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BROCKTON
Brockton leaders predict the city will face a $10 million budget gap in the next fiscal year, a prognosis that put a damper on the inauguration Monday of Mayor James E. Harrington and other city officials.
Projected increases in the costs of energy and healthcare, with no corresponding increase in state funding, are fueling the deficit and make layoffs inevitable, said the mayor in an interview.
"This is a pivotal time," the mayor told a crowd that poured from City Council Chambers into the lobby of City Hall. "The decisions we make, and the actions we take, will significantly affect our quality of life, and impact generations to come. Let us recognize the vast significance of these decisions and, with integrity and wisdom, choose well."
Harrington - who won his re-election in the fall in part because of his success in handling past budget problems without resorting to layoffs - said he could not predict how many city workers might lose jobs. But, he warned, departments are already bare-boned.
He said his administration will also explore restructuring city government, saving money by consolidating departments without cutting services. Offices could be closed, and duties could be merged among departments, he said.
"It will not be an easy undertaking, nor will it be glamorous," he said. Still, he expects such moves would help fill the budget gap.
In his inauguration speech, Harrington listed many of Brockton's successes and called for a partnership with the 11-member council. He noted they're the same members with whom he served in his first term as mayor. Together, they filled a $3 million budget gap in his first year in office, and a $5 million budg et gap in the second year.
But a $10 million budget gap is a stretch for a city that has already cut government services, with no realistic hope of new revenues coming in.
"It just kind of keeps snowballing because the revenues aren't keeping up with the cost of running government," the mayor said in an interview after his speech. "You have to continue to do business and continue to serve the people, and we need to find a way to do this."
For the current fiscal year, the state contributed just over $150 million, or a little over 50 percent, to the city's $300 million-plus budget. But with the state facing its own budget woes, the city isn't hopeful for a rescue from Beacon Hill.
"I don't think we can expect to see much help at all," said John Condon, the city's finance chief. "Everything I've heard is that the state budget looks like it is facing a deficit, so the expectation that we would get help from the state would be unrealistic."
Further cuts in Brockton's services appear inevitable. For now, the School Department - which has the largest budget within the city bureaucracy - seems to be protected from any cuts, meaning the gap will have to be filled with excisions from somewhere else.
Jocelyn Meek, a spokeswoman for the School Department, said the city contributed only 20 percent of the district's $136 million budget last year - about $100,000 above the "foundation funding" required by state law. That leaves little room for cuts next year in that funding category.
The city does contribute money beyond the typical school-funding formula to transportation costs, but a $1.3 million cut to that account last year, and another $1.3 million cut to the account the year before, have already greatly reduced transportation funding, Meek said. She said a 24-person committee is already working to reorganize the way the department transports students to schools, with consideration of the two schools that are under construction. Still, she said any more cuts to transportation funding would essentially finish off an already decimated account.
Even in these dark times, Harrington said, the city has received a grant to add eight new police officers. And summer programs and job opportunities for youth will continue. The mayor said the city saw an economic boom last year that will help produce new tax revenue, including a so-called "smart growth" development that will energize downtown.
"Despite our financial condition, I believe Brockton's future is bright," the mayor said. "When challenges arise, opportunities await."
Milton J. Valencia can be reached at valencia@globe.com.
© Copyright 2008 Globe Newspaper Company.
