Budget Cuts

The union representing the 242 teaching assistants and paraprofessionals who received layoff notices last week is encouraging its members to file formal grievances with the school system tomorrow. “We collaboratively agreed upon a fair process for layoffs and recalling laid off workers years ago,” Karen Lasser, the president of the Taunton Educational Secretaries and Assistants Association said in a statement. “It is part of the contract that was signed by members of the Taunton School Committee.”

Stephanie Moulton, a petite, street-smart 25-year-old, was dead, and Mr. Chappell was accused of murdering her. They had been alone at the Revere home, where, her family said, Ms. Moulton generally worked a solo shift. Mr. Chappell beat her, stabbed her repeatedly and then dumped her partially nude body in a church parking lot, prosecutors said.

Layoff notices have not been sent to custodians working at the courthouses throughout Bristol County and contract negotiations are under way, county officials said Tuesday. “We’re still negotiating,” said Commissioner Paul Kitchen during Tuesday’s weekly meeting of the Board of Commissioners.

20 jobs are eliminated. For the next school year some classes in the elementary school would have up to 27 students.

Citing escalating costs in the Fire Department's overtime account, Mayor Donna Holaday has refused to fund an estimated $65,000 shortfall in that account. She has demanded instead that firefighters reduce minimum shift staffing from seven to five firefighters at the two stations until the fiscal year's end on June 30, to meet the shortfall. Firefighters, who have been without a contract for two years as they negotiate terms for a new one, said the action constitutes an illegal breach of their contract terms. They contend the old terms should be carried forward until a new contract is inked, per a decades-old observance of the "evergreen clause" in labor negotiations.

Massachusetts Department of Public Health officials have begun notifying workers of layoffs as part of an effort to slash payroll and cut 50 jobs. According to an April 26 staff memo from Commissioner John Auerbach, the proposed fiscal 2012 budget from the House Ways and Means Committee would cut public health spending by $33 million from current levels.

"I don't negotiate with Dan Rivera and the council. I negotiate with the mayor... There's a process for doing this," said Patrick Driscoll, firefighters union president. "We are open to negotiating with the city, but we usually do it behind closed doors."

Robert A. Janik, president of the Agawam Education Association, said he would be willing to talk with School Superintendent Mary A. Czajkowski about ways to save jobs. One possibility mentioned by officials would be having teachers fill in for each other without pay to eliminate the cost of paying substitute teachers.

Job training and placement programs, so badly needed in places like Fall River, where nearly one person in five is unemployed, could be severely cut this summer when stimulus funds dry up and a federal funding program may shrink.