Oct 2, 2008 5:57 pm US/Eastern
Local Towns Worry About Budget Cut Impacts
EAST BRIDGEWATER (WBZ) ―
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Gov. Deval Patrick is pushing a series of spending cuts and reforms after state revenues fell $223 million short of expectations in the first quarter, which could impact local city funding.
WBZ
East Bridgewater, with a population of just over 14,000, has a budget of almost $39 million for the current fiscal year.
Some 40 to 45 percent of that comes from the state, according to town administrator George Samia.
"If we were in business, you would call us a captive company," Samia explained.
Which is why Samia is interested any time the governor talks about budgets. We watched
Governor Patrick's speech with Samia live on
wbztv.com.
Samia said he felt some relief to hear the governor say, "We will make every effort to maintain our services in education, health care, local aid."
Local aid from the state is his town's fiscal life blood. But Samia says he reads a lot into the governor's plan to make cuts in his own office.
"I wouldn't be looking for the state to say here's another million on top of what you got last year. I'm bracing," he said.
Samia says the town's next budget could be the toughest in recent memory.
Consider that the town's other revenue sources -- property taxes, building permits, and excise taxes on cars -- all get stifled in a bad economy.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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