Curtatone reported that the city faces a 6 to 10
million dollar deficit this next fiscal year, which begins on June 1,
but maintained that Somerville is "in pretty decent shape," noting that
the prospective budget cuts are not going to be worse than they were
under Governor Romney.

Curtatone spoke of the need to diversify
Somerville's sources of revenue, and not to keep "all our eggs in one
basket". Currently, the city's main revenue sources are state aid,
taxes, and fines and fees.

There will also be reductions in
expenditures, he said. Since 78% of Somerville's $165M budget is spent
on personnel, savings may be obtained from increasing health care
contributions for state employees, wage freezes, furloughs, and
consolidation of employees, as well as hiring and overtime
restrictions, and restrictive purchasing policies. In line with this
statement, the city announced on Monday that Somerville officers
holding the rank of sergeant and higher have agreed to a three-year
contract with a zero percent pay increase, one week furlough, and 15%
increase in health care contributions.

The city is also looking
at opportunities to increase revenue, which the mayor said might come
from parking enforcement changes and selling or leasing city-owned
properties.

Curtatone emphasized that cuts will be in line
with the city's policy goals. So what won't be cut? According to
Curtatone, anti-gang programs, career initiatives, and library funding
will stay put. "The last thing we need is teens with nothing to do," he
said of his plans to maintain the Mayor's Summer Jobs Program, which
helps youths find summer employment in the community. He also noted the
importance of maintaining funding for education.

Some steps the
mayor hopes to complete will require the cooperation of external
agents, such as the regionalization of service delivery. Curtatone
mentioned that for such a large state, it is not yet taking advantage
of economies of scale.

The distribution of stimulus funds was
also addressed by the mayor, and brought up during the question and
answer period that followed the presentation.

"We need the go
ahead on the stimulus," the mayor said of the status of the Assembly
Square project, which both he and Senator Kerry called "shovel-ready"
back in February when they visited the site. A city-funded road needs
to be in place before the construction of the IKEA site can begin, he
said. The mayor, along with a couple audience members, expressed dismay
that stimulus funds seem to be going toward repaving projects over
"smart growth" projects such as that in Assembly Square, which will
have a lasting economic impact on the community in terms of revenue and
employment. Curtatone again praised Assembly Square as a model stimulus
project, saying that since there has been a 50% decline in economic
value of such development projects, augmenting private funding with
stimulus money can help keep beneficial smart growth projects on track.

One repaving project that was acknowledged to be badly needed,
however, is Washington Street. The bickering seems to continue over
whether Boston is going to pay to repave it, as it pledged to following
the installation of the I-93 off-ramp. The Charlestown portion of the
street was repaved in recent weeks, but stops just short of the Holiday
Inn, with significant potholes marking the beginning of Somerville.
Curtatone said that he is pushing for it to be put back into Boston's
budget, since it would free up Somerville funds to go toward other
important areas.