuen in these difficult times.
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Your Honor,
I suspect that many of the call to Deval are political types begging that the hack they got a job for be spared the layoff.
Jules.
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