Haverhill Mayor Jim Fiorentini's
Notebook
Council Approves Mayors
Plan to Meet Fiscal Crisis
Due to the recent fiscal
crisis, the State cut aid to the city of
Haverhill by $1 million.To meet the
challenge, I put a number of good things
on hold including the hiring of two
additional police officers. I cut back on
overtime, level funded our capital
improvements budget, and drew $170,000
from our rainy day account. The only
department I did not cut was public
education.
As I told the council, education is
our top priority. I told the city
council that we would not ask for an
override or debt exclusion unless it was
an absolute last resort. Because of
careful advance planning, we were able to
meet the challenge of a $1 million budget
cut with minimal impact on public
services. However, we are all deeply
concerned that if the economy continues
to deteriorate there will be further cuts
required in January. In my address to the
council, I told the council in
everything we do, we need to pay careful
attention to the bottom line. The
Council approved my plan by a 9-0 vote.
Consolidation Vote In this tough fiscal
environment, it is important that
government be as efficient and
transparent as possible. Today, the city
and the school department each have their
own departments handling workers
compensation, payroll, benefits, civil
service, and web site updates. We have
separate finance departments and separate
personnel departments. The city has one
person who prints payroll checks. The
schools have their own people. We have a
person who handles workers
compensation. They have their own. The
list goes on.
Surely, we can and we must do better. I
have proposed that we consolidate our
departments. Cities like Reading,
Barnstable, Methuen, Andover, Harvard and
Salem have consolidated. So can we. The
Mayor of Salem tells me that
consolidation was resisted, but today she
feels it is the best thing she has done.
If a city and school consolidate their
functions, the school committee can vote
to end the consolidation at any time. It
is telling that not a single city that
has consolidated services has ever
unconsolidated. Under my proposal, the
policy decisions and decisions on who to
hire would always be left to educators.
The administrative and ministerial
functions would be consolidated. In
personnel, consolidation will save us
money and make government more efficient.
We do not know how much until we are able
to get into the school department and see
exactly how many people are really needed
to do every job. In finance, it will lend
us a separate set of eyes to review the
finances, and allow us to do what we can
not do now, long-term budget projections.
You may wish to contact your school
committee members on this issue. Kerry
Fitzgerald, President kerryf@verizon.net
Scott Wood Jr., Vice-President wood45106@aol.com Joseph Bevilacqua
(the only member who supports
consolidation at this time.) joebevilacqua@haverhill-ps.org
Erin Francescone, erinfrancescone@comcast.net Shaun Toohey, shauntoohey@earthlink.netSusan
Danehy, sdanehy16@hotmail.com
Sewer Extension to Hilldale Avenue
Industrial Park Completed Our long term
plans to meet the Hale debt have always
been to increase our revenues by growing
the tax base. New development downtown,
new businesses like Magellan Aerospace
and new retail stores like Target, Lowes
and BJs have already added millions
to our tax levy. To make certain
Haverhill is ready to compete for jobs of
the future, we are working to expand the
Hilldale Avenue industrial park.
Our first task was to bring new sewer
service to the park. Thanks to a $1
million grant from the State which we
applied for, lobbied hard for and
obtained, we have now installed sewer
service to the first half of the
industrial park. The work was completed
in October, and the first businesses are
ready to be tied in. We have new applied
for a new grant to further extend the
sewer service to the rest of the park
right up to the New Hampshire line. We
will hear from the State shortly. Part of
our strategy to bring in new jobs is to
make this park bio ready and ready for
the new green jobs of tomorrow.
Mayor Chosen to Speak at Economic
Development Conference in Hartford, Conn
Mayor James J. Fiorentini has been chosen
to be a guest at the Conference of
Shopping Centers annual meeting in
Hartford, Connecticut this coming
Thursday. Mayor Fiorentini was asked to
speak about how Haverhill rezoned and
brought in BJs, Target and Lowes
the largest influx of new retail stores
in its history. Mayor Fiorentini said he
intended to use the conference as an
opportunity to pitch his city to shopping
center developers to try to bring more
retail to the city. We know that in
this economic environment no one is
expanding. We also know that his downturn
will not last forever. We want to be
ready when the economy turns around.
MCAS Scores Show Small But Continual
Improvement MCAS scores, which went up by
5% last year, continued to improve but by
a much more modest number.Math MCAS
scones were up by 3%, while ELA (English
Language Arts) was down by 2%, leaving a
net 1% improvement. The top scoring
middle school was Hunking. The biggest
improvement was at the John Greenleaf
Whittier Elementary School which showed a
17% improvement. I will be at the school
to honor them with the Mayors
Educational Excellence Award. While
improvement is always good, I am nowhere
near satisfied with the result. Our goal
in education must be constant
improvement.
Retail Brand Alliance Coming In January
On November 18, we go before the city
council to outline our incentive package
to bring for Retail Brand Alliance,
makers of Brooks Brother suits, here to
Haverhill. Retail Brands comes with over
300 new manufacturing jobs, and the
possibilities of 100 more. Retail Brand
Alliance came down to a choice of
Haverhil or moving the company oversees
to the Far East. Keeping them here
required a tremendous amount of hard
work, a strong economic incentive
package, and a strong partnership with
the Patrick administration. When the
company opens in January, we are hoping
to lure Governor Patrick here to
celebrate.
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