SomerStat
Director Stephanie Hirsch led a group of about 20 residents who met at
the the Dr. Albert F. Argenziano School on July 30 in a mock-budget
review session she said would give them a glimpse of how the budget
process works, especially in the face of the city's FY2010 $12.5
million deficit.

"The mayor and the Board of Aldermen over the
past five years have increasingly used data to make decisions," Hirsch
said. "We're going to ask you to recreate what the mayor and the Board
of Aldermen went through."

The group was divided into five teams
and told to create a budget using a spreadsheet that explained what
decisions could be made and how the costs would affect residents (many
items, such as the school budget, were left out). Among the rules were
that budgets had to be balanced and taxpayer costs kept low while
preserving the city's "core values."

The values, and the scoring
system given to them, attempted to match concepts such as "quality of
life" and "protect and support families and individuals" against
decisions such as whether to impose citywide resident parking or
closing fire stations. For citywide parking, SomerStat alloted 10
points for protecting families and subtracted five points from the
quality of life index.

Hirsch noted the reasoning and nature of
these core values was not up for debate, adding, "If you don't do
exactly what we did, you'll have to find other places to cut."

As the teams began to pore over the spreadsheets, both cuts and revenue additions came quickly.

Most
were in favor of the controversial citywide resident parking
initiative, which came under fire that night at a Traffic Commission
meeting, but came out against increasing meter hours. The teams were
also not squeamish about cutting employees.

The Department of
Public Works the most popular place for cuts, while the Inspectional
Services Division was also criticized as largely inefficient. One team
wanted half of the City Clerk office gone, while another group decided
to give 35 city employees pink slips – roughly 10 more than the city
has handed out.

The final results varied from running a
deficit of $6 million to a surplus of nearly $8 million, which came by
implementing a "Pay as You Throw" program that would charge $3 per
trash bag picked up in the city.

Ed Bean, Somerville's chief
financial officer, was on hand to watch as residents wrestled with the
budget and later critiqued their results. He said the exercise and
SomerStat meetings in general give city officials a chance to see how
residents view the decisions they make.