---

When Norton Town Manager James Purcell looks at the budget situation in his town and others across the state, he sees "a perfect storm."

Health care costs are skyrocketing. State aid - which makes up more than a third of Norton's budget - has been cut dramatically. The economy is in a downturn, further reducing tax revenue. Voters are weary of property tax overrides and skeptical of local officials crying poor.

Sitting in his small office in Norton's town hall, with stacks of budget documents piled around him, Purcell said, "The community has made a judgment already on what resources will be provided for these services. And now comes the sorting out - the consequences of that.

"We will reduce costs. But consequently, we have to reduce services. And there will be losers in that process."

All across Massachusetts, local officials and residents are grappling with the same difficult choices that face Norton, as an ongoing municipal budget crisis continues with no signs of letting up. "What you're seeing is the culmination of 20 years of increasing burdens on municipalities, without either the revenue or the capacity to absorb the increased workload," said Clyde Barrow, director of the Center for Policy Analysis at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. "And at some point this collapses."

Across the commonwealth, Barrow sees "skeleton governments," starved of resources and struggling to carry out their obligations.

CommonWealth magazine spotlighted the crisis in a much-discussed cover story last summer, "Municipal Meltdown," illustrated by a rickety New England town hall crumbling as it gets whipped by storm winds.

The story's author even managed to get the state's leading anti-tax activist, Barbara Anderson, and Geoffrey Beckwith, the head of the Massachusetts Municipal Association - a pair who are consistently at odds on nearly everything - to agree that cities and towns are in serious trouble.

At the same time, however, regular citizens are seeing their own incomes stagnate or fall, even as their property tax bills rise in tandem with the value of their homes. There is little appetite for paying higher taxes to finance local government.

"It puts cities and towns in a sort of vice," said Noah Berger, executive director of the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center.

The crisis has cities and towns considering a range of responses, from shuttered libraries to regional services, as they try to find a way out of the morass.

But experts see little to indicate the crisis will abate anytime soon.