Meet the governor’s new state budget…same as the old budget.

Except in this case, for local municipal leaders trying to balance a budget – like Mayor Scott Avedisian and School Committee Chairman Christopher Friel – the general aid cuts to cities and towns are even worse than last year’s.

In addition to the $6 million reduction in the reimbursements from the phase out of the motor vehicle tax in the current year, the city faces a $13.7 million cut next year.

Governor Donald Carcieri, followed the same budget blueprint as last year – cutting aid to cities and towns, asking for changes to the pension system, and relying on aid from the federal government ($95 million) to balance the state’s books.

In sum, if this budget is adopted, the City of Warwick will have reached the peak of a downward trend in a reduction of $62 million in aid and lost inventory tax revenue over the last 10 years.

If the past is any predictor of the future, the legislature will, more likely than not, approve these cuts, if not totally, at least in some portion.

To save the kind of money the city will need to save, it will need substantial, and in some instances, painful concessions from the city’s public employee unions – fire department, police department, teachers, and municipal.

School Committee member Patrick Maloney made the point most succinctly in his comments about the school finances yesterday in saying, “financially, we can’t sustain things at the level we’re at.”

Friel agrees with Avedisian that the school department should share in the cuts. That means the school department, just like the city, ought go back to its employees in order to gain concessions to balance the budget.

In defending his cuts in aid, Carcieri argues that municipal leaders haven’t achieved the same cost savings most city and town employees haven’t made the same concessions as the state workers he’s responsible for.

Avedisian takes issue with that assertion. He points out that Warwick’s firefighters, police officers, and municipal employees all agreed to pay roughly 10 percent of their health insurance premiums last year, and give back 3-5 percent of their pay for four months.

But that still pales in comparison to the state workers, who are paying 20-25 percent of their health insurance co-share payments. Warwick teachers are paying just $11 a week towards their health insurance. Members of the Warwick Independent School Employees pay nothing towards their health insurance. (Though it ought to be noted that they haven’t been given a raise in almost 4 years.)

If the Carcieri budget proposal becomes reality, without substantial concessions, there is going to be a combination of layoffs and a huge tax increase. Thanks to binding arbitration laws, minimum manning, and plenty of other state mandates, taxpayers can rest assured they’ll be asked to pay more next year to make up these aid cuts.

House Finance Committee Chairman Steven Costantino (D-Providence) pointed out that the budget doesn’t formally change the governance structure in Rhode Island – and “could have been submitted in August.”

True enough. But Costantino, perhaps the second most powerful man in state government behind Speaker William Murphy (D-Coventry, Warwick, West Warwick), ought to take matters into his own hands and actually support the removal of the mandates that prevent city leaders from curbing the size of the government to protect taxpayers.

Until that happens, the finger pointing and blame games will go on – and property taxes will continue to increase.