Mayor Joseph A. Curtatone presented a budget proposal to the Board of Alderman on June 5.~ Photo by Andrew Firestone

By Francisco L. White

Fiscal year 2013 begins in July and the City of Somerville is in great shape financially. Mayor Joseph A. Curtatone presented a budget proposal to the Board of Alderman on June 5. According to that proposal, fund appropriation for the coming fiscal year, July 1 through June 30, is $171,726,330; this is a $2,054,489 (1.2 percent) increase from fiscal year 2012, which the mayor has explained is “well below the rate of inflation.” Somerville Public Schools will benefit most, receiving $52.2 million of the funds.

Mayor Curtatone said, “It’s still been a challenging budget. State aid to cities and towns remains flat, and we started the budget season with a $3 million dollar gap between the obligations we had, the projects we wanted to undertake and our projected revenues. We’ve submitted a budget that closed that gap but still allowed us to make the biggest investment into education and youth opportunity programs in recent memory.”

In an official written statement from the Mayor’s Office, he continues, “The past year of public discussions about the proposal for a new charter school generated a lot of positive energy for accelerating the rate of improvement in our schools. The charter proposal failed on its merits, but I think parents on both sides of the issue raised legitimate concerns that the schools should be moving more quickly to adopt best practices and expanding programming at every level of the system, but especially at the middle school level.” Proposed improvements to the school system include the creation of a 7th and 8th grade foreign language program in Spanish, expanded English immersion programs for students from non-English speaking households, an after-school orchestra program, and five new elementary teaching positions.

There is also a plan to “improve coordination” between the school system and the recreation department, “so that Somerville’s young people stay engaged and active all day long, in programs that build smart, healthy kids with good life habits and a secure feeling that they’re part of a supportive community.” Furthermore, the summer jobs program will be expanded.

The mayor’s presentation to the Board of Alderman showed that whereas the school department will receive about 28% of funds, public safety and pension/fringe will receive 19%, public works will get 11%, and the remainder will be for various other sectors. Mayor Curtatone says, “We’ve gotten significant help in controlling costs by shifting the city’s health insurance to the state’s Group Insurance Commission: as predicted, that’s reduced our health insurance costs in the first year by $9 million.”