Municipal officials worry about how cities, towns will get by with less state aid

The bad news is in.

With Governor Deval Patrick's release this week of town-by-town local aid cuts for the current fiscal year and the next - amounting to millions of dollars for many individual communities - officials across Massachusetts have begun the grim tasks of freezing pay, leaving staff vacancies unfilled, and preparing for layoffs expected to number in the thousands.

Take New Bedford, which lost $2.8 million immediately and could lose another $8.2 million next year. Mayor Scott W. Lang is asking the city's nearly 4,000 employees to accept an across-the-board 10 percent pay cut this year, the elimination of some holidays, and a pay freeze next year.

If unions do not agree, Lang said, he will have to lay off hundreds of people.

"Crime's not taking layoffs, fires won't be subject to attrition, and the day-to-day necessary services certainly aren't going to diminish as a result of these constrictions to the budget," said Lang, whose city covers roughly half its $285 million budget with aid from the state. "What we need to do is find a way to keep people in jobs, which is the most important task we can accomplish right now in this economy."

Lang and other municipal officials are trying to minimize harm to services - such as classroom size, pothole repair, and City Hall wait times - that would accompany mass layoffs.

But pay and benefit adjustments must be negotiated with unions. In New Bedford, Lang can expect resistance.

"That's quite a hurt," Lieutenant James Allen, president of New Bedford's firefighters union, IAFF Local 841, said of the proposed 10 percent pay cut. "I don't think that the public employees are ignorant of the situation and the facts that are going on in the world, but we also need to make sure that government officials have taken every consideration before they wield the ax and just start slicing and dicing."

The financial picture varies from town to town, but everybody is losing. Some may impose layoffs almost immediately. Those with deeper rainy-day accounts, more robust tax bases, and a lower reliance on state aid will make it through June with minor changes, but service and staffing reductions next year will be widespread. Patrick cut aid $128 million immediately and proposed reducing it up to $375 million for fiscal 2010.

Patrick hopes to relieve some of the pain by pushing tax increases to funnel money back to communities, but that requires separate law changes by the Legislature, an uncertain prospect. He has been employing a tactic he has tried in the past: using the bully pulpit that comes with his office to urge lawmakers to follow his plan.

"Endless debate is not acceptable," Patrick said at a news conference as he announced his budget cuts. "We need action . . . and we need that action urgently."

Patrick has proposed not cutting any one community's local aid by more than 10 percent over the next year and a half, but that seems possible only if lawmakers approve his 1 percentage point statewide hike in restaurant and hotel taxes. If the Legislature does not increase those taxes, the cuts could be drastic.

About 70 communities, mostly small towns such as Hardwick and Stow, would have to grapple with a 28 percent cut. Larger communities would also be hit.

Cambridge, which this year was supposed to get $36.1 million from the state, would face a 21 percent cut to $28.4 million. But if lawmakers approve the meals and hotel hikes, the city would get $32.4 million - a 10 percent cut. Cambridge could get another $5.7 million if lawmakers approve a local option allowing cities and towns to collect an additional 1 percentage point meals and hotel tax for themselves, according to Patrick administration estimates.

Without new taxes and fees, Boston's annual aid would be sheered from a budgeted $457 million this year to $390 million next year - a $67 million drop that swells to $78 million when you factor other state aid on top of the main local aid accounts, such as police career-incentive pay and school lunch subsidies, said Lisa C. Signori, Boston's director of administration and finance.

Communities spend the vast majority of their budgets on personnel, including pay and benefits, but they are looking for savings everywhere, delaying purchases and making other cuts to cope with the local aid losses.

In Medford, the mayor's plans include delaying the opening of the city pool and swimming pond, pulling back budgeted-but-unspent dollars for library books, and stalling on any new small-claims lawsuits against the city. In Chicopee, the list includes a hybrid sport utility vehicle that had been budgeted for the mayor, who drives a seven-year-old vehicle handed down from another department.

Local officials worry about cutting too much or too little, too early or not soon enough. They fear that state aid could be reduced again if the economy worsens, even as they hope it is restored in part or in full by new taxes or relief from a federal economic stimulus package.

"We're in a predicament," said Mayor Konstantina B. Lukes of Worcester, whose city stands to lose $5 million immediately and as much as $10 million more next year under Patrick's plans. Major cuts, though inevitable, "are on hold right now."

But for those less able to absorb immediate losses, waiting as June 30 approaches makes it harder to finish with a balanced budget. Beleaguered officials said they have little time to waste.

"The salt is still in the wound," said Mayor Edward J. Clancy Jr. of Lynn, who asked the City Council to hold an emergency meeting next week to review $2.7 million in cuts he proposed immediately after Patrick's announcement. "But we're grappling with it."

Matt Viser of the Globe staff contributed to this report.