Coming as it does the day the School Committee is due to pass next year's nearly $300 million Worcester Public School budget, the article in today's local section on the meeting yesterday between some members of the Committee and the legislative delegation is telling. It clear from this, as it has been from other reports, that the days of Worcester counting on the Commonwealth to pay the bills is over. While we don't need the rabbit from the hat cited in the first sentence for this year, we are going to be facing some very large cuts next year without some drastic changes. Senator Chandler's suggestion, that changes be made this year, is a good one.
We'll see if the School Committee takes her up on it.
I've always been of two minds in taking the full measure of pain in the front end on these potential multi-year budget problems. Yeah, sometimes you can see a year in advance that trouble is coming, but sometimes it's better to take only some of the pain in year one and take your chances on improvements next year.
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