Your Tuesday Budget Update

If there's a quiet day this week, this is going to be the day.

On the update front: The library is getting $88,000 to keep the youth library open. Andy Roy says the Coolidge Park pool will likely close, which is a bummer, because that pool does a brisk business.

Tonight, the City Council meets, with the expectation that it will approve Mayor Lisa Wong's reorganization plan. Councilors said last week they want to approve it, but just wanted to read the final draft after amendments before OKing the plan. Based on their comments last week, if they were to pull the carpet out from under her tonight, that would be rather uncool, and probably lead to some chaos the next few days as Wong reshaped the budget. But all signs point to passage, so it should be anti-climatic. See? I told you today would be relatively quiet.

Tomorrow, though, things start to get interesting. The trash fee public hearing is tomorrow night at the library (of all places). There's a lot of negative feedback on the trash fee, and folks who don't normally pay attention to these kinds of things are pretty upset about the whole deal. That should be an interesting one. And then Thursday, of course, the budget is rolled out in all its glory.

So, to recap: Tonight, reorg. Tomorrow, trash fee. Thursday, the whole thing.

By the way, Leominster Mayor Dean Mazzarella said yesterday he's cutting $4.9 million out of the city's budget next year. Mazzarella said he's laying off one person and making cuts throughout city departments. It's no surprise that Leominster is in strong enough shape that it can limit layoffs, but it is interesting to note the city is facing a similar budget gap to Fitchburg. Certainly Fitchburg is in tougher shape, but it shows that the larger revenue/cost inflation problem is universal.