Politics & Government
Mansfield Budget Sub Committee Explores Options to Balance the Budget
Sub committee made up of Mansfield officials and administrators discuss options for Town Meeting.
The Mansfield budget sub committee, made up of members of the Board of Selectmen, Financial Committee, School Committee, Schools Finance Director Ed Vozzella and Town Manager William Ross, met on Thursday and discussed the options for the current budget situation.
“The real bottom line here is we’re in the same situation facing the state,” Ross said. “The wants and needs are more than the cash that’s available to pay for them, so we’ve got some difficult choices to be made.”
The biggest issue is the current gap in the budget. The committee, at the time of the meeting, essentially agreed that without serious cuts in both the town budget and the school budget, an override would be necessary to balance the budget.
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While nothing was formally decided, the conversation, options were discussed that could aid in balancing the budget before town meeting.
“We have to go to the town meeting with a balanced budget,” selectmen chair Jess Aptowitz said. “That’s all I’ve been hearing from people, because if we don’t it’s suicide.”
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One of the options discussed was contigient on cutting teaching positions. Currently, there is $2.2 million in a “free cash” town account that can fund one-time expenditures. While the money can’t be used to fully balance the budget, it could be used in conjunction with cuts to take the school’s budget down. Town attorney Edward Valanzola said that when the schools cut positions that require the payment of unemployment costs, the unemployment could be paid with the one-time paid funds, reducing the cost further than just cutting the position.
Ross said that there are two expenditures that need immediate attention that will be paid from the same fund, so it can’t solve the entire problem, but it could be a start. Currently, a crack in the wall at the Mansfield High School gym needs about $600,000 in repairs and the fire station requires new oxygen masks.
Ross said that the town is also cutting. Two more police officers and one more firefighter was slated to for hire in the next year. Ross said that this, most likely, would not happen.
Finance committee member James Lezzara said that the school committee still can ask Mansfield residents for an override to keep those teaching positions, but that it would most likely cause more budget problems in the coming years.
Valanzola said if the override were to go through, it would discourage businesses, because of other incentives for businesses all along the route 495 corridor, such as one-year free rent. If anything was determined by the Saturday charrette, discouraging business is not something residents want to do.
School committee vice chair Lisa Losiewicz countered with the fact that residents are putting more and more students into the private school system after middle school. She added that the number has almost doubled since last year.
“If you ruin the school system, then it is going to hurt the town too,” she said. “We’re at a point where we are losing more students then we have ever lost before.”
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