The 7th Massachusetts Poetry Festival takes place May 1-3, 2015, in historic downtown Salem.
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Showing posts with label Salem. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Salem. Show all posts
Friday, May 1, 2015
Top 10 reasons to attend the 2015 Mass Poetry Festival
Saturday, January 26, 2008
Yes, Salem is close to Franklin
Salem delays layoffs to seek state aid
| Salem is delaying the layoffs of about 60 school employees to seek emergency aid from the Legislature. |
State bailout for Salem schools near
SALEM - Layoffs in this city's financially troubled public schools were postponed yesterday, hours before they were to go into effect, as state and local officials put the final touches on emergency legislation to allow Salem to borrow up to $1 million.
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No, not geographically. The fiscal problem they are in the middle of as reported in the two Boston Globe articles (above), we were very close to.
City officials have publicly said that the shortfall was caused in part by a former school business manager who used money from this year's school budget to pay off old bills. This week, at the request of the School Committee, Salem police began investigating Bruce Guy, who is also a former city finance director, to examine whether municipal finance laws were broken. Guy has not responded to the Globe's repeated requests for an interview.What happened there is what did occur here. One prime difference is in the amount of money. The total deficit (at a point in time) in Franklin was $1.5 million. The actual shortfall was $894,000 which was covered by our stabilization fund. Fortunately, that amount was available. Salem was looking for $4.7 million.
Just imagine what would happen to our schools if we were forced to make the cuts they were about to make.
Paying attention to the Franklin's school and town business is a serious matter! Stay informed!
Saturday, January 12, 2008
Gov Patrick, Salem, and Franklin's situation
Governor Patrick, cutbacks and the saga in Salem
| As the city of Salem roils over layout notices, and other towns struggle with tight budgets, Gov. Deval Patrick told municipal leaders Friday that he feels their pain. Patrick said he understands that they are experiencing tight fiscal times. |
Click through to read the details in this Override Central story in the Boston Globe.
Franklin is not that far away from Salem in this case. Financial mismanagement created their shortfall. The Forensic Report was presented Wednesday night to the joint Town Council and School Committee, as I re-read the report and listen to the presentation again, I am not convinced that we are out of the woods on this episode.
"The deficits in 2006 and 2007 raise concerns over the School Department's level of spending in fiscal 2008. There will be more Circuit Breaker available in 2008 than in 2007, as there is no carry over deficit to be applied to the 2008 expected receipts. However, there was a deficit in Special Education Tuitions even with the full Circuit Breaker receipts for both fiscal 2006 and 2007.From the Forensic Report, page 10. Bold for my emphasis.
In addition, certain other accounts have been in deficit during both fiscal 2006 and 2007. We have prepared the three-year budget analysis, and provided a copy to the interim Director of Financial Operations. That analysis will assist in identification of potential budget shortfalls. However, the schedule is prepared based upon the inclusion of negative revenue items, which needs to be taken into consideration in evaluating the 2008 budget."
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