Springfield's financial future

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (WWLP) - Springfield's financial team will plead its case in Boston next week for more state money.  

The 22News I-Team discovers what happens if they don't get it.  

The simple answer is cuts; jobs, budgets and spending.  That's something the city has done the past two years, but without more state aid it may not be enough.  

Springfield has been losing, on average about $10 million a year in revenue.  The cities acting Chief Administrative and Financial Officer T.J. Plante told 22News the biggest obstacle is Propostion 2.5.  That's a state law that limits cities and towns from increasing property taxes.  Plante says when the law was written IN 1980 lawmakers never considered the situation Springfield is currently in.  

"They expected that when the law was passed that growth would always happen.  In our case growth stopped and instead of stopping it dropped", says Plante.

The 22News I-Team examined data from the five most populous cities in the state.  By percentage, Springfield relies on more state aid and collects the least amount of taxes.

"We rely on state aid, we are an urban center. You look at Eastern Mass, they're stay stagnant, they didn't drop nearly as much", says Plante.
 
Springfield collects more than 60% of its revenue from the state and only 30 percent from property taxes.  Compare that to similar cities - Worcester generates 43% of its revenue from state aid and 37 percent from its tax levy.  Lowell- 48% from state aid.  33% from its tax levy.

 (What happens if that state aid continues to drop, how do you survive?)
 
"We've made a lot of difficult decisions over the last few years.  What does that mean service reductions, potential layoffs, potential other cuts in areas, potential fees that we can charge", says Plante.

Plante told 22News he is going to recommend using some of the $35 million they have in their reserves this year.