Mayor Carolyn Kirk faces tough fiscal issues on every front.
(Globe Staff Photo / Joanne Rathe)
As Gloucester's new mayor, Carolyn Kirk knows she's in the hot seat.
Less than three weeks after taking the oath of office, Kirk sits in a building that has needed more than $2 million in repairs over the last three years. She is in charge of an embattled Fire Department that has run out of overtime funds and has been criticized for its response time to fires. She oversees a school department that has cut more than 100 teachers and staff in the last six years, and she is reorganizing a City Hall workforce that hasn't been able to figure out how to run its accounting software.
To complicate things further, she has discovered that the city may owe more money. During the last three years, Gloucester failed to provide its balance sheet to the state Department of Revenue. This, along with a projected $2.5 million deficit, has caused her to impose an austerity order. The provisions include that any city purchase over $100 requires her approval.
While she inherited a city on the fiscal brink, she does not blame the prior administration, led by John Bell, who chose not to run for mayor last year. (Bell could not be reached for comment despite repeated phone messages.) Nor does she blame Bell's predecessors.
"I think a better way to express that is to say that the city has been operating under models that were useful maybe in the '70s, and that we have to modernize the framework of government," she said.
With the city facing $125 million in water and sewer project bills, annual multimillion-dollar deficits, a shortfall in state aid, aging municipal buildings, the task of closing a school this year, and a storied harbor that has seen an exodus of its lifeblood - fishermen - Gloucester residents tu rned to Kirk in November, casting its future with the former business consultant and two-term School Committee member.
"I look at the framework by which we operate and there's no rhyme or reason to this from what I can see," said Kirk, 46, who grew up in Clinton, N.Y., and worked during her teenage years at her father's downtown movie theater. She received her bachelor's degree from Boston College in 1984 and moved to Gloucester 20 years ago. She is married and has two young children who attend elementary school in the Gloucester school district. Over the last 20 years, her business consulting clients have included
Kirk said her task now is to restructure city departments, implementing more checks and balances so the city can be more efficient in meeting the needs of residents.
"I'm not interested in the how and why; I'm interested in where we are today," she says repeatedly, when asked how Gloucester has developed such deep fiscal problems. Now, she has warned residents that the city will have to get by with fewer services until she gets a handle on its finances.
Already, Kirk has a long to-do list. Even after taking office, she hasn't been able to determine the city's revenues and expenses for the fiscal year because employees haven't been able to master a $500,000 accounting software program.
And, after the discovery about the missing balance sheets, she has pledged to dig through city records and send the numbers to the state. By April, she plans to produce a balanced budget for next year, and depending on the numbers, she did not rule out layoffs.
"The systematic flaw in the way the city is set up is what I'm trying to correct," said Kirk, who is asking city employees to be more accountable. She has instituted annual employee performance reviews - a practice that was optional in the past.
Already, she has reorganized the way top decisions are made in her office. She plans to add two new positions: an economic development director and a budget director. Also, she will hire a community development director - a position that has gone unfilled for two years.
So far, Kirk's focus on better municipal management has gotten high grades from City Council members and residents.
"Carolyn is coming at this bound and determined to make the cuts matter, to make the moves decisive. That is so refreshing," said City Council president Bruce Tobey, who also served as mayor for several terms.
Kirk said she has also looked for guidance from Salem Mayor Kim Driscoll, who, like Kirk, also became the first woman to be popularly elected in her community. "Kim's mantra is revenue and reform,and that is my mantra, too, because we have to grow the revenue to pay all of these bills, and the reforms are things like better planning," said Kirk.
Driscoll said she is confident that Kirk will right Gloucester's fiscal woes. "I have already noticed Carolyn's ability to scratch below the surface when thinking about possible solutions to our common challenges," she said.
Kirk won her first important battle last week when she successfully lobbied the City Council to endorse a proposal to borrow $3.5 million to purchase 14 modular classrooms for the elementary schools. The new classrooms will be used for fifth-graders who currently attend the Fuller School. The move allows the city to close either the Fuller or the O'Maley school next year.
Besides making big decisions about next year's budget and staffing, Kirk wants to rezone sections of Gloucester Harbor that are now restricted to marine industrial use. She said the city's community development director would prepare a detailed study of future uses of the harbor within six months.
Michael Costello, executive director of the Cape Ann Chamber of Commerce, also believes the city needs to develop its waterfront. "This marvelous resource is going nowhere," said Costello, who said he wants to see new hotels, marinas, restaurants, offices, and shopping centers along the harbor.
Kirk said the new development would bring in much-needed revenue. "The revenue comes from the increase in the property value and expanding the commercial and industrial base of the city," she said.
Kirk also said she plans to establish a committee this month to review city-owned buildings.
She plans to take a hard look at what to do with the 137-year-old City Hall, which many locals admire. The city has spent millions in recent years to maintain it, but it's too small to hold all the city offices, requiring the city to use two other buildings elsewhere in town as municipal annexes.
Tobey said he would support relocating City Hall. "There are no sacred cows," he said. "It's all on the table."
Kirk said she would await a committee report before deciding on the building's future but believes having all city departments in the same building would create more efficiency for the city and its residents. "The workforce should be under one roof," she said.
Kirk also is looking for union concessions from police, fire, and teachers, who are now working without a contract.
Kirk said she had no funds available for the firefighters' overtime budget, which is expected to be depleted by the end of the month. Because of the shortage, the city has closed three of its four stations on and off since the fall.
"The only way for me to keep those stations open right now would be to cut other departments, and these other departments are operating right now on five years of budget cuts," she said.
Steven Rosenberg can be reached at rosenberg@globe.com.
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