"Malden is slated to lay off 29 public employees, including five firefighters. In Somerville, a clinical youth specialist was among the 13 abruptly axed. And in New Bedford, where the exasperated mayor said the financial strife had “reached a boiling point,” the cuts reach deep into the police department ledger with the planned elimination of two dozen vacant positions, all while another 36 employees in city departments are set to be let go and a fire station is on the chopping block.
Across Massachusetts, communities are confronting what some describe as the most intractable budget shortfalls in decades. Exact numbers of people losing their jobs may vary as labor negotiations play out, but the budgets city leaders are putting forward this year have called for a flurry of program cuts and pink slips in these last weeks before the new fiscal year that begins next month.
“We are going to start to see cuts and layoffs that we haven’t seen probably since 2008 and 2009 during the Great Recession,” said Adam Chapdelaine, executive director of the Massachusetts Municipal Association, a nonprofit that advocates for local officials.
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| Explore the MMA’s new report, "A Perfect Storm: Cities and Towns Face Historic Fiscal Pressures", to understand why |
The layoffs arrive at a moment when pandemic-era federal grants have dried up, and unrestricted state aid, adjusted for inflation, is well below what it was 20 years ago, the report said."
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2026/06/05/metro/massachusetts-layoffs/?s_campaign=sharetool_copypaste_view
The Perfect Storm report link was shared here in October -
The Perfect Storm report link was shared here in October -
