District 2 Municipal Councilor Mario Pinierio called The Daily News last week to further respond to criticism that the Municipal Council didn't make significant cuts to the budget submitted by the mayor last spring.
During a recent council meeting, Pinierio noted that "the mayor cut the budget $2.2 million; there was no other place to cut." Most of the increases were special education costs in the school budget and increased heating costs for the schools, he said.
"If we had cut any more, we'd be laying off people. We did the best that we could with what we had in front of us," Pinierio said. "The mayor cut ($2 million) for him to take the credit; that way the council could not cut anything because it was as lean as it could be."
If the budget is "lean as could be", why did the majority of the Council support a ballot question that would gut up to $1 million from Amesbury's budget next year? Even Councilor McClure, who proposed the underride, has stated that an underride would "cripple our schools and hurt our community." This suggests that the supporters of the underride are willing to sacrifice our community's assets, regardless of the consequences.
1 comment:
I think the most surprising part of Mario's statement is "The mayor cut ($2 million) for him to take the credit; that way the council could not cut anything because it was as lean as it could be."
Whatever can be done to improve the community's financial picture would benefit us all, and look good for all parties, not just the executive or legislative branch.
Why worry about who takes the credit? Why not rejoice in that the Mayor is being responsible?
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