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State Sen. Brian Joyce said the Trailside budget was “decimated” as a result of the state cuts.
“I am exploring alternative sources of funding to keep Trailside operating,” he wrote in a letter to Town Meeting members last week.
Joyce spoke about the cuts at Special Town Meeting Oct. 20, where he brought news about the state’s response to the financial crisis on Wall Street and in the housing markets.
“Obviously, the economic crisis gripping our nation has spread from Wall Street,” he said. “It affects us all across the nation and in our hometown.”
He said the state’s first-quarter tax collections fell $223 million short of the benchmark for a balanced budget and expects this trend to continue. He said it will require a “shared sacrifice across the state and government” to turn the situation around.
The Selectmen had heard the town might lose up to $1 million in state aid in the recent round of state cuts. The town receives about $10 million annually in local aid, which Joyce said has “so far been untouched.”
However, Selectman Chair Kathy Fagan said that another round of state cuts is still possible.
“We can’t rule it out,” she said.
Fagan also said she worries that a November ballot question to repeal the state income tax – Question 1 – could “dramatically change” the town’s financial situation.
Joyce said he opposes Question 1. He called it an “extreme measure that should not be supported.”
“It would wipe out $12.5 million in state revenues,” he said.
He said the state would have to fire “every single” person it employees to cover half of the income tax revenue loss.
Milton could lose as much as $5 million in revenue if the measure passes, according to Fagan.
School Committee Chair Beirne Lovely, speaking at an Oct. 21 School Committee meeting, said the elimination of income tax would put the schools “in an impossible bind, and very quickly.”
“We’re foreseeing a very, very tough year next year as it is,” he added. “We’re going to have some difficult decisions that may come up on us sooner than we might expect.”