Officials, groups brace for budget ax

Large cuts expected to hit many services

Al Norman is afraid.

The executive director of Massachusetts Home Care, Norman is certain a fiscal ax will fall on 30 non-profit agencies he represents when Governor Deval Patrick reveals budget cuts next week.

Perhaps as much as $20 million, Norman said, will be eliminated from the state's $296 million budget for home care services and prescription drugs for the elderly.

"The fear is palpable," said Norman. "People are just waiting for the other shoe to drop."

Patrick has spent much of this week holed up in private meetings as he tries to figure out how to cut hundreds of millions of dollars in response to the state's worst fiscal crisis in at least five years. Education advocates, state lawmakers, and nonprofit groups have spent the week worried what programs and jobs will be targeted.

At public colleges and universities, administrators are scrambling to reduce spending after receiving word from state officials that their subsidies will be cut by an estimated 5.6 percent next week.

"They are going through their budgets line by line," said Eileen O'Connor, a spokeswoman for the state's higher education department. "It will likely be a combination of budget cuts and potential increases to fees."

Campus leaders are to meet with state education officials next week to discuss their response to the cuts, she said. If some colleges decide to raise fees for the second semester to offset the lost state assistance, it would be the first such move in recent memory.

Patrick has been seeking expanded powers from the Legislature that would allow him to cut local aid, a lifeblood for mayors and other municipal officials. Although there are no indications yet that he would use those powers, it would put him on the same path as his predecessor, Republican Mitt Romney, who slashed local aid in 2003.

House Speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi this week said that while local aid is a "last resort," city and town officials should prepare themselves to cut their budgets.

Lieutenant Governor Timothy P. Murray has summoned the state's mayors to Beacon Hill this afternoon to discuss the budget shortfall. Mayor Michael Bissonnette of Chicopee, who met with the lieutenant governor two weeks ago, said he anticipates the governor will ask municipalities to prepare for 7 percent budget cuts, the same amount the governor has asked his own departments to make.

"It could make it a difficult Christmas for a lot of cities and towns," Bissonnette said. "I don't see anything in the offing that's going to change the revenue picture, so we're going to prepare as if the cuts are going to happen. If they don't, we'd rather be pleasantly surprised.

"This is the financial crisis of our lifetime," Bissonnette said.

Of the city's $150 million budget, about $69 million comes from the state.

"Do we cut back on veterans that we have to provide benefits for? Do we cut back on seniors in the council on aging? Do we reduce parks and recreation?" Bissonnette said. "You're looking at significant cuts of police, fire, and teachers."

"Everyone's in a wait-and-see mode," said Geoff Beckwith, executive director of the Massachusetts Municipal Association. "If the state catches a cold, cities and towns usually get the flu."

With state revenues falling $188 million behind expectations in September - and $143 million behind expectations for the first quarter - Patrick said last week that his administration would identify "hundreds of millions of dollars" in layoffs and budget cuts before Oct. 15.

"It's awful," Patrick told reporters this week. "There is a human being or some job or service being provided behind every single one of those line items, behind every one of those dollars. . . . There are a lot of very, very painful decisions in front of us."

Representative Denis Guyer, a Democrat from Dalton, suggested this week that the governor implement mandatory four-day work weeks for all non-essential state employees.

"These desperate times require those of us in positions of leadership to push our comfort zones, and think outside the box a little more than we already do," Guyer said.

"I hope that this idea is given careful consideration and a speedy implementation."

Several states already have voluntary four-day work weeks, but Utah this summer became the first to make such a policy mandatory.

While Patrick has not embraced four-day weeks, he did send out a letter to state employees, warning them of cuts.

"I do not take these steps lightly," the governor wrote. "I have not and will not lose sight of the value of your service to the Commonwealth and the benefit of your work to your family. I know the road ahead will be rough. But we must keep going."

But the road ahead may look dramatically different.

"They're soliciting ideas at these meetings, but the idea of service providers standing up in a room and saying, 'Hurt children,' or, 'Take the money from elderly programs' . . . It's a King Solomon and the baby choice. No one wants to do that," Norman said.

"I predict waiting lists for getting into homecare," he said. "Putting someone on a waiting list for homecare is like dialing 911 and being put on hold. This is not going to be something pretty to contemplate."

Matt Viser can be reached at maviser@globe.com. Peter Schworm of the Globe staff contributed to this report.