Saugus groups await fate again

SAUGUS – The Council on Aging and Youth and Recreation could very well find themselves on familiar if not altogether welcome ground during budget season this spring.Town Manager Andrew Bisignani said there is a chance that Gov. Deval Patrick’s 2010 budget proposal will not include the grants typically earmarked for the Council on Aging and Youth and Recreation Department, which could spell trouble for the organizations that have long been on the fringe of the town’s own budget.Both departments rely heavily on state grants for funding since the town virtually cut them from the budget nearly three years ago.Bisignani, however, was quick to point out that he in fact did fund both Council on Aging and Youth and Recreation just in case the state’s budget failed to come through. He said he believed it was important to fund the departments because, “if I didn’t put it in and we lost the grants, it would be impossible to get it back.”The Council on Aging has been funded to the tune of $190,255 and Youth and Recreation is funded at $103,234. The request for Youth and Recreation came in for $135,295 but Bisignani’s request is by far the largest jump the department will have seen since pre-2006.”The $103,000 is enough to keep them going,” Bisignani said. “I did cut back the hours on two people but it will keep them open.”Bisignani said he is looking hard at the budget as information from the state comes in and situations unfold. He said if Patrick can keep his commitment to only cut the already announced $810,000 from fiscal 2010 and to not cut any more from the 2009 budget, then the town could muddle through another year.”If (Patrick) honors that, there are some funds I’ve identified to give back to the school department,” he said. “It would be about $100,000.”That, however, is if everything stays on par. If it doesn’t, Selectman Michael Kelleher said he would ask his colleagues to revisit the budget in order to, at the very least, fund both Youth and Recreation and the Council on Aging.”Underfunding those departments is unacceptable,” he said.If the budget is revisited, Kelleher said he knows the first place he’ll seek the money: the Library.”I went to the library twice last week on days when I knew it would be open,” he said. “It’s very nice, but there was no one in there.”If push came to shove, Kelleher said he felt the need for prevention programs offered through Youth and Recreation and services for the seniors offered through the Senior Center outweighed what he called the unreliability of the library.”And for those that think the Senior Center is just a place to go for lunch, they’re wrong,” Kelleher said.Council on Aging President Richard Barry said as long as his department received the $190,000 Bisignani budgeted, the Senior Center would get by.”We won’t be closing our doors,” he said.Barry said he panicked the first year he learned the Council on Aging budget was being dropped from the town’s budget.”I would wake up in the middle of night wondering how we would pay for things,” he said.Not anymore. Barry said they also receive a $40,000 grant aimed at the lunch program. Add that to the money Bisignani has budgeted and that puts the council within shouting distance of its operating budget.”We may revise services,” Barry said, adding that Bisignani has always been supportive of the center. “We run two vans for doctors trips, we might have to cut back to one . . . but this wouldn’t cause us to close.”