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By: Matt Viser Boston Globe Staff FITCHBURG - Almost every day, Laura Frost comes to a public housing project in the center of this tired city to make sure that 69-year-old Ernestina Ortiz takes her pills. She prepares meals for Ortiz. She protects her from falling in the shower. She bends to her knees and pulls on Ortiz's shoes. Asked what would happen without her home care provider, Ortiz just paused and shook her head. "I'd be lost," she said. Home care is the kind of crucial social service, viewed up close, that is jeopardized by the $1 billion in budget cuts Governor Deval Patrick announced Wednesday afternoon. Patrick's cuts targeted services for troubled teenagers, the mentally ill, and the disabled, as well as to local police grants and much, much more. People who could be affected by the cuts can be found all over this economically troubled city, from the elderly strolling past the boarded-up storefronts downtown to the students trying to build careers at local colleges. "Fitchburg, like all cities and towns, is affected," Patrick said in a brief news conference in the city yesterday after he met with city officials for an hour to discuss the cuts. "The reason I'm here today is to convey to Fitchburg, and the good people who work here - the mayor and her team - that we are in this together." Calling the cuts painful, he added, "There is a human being behind every one of those dollars." In the first 24 hours after the governor announced the reductions on Wednesday night, Fitchburg residents began to digest just how painful it could be. Consider, for one, Katia Figueroa. She is a 17-year-old high school senior who several months ago started coming to an after-school program at Cleghorn Neighborhood Center, which was buzzing yesterday with children and teenagers molding clay, drawing on posters, and doing their homework. Figueroa comes to the center almost every weekday for math tutoring. "I had a C or D average," Figueroa said yesterday. "This helped me bring it up to a B, which, for me, is a big deal." A cut to the after-school program would add to the burdens already inflicted on the Cleghorn Center by the faltering economy. The food pantry is virtually under siege by residents; about 80 families came last month, four times more than normal. Staff members are no longer reimbursed for gas mileage as they travel to help families around the community, according to Dolores Thibault-Munoz, the center's executive director. The impacts of the 1,000 layoffs and $1 billion in budget reductions Patrick announced were still being tallied around the state yesterday. City and town officials were relieved that the governor and Legislature have not yet cut local aid payments to municipal governments. The biggest cuts statewide, nearly $300 million, will be to Medicaid payments made to healthcare providers, possibly including the 150-bed HealthAlliance Hospital in Leominster that serves Central Massachusetts. Counseling programs, homelessness support services, and adult education courses all will see cuts. More than $1.6 million is being subtracted from services for the blind. Nearly $1 million is being eliminated from emergency assistance funds for family shelters. More than $1.5 million in HIV/AIDS prevention funds will be cut, along with at least $8.1 million in substance abuse programs. More than $15.2 million will be cut from the Department of Social Services alone. Communities like Fitchburg, a former manufacturing city that has higher poverty rates and unemployment than state averages, could be hit hard. The downtown contains multiple consignment shops and boarded-up buildings, but it also has a new bookstore and a martini bar called Destaré. Yesterday, there were well-dressed women pushing strollers and also scraggly men carrying cigarettes. "We seem to be on the brink of breaking through," said Lisa Wong, who took office in January as the city's first minority mayor. "Here we are, pulling ourselves up by the bootstraps. But there's a lot of uncertainty. We just can't afford any more cuts." The city's budget was cut 13 percent this year. The library is open only three days a week, and the police and fire forces have thinned. "Our city lacks structure," said a barber inside Juice Cuts, who declined to give his name. "If it wasn't for the state colleges, we would be in really bad shape." But those schools, too, will struggle. Despite increased enrollments, they will have to cut budgets by 5 percent. Mount Wachusett Community College will lose $642,000, out of $12.8 million it had planned to spend. Fitchburg State College will cut $1.4 million out of its $27.8 million budget, instituting a hiring freeze and eliminating overtime. No tuition increases are planned, according to the college president, Robert V. Antonucci, but there may be some layoffs and unfilled positions. "The last thing we want to do is raise fees," Antonucci said. "We'll reduce student activities." Margaret Woovis, who runs Montachusett Home Care, a Leominster-based program that provides home care for Ernestina Ortiz and other senior citizens in 21 towns in north-central Massachusetts, said indications are that her budget will be cut by several hundred thousand dollars. She's contemplating layoffs to her staff of nearly 100, and said the 1,500 seniors in the home care program will have to be reduced by about 60 people per month. That means not taking any new cases and may require cutting back on current ones. "Epidemic is probably the word," Woovis said. "This is happening to everyone, everywhere." At the Montachusett Opportunity Council - a Fitchburg-based agency that provides job training, youth programs, and support for the homeless - nearly one-third of the $17 million budget comes from state funding. The council's executive director, Kathleen McDermott, is still trying to figure out how the governor's budget cuts will affect her agency, which serves 20,000 residents. "The thing I worry about is, is this just the beginning?" she asked. Matt Viser can be reached at maviser@globe.com. Home | About Us | Getting Help | Services | Contact Us | Helpful Links | Careers | Site Map www.bshcinfo.org - Copyright (c) 2008 - All Rights Reserved E-mail webmaster. Best viewed with 1024 x 768 Resolution |