The mayor has proposed a fiscal 2012 budget that is balanced and that he saws maintains services and is fair to the taxpayers.
Richard A. CohenAGAWAM – Mayor Richard A. Cohen sent the City Council a proposed fiscal 2012 budget of $73,547,630, a spending plan 2.597 percent or $1,861,731 more than this year’s budget.
“We are doing more with less. I truly believe our schools will remain strong and our services will continue,” Cohen said during a Town Hall interview earlier this week.
The proposal is balanced and does not call for any layoffs on the municipal side of the ledger. It also allows for a School Department budget of $34,194,167, a figure .84 percent higher than this year’s educational spending. The School Department budget proposed for next year eliminates 31.8 full-time equivalent positions. That comes out to laying off 13 teachers aides, nearly four teachers and two secretaries, and not filling the positions of six teachers, one secretary, the school resource officer and five instructional coaches.
Cohen said he was able to avoid layoffs in the municipal sector by not filling the following jobs: the assistant treasurer, a Department of Public Works senior clerk, a building maintenance employee, a police officer, a half-time secretarial position in the Town Clerk’s Office, a highway and grounds laborer, a working foreman and a heavy equipment operator in the waste water budget.
Cohen said this is the first time in his 10 years as mayor that he has had to lay off city employees.
“It is never anything you want to do,” the mayor said.
Cohen said his proposed fiscal 2012 spending plan is the most difficult he has had to put together largely because of anticipated cutbacks in state and federal aid.
At $21,254,432, the amount of aid expected from the state is down 7 percent, according to him. That number is based on the state’s House budget, which he said could still be reduced. In addition, the mayor pointed out the city will lose about $20,000 in what had been Quinn bill reimbursements in educational incentives for police.
The School Department will also not see about $1.5 million that it spent this year in federal stimulus funds, he pointed out.
Cohen said municipalities are hampered financially by having to deal with increases in the cost of health benefits, unemployment compensation and retirements.
“They all have to be funded,” he said. “I don’t feel you can continually put the burden on the taxpayer.”
The council will officially receive the proposed budget Monday, when it is expected to set a date for a public hearing on it. Officials have until July 1, the first day of fiscal 2012, to put a budget in place.
The accounts with the highest proposed increases for next year are the capital improvement budget at $495,428, an increase of 106.86 percent; the reserve fund at $500,00, an increase of 25 percent; and benefits and insurance spending at $13,171,199, an increase of 9.82 percent.