In
October, the Commonwealth saw over $900 million in cuts in state
spending, resulting in the loss of over 1,000 state jobs. So what is
there to do now but work toward a recovery? Governor Patrick now has
the autonomous power, given by the State Legislature, to decide how
much state aid will be cut from town to town and city to city.

The
day after the initial announcement of the cuts, he announced that he
will establish an Emergency Recovery Plan, which will include a series
of initiatives which he hopes and expects will both minimize the impact
this enormous cut will have on the towns and cities of the Commonwealth
and lessen the size of the 2010 cuts.

In a statement released by
Governor Patrick and his associates on January 23rd, they explained how
"The national and global recession has led to a steep and rapid decline
in state tax revenues. Unfortunately, cuts to local aid for
municipalities are unavoidable."

The initiatives as listed in
this statement include his filing of a bill that will increase the
statewide meals and hotel taxes by one-cent, which will help to
generate an estimated $150 million of the anticipated $375 million. On
top of this, the state will give towns and cities the option of raising
the meals and hotels taxes an additional one-cent locally, which would
lower the cuts for 2010 down to an estimated $20 million.

Another
important piece of this initiative is the property taxing of
telecommunications companies for above-ground-poles. This could be seen
as a long overdue action, considering up until now they never were,
while communications companies with alternative mediums were taxed on
property.

In addition, Governor Patrick will re-file parts of
the Municipal Partnership Act which is a "series of cost-savings
reforms including making it easier for communities to enroll in the
state's affordable health care plan, encouraging regionalization of
municipal services and other reforms around procurement and advertising
to save time and money." This could, of course, lead to the
consolidation of branches and loss of more jobs across both the private
and public sectors.

What does this mean for the good people of
the Commonwealth? The State House, as well as local cities' and town's
governments, have been riddled by difficult problems – as normal as
putting the people who occupied the now deceased positions out of jobs,
to the crucial and sometimes overlooked causes that the state funded
committees and organizations (that were eliminated) fought for.

As
for Somerville, Mayor Joseph Curtatone made a statement explaining how
Somerville could experience up to around a 9.7%, or $3 million, cut
from the $33 million it expected from the state.

As Mayor
Curtatone put in an interview, "Even leading into this fiscal crisis
there were sixty-four cities and towns that were receiving much less
local aid than they were in the fiscal year 2002 before Governor Romney
made his cuts."

Leading up to this specific crisis, the City of
Somerville had already been establishing a plan of action to defend
against the problems a cut in state issued aid like this one could have
had on the city. Mayor Curtatone stressed the fact that none of these
budget cut issues are necessarily new, and that the Commonwealth, along
with the rest of the nation, has been facing these problems for years
now.

"We've been making preparations internally with our
finance team and staff to identify any options for cost savings,
efficiencies and new revenues," he stated, "we're still exploring that
and we'll be finalizing our recovery plan to carry us through not only
this fiscal year, but through fiscal year 2010 as well."

Mayor
Curtatone also explained how certain areas of the states revenues, like
its property taxes, which have consistently risen since Romney's cuts
in 2002, are making the other areas of the state's revenues struggle by
putting more stress on them. This particular Commonwealth-wide strife
can be clearly identified by the rapid decline of new homeowners and
the sharp rise in the number of homes being subjected to foreclosure.

One
of the ways to lessen the blow this fiscal crisis will have on
Somerville and cities like it is to disseminate the strains that, for
the most part, are falling in very specific places. Mayor Curtatone
stated that "we need to spread the burden of who pays…right now it
goes too heavily on the property tax payer, both residential and
commercial."

As Obama stated in his Inaugural address, "it is
a time for a change in what we see as 'business as usual,'" Mayor
Curtatone voiced a similar opinion: "The present system, the overall
system of the state, needs to be reformed."

"The Commonwealth's
economy is linked by a chain of cities and towns and their economies,
and the deeper the cuts to the governments of the cities and towns, the
longer this recession could last. We, the cities and towns of this
state, fuel the economic engine of the Commonwealth…this is not a
problem that we can simply cut our way out of, we need creative
solutions for the long term."

While these past few days of
extreme and very publicized cuts seem to be dismal in respect to the
people of the Commonwealth, especially those who are (or were) employed
by the agencies and committees who are at risk of termination, Governor
Patrick came out with a slightly brighter announcement, stating how he
will protect the state's funding of schools. In the fiscal year of
2009, educational funding will not experience any cuts, and in 2010 it
will maintain level funding at $3.984 billion, which the statement
explains to be a "record high."

In a year that saw a State
Income Tax Repeal Initiative bill that made it onto the state election
ballots, one can but sit and wonder what would have happened if said
bill had passed. For now, although it seems that the people of the
Commonwealth can only hope that our elected officials are up to take on
the task at hand, and that the erratic nature of the nation's economy
will balance out, in reality, the people need to stand up and the face
these hardships.