Schwartz on Newton: Fig-it About It
I’m a week or two late in commenting on this, but since it’s about my hometown of Newton—the Fig City as I lovingly call it—I really can’t help myself.
On November 22, the city’s Citizen Advisory Group, assembled to assess ways for Newton to deal with its impending fiscal crisis, basically came out and said that serious cuts to the schools and municipal services will be needed to balance the books. And that’s even if the city somehow managed to increase its revenue streams. From the Globe:
The report, released Wednesday, says Newton can raise between $2 million and $10 million through a variety of measures, including pursuing higher payments from universities and other nonprofit entities, and increasing fees for garbage, parking, and recreation.
But even those steps would close the city’s growing budget gap – created by a demand by residents for high-quality services and a property-tax base that cannot keep up – for only one to two years, the group says.
Want to know a big reason why those steps will only hold the budget together for a couple years?
In case you forgot, they’re building a mammoth $200 million high school in town. As I wrote about in our September issue, the payments for the school haven’t really started in earnest yet and will only start kicking in over the next few years.
To review: In 2010, debt service for the new North will cost the city $3 million out of its operating budget. From there, that number will jump to $4 million and then $6, $7, $8, and $10 million, and so on.
Mind you that at the beginning of this academic year the schools were already forced to cut 79 staff members, about half of them teachers. And that’s without the debt payouts. The city has a structural deficit and it’s only widening. The future does not look so bright.
So, how does Newton deal with the dilemma it faces? The answer is “not easily.” As far as I can tell, there’s a large gulf between the services residents expect and what can reasonably be delivered in the future.
While reporting that September story, I can’t tell you how many people I heard people say some variation of: “Yes, of course we need a swimming pool and vocational tech program for the new high school! I know they’re expensive, but this is Newton, we have to have those things to be great.”
Certainly there is a segment that wants to draw the line (as evidenced by last May’s failed override vote), but I get the sense from even them that there is still a high level of expectation for the services the city delivers. They simply think better management can fix the city’s financial problems. Unfortunately, I don’t think it can.
There will have to be more painful budget cuts in the future for Newton. Unless they find a money tree somewhere on city property sometime soon, for the next three decades—the life of the Newton North bonds—the numbers simply don’t add up.
The question becomes: Once Newtonites begin to see the effects of cut-back services, what will happen? Will they vote to raise their taxes or try even harder to milk more revenue out of the city or even, gasp, accept a reduction in services? I hope some combination of those things, but I fear the smartest Newtonites will simply pack up and move to Brookline.
