Every day, the state’s woeful fiscal situation gets worse. Governor Jane Swift kicked off the month with a fierce chop of the budget ax. The February 4 news that the fiscal 2002 budget deficit had risen to $400 million prompted her to slice, unilaterally, dozens of social programs offering everything from school breakfasts and adult education to prescription-drug benefits for senior citizens. The cuts hardly provide long-term relief: estimates of next year’s shortfall range from the governor’s $1.6 billion to House Speaker Tom Finneran’s worst-case scenario of $3 billion.

Numbers like these are enough to send many people reeling. State Representative Pat Jehlen (D-Somerville) has fielded one call after another from worried constituents who cannot quite fathom the state’s fiscal mess. "People read about these cuts in the newspaper and find them to be shocking," she says. "They think these kinds of things shouldn’t be necessary in a wealthy country."

Interestingly, Jehlen has heard resounding discontent over Swift’s decision to ax routine dental care for low-income Massachusetts residents. For some reason, Jehlen says, "those cuts have really captured people’s imaginations. People find it outrageous that the poor would have to wait until their teeth are rotted to get care." Lawmakers, too, have done harm by failing to restore funding for substance-abuse, teen-pregnancy, and HIV/AIDS prevention programs.

Jehlen and her legislative colleagues are now bracing for a brutal budgetary debate not only this fiscal year, but also in years to come. The state, in fact, stands in the midst of what the Boston-based Massachusetts Taxpayers Association calls "a structural deficit." That means that it isn’t collecting enough money to cover its expenses, or that it has cut sources of tax revenue to a dangerously low point. Indeed, the legislature passed as much as $4 billion in tax cuts throughout the 1990s. As Jehlen puts it, "We aren’t going to grow out of this problem. The [budget] cuts will continue."

Unless people understand this, however, they’ll be hard-pressed to help advocate solutions, Jehlen believes. Which is why the Somerville pol has organized a public forum about the budget issue, planned for next Tuesday. Featured speakers include Jim St. George, director of the Tax Equity Alliance of Massachusetts (TEAM), who will explain the factors leading up to today’s crisis. Harris Grubman, of Neighbor to Neighbor, will talk about what the average resident can do to stop further slices in services. Jehlen hopes the forum will spark commitment to activism. "If people want to work together to prevent cuts," she says, "I encourage them to show up."

Jehlen’s community forum takes place next Tuesday, February 26, at 7 p.m., at the Visiting Nurses Association Assisted Living Facility, 259 Lowell Street, in Somerville. The event is free and open to the public.