Parents rue loss of school police

LYNN – Christine Georgeoplous holds Marshall Middle School in high regard, partly because of the security improvements made in the school her daughter attends.”It’s been really good,” she said Monday morning, noting the security technology installed in the last couple of years in Marshall and the sixth-grade anti-gang course.All of those efforts to keep her daughter and other students safe, Georgeoplous said, will be eroded if the police and school departments pull resource officers from secondary schools.The pullout is slated for Monday, Feb. 9, although School Safety and Security Officer Robert Ferrari will remain on the job with his salary paid through a federal grant. The Police Department is losing $459,000 from its budget to help offset a $2.7 million reduction in state aid to Lynn announced as part of a sweeping array of cuts announced last week by Gov. Deval Patrick.The resource officers maintain security in the schools and help out with student safety programs, including ones on Internet safety and others, like the one at Marshall, designed to keep kids away from youth gangs.Tia Guy thinks the answer to sparing the schools and other city agencies from cuts is to increase state revenue by boosting gasoline taxes and other sources.The options available for Patrick and the Legislature for tackling the budget crisis boil down to cutting costs or raising money. With tax collection continuing to lag with rising unemployment, the governor last Wednesday said he planned to close a $1.1 billion deficit for the current fiscal year with $191 million in cuts. He also proposed $68 million in new taxes or fees, a $327 million withdrawal from the state’s rainy day fund and using $533 million in expected federal stimulus money. Among the cuts is a $128 million reduction in state aid to cities and towns, while among the new revenues is a proposal to extend the state’s 5 percent sales tax to store-bought alcohol, as well as candy, soda and other sweetened drinks.The House and Senate will unveil budgets that work from the governor’s proposal. Any differences will have to be worked out in a process that usually takes until June or July. Patrick is proposing to increase the state meals tax from 5 percent to 6 percent, generating about $150 million that can be returned to cities and towns based on the formula used to distribute lottery funds. He also wants to let cities and towns levy an additional 1 percent meals tax, which would be kept locally. Patrick is proposing similar increases for the state’s 5.75 percent hotel/motel tax.In outlining his ideas, Patrick denied being overly reliant on federal financial assistance, which is the subject of a battle between the Obama administration and congressional Republicans. Patrick said the money he budgeted was new Medicaid funding that appears widely agreed upon and in the mid-range of the state’s likely portion.He also defended the rainy day withdrawals, saying he struck a very prudent balance between the cuts, reserve reduction and the federal stimulus reliance.And the governor defended himself against allegations his administration is increasingly nicking state taxpayers, with new toll-road transponder fees, the alcohol-tax expansion and the expansion in the items covered by the bottle bill.Michael Widmer, of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, said Patrick has “made the best of a very difficult situation” with his blend of cuts, new revenues and rainy day withdrawals.Nonetheless, Widmer said he fears the 2010 budget will have to be cut even more, since it assumes tax revenues of $19.5 billion. The foundation projects they will be closer to $18.6 billion.”Despite the size of these cuts, there may have to be additional cuts before the budget finally reaches the governor’s desk,” Widmer said.