The regional planning agency closed fiscal year 2024 with a revenue increase of nearly $858,000 over the previous year, and a total income of more than $6.9 million from grants, local organizations, and nonprofit agreements.
The BRPC Public Health Program supports Berkshire County and its municipalities in areas including emergency preparedness and response, substance use prevention and harm reduction, community health planning and education, climate resilience, and infectious and chronic disease prevention.
The regional planning commission's community planning program manager told the executive committee that HB 3551 was worth passing even if all the changes proposed by the municipal lawyers association do not make it into the final version of the bill.
This year the commission is eligible to apply for the MassCall3B grant through the Bureau of Substance Addiction Services and would like to bring its programming to the Central Berkshire Regional School District.
More than 63 percent of Berkshire County residents self-responded and the remaining were visited by Census takers and eventually subject to an administrative records review.
Berkshire Regional Planning Commission's proposed budget has increased by more than $886,000, or about 16.4 percent, largely due to several new grants.
The position, which is housed in the Executive Office of Economic Development, will cultivate rural economic development and coordinate with secretariats and state agencies to ensure that state government is attuned to the unique needs of rural communities.
The committee has been discussing community sustainability for some time and its last meeting developed a strategy to determine how hard it was for towns to fill positions.
If the communities invest in recruiting and training candidates from their area starting in high school and college the region could provide a steady supply of employees over time, Matuszko said.
He pointed out that Gov.-elect Maura Healey and Lt. Gov.-elect Kim Driscoll have announced the formation of transition policy committees and said it is important to advocate for county priorities when Healey and Driscoll take office.
Berkshire Regional Planning Commission and several partner agencies joined to form BFF in response to a need for a clearinghouse focused on the investment of COVID-19 recovery dollars into the region, to improve the well-being of community members
The CEDS is a coordinated regional planning process that documents current economic conditions, identifies priority economic development projects, and sets goals and strategies for the upcoming 5-year period.