New England News

Report Blames Pensions,Debts For Squeezing Municipal Budgets

WAMC Northeast Public Radio | By Paul Tuthill

Published January 7, 2014 at 12:17 PM EST

15,000 municipal jobs have been eliminated in Massachusetts since 2007. The state’s cities and towns have cut the total workforce by 6 percent. In a new report released this morning, the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation says municipalities are in a financial squeeze because of rising pension costs and increased debt. WAMC’s Pioneer Valley Bureau Chief Paul Tuthill spoke with taxpayer’s foundation president Michael Widmer.

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Paul Tuthill

Paul Tuthill is WAMC’s Pioneer Valley Bureau Chief. He’s been covering news, everything from politics and government corruption to natural disasters and the arts, in western Massachusetts since 2007. Before joining WAMC, Paul was a reporter and anchor at WRKO in Boston. He was news director for more than a decade at WTAG in Worcester. Paul has won more than two dozen Associated Press Broadcast Awards. He won an Edward R. Murrow award for reporting on veterans’ healthcare for WAMC in 2011. Born and raised in western New York, Paul did his first radio reporting while he was a student at the University of Rochester.

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