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State Sen. Adam Hinds makes a point at a forum on poverty at Williams College. He's joined at the table by the Berkshire legislative delegation: state Reps. Paul Mark, Tricia Farley-Bouvier and John Barrett III.

More Heating Assistance Sought as Officials Discuss Poverty

By Rebecca DravisiBerkshires Staff
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Pittsfield Mayor Linda Tyer, right, and North Adams Mayor Tom Bernard applaud as new Berkshire County District Attorney Andrea Harrington, left, is introduced at a forum on poverty at Williams College.
 

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — As the Berkshires face the coldest weather of the winter so far, the county's state senator, Adam Hinds, has joined dozens of other legislators in urging Gov. Charlie Baker to help close the gap in heating assistance caused by a federal funding shortfall.

According to Berkshire Community Action Council, around 8,000 households in Berkshire County apply for LIHEAP (the low-income heating assistance program) every year; across the state, a total of 160,000 residents seek help in keeping warm.

"Now is the time to act, before we see any families experiencing serious harm," reads the letter, which is signed by more than 70 House and Senate members and which requests a $30 million supplemental appropriation meant to shore up shortages in heating fuel access. 

Programs like LIHEAP are among the safety net program that help people living at or near poverty, and keeping these programs is important. But according to local and state legislators who participated in a panel discussion on poverty at Williams College on Jan. 11, fighting poverty means looking at the problem for all angles, including its root causes.

Overall, 14.3 percent of the population of Berkshire County lives below the poverty level, which is above the state rate of 11.7 percent. The rate of Berkshire youth in poverty is 19.7 percent.

Hinds was one of the officials who participated in the panel, and he said it is the current "inherently unequal, prejudiced system" that allows so many families to live in poverty -- a system that needs to be "dismantled." Policies that he champions to start that process include higher minimum wage, more liberal family leave policies and the implementation of the so-called "millionaire's tax."

"We have to be very deliberate in dismantling these laws that have allowed this," he said.

While Hinds indicated that there is no "silver bullet" to eradicating poverty, state Rep. Tricia Farley-Bouvier of Pittsfield, said she believes the closest such solution is investing in early childhood education, which she referred to as the "secret sauce."


Nancy Wagner, the Kids Count director of the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center, speaks at the poverty forum.

With most parents having to work, having high-quality programs to begin the education of children is critical. But now, she said, early-childhood educators are basically paid "babysitter rates." Even the people -- mostly women -- who graduate with bachelor's degrees end up in jobs making minimum wage.

"What kind of value are we putting into educating our children?" she said, calling for universal pre-kindergarten across the state. "Now it the time to invest in early education."

Rep. Paul Mark also talked about education in terms of lifting people out of poverty but spoke on the opposite end of the spectrum: that college loans are keeping young people and young families in debt. Solutions there, he said, including more affordable college experiences, loan forgiveness programs, federal partnerships and workforce training, something that he himself benefitted from in being able to finish a degree while working.

"It is a way out of poverty," he said, sharing that Massachusetts is 48th in the nation in helping fund higher education for its residents.

State Rep. John Barrett III echoed those remarks, recalling how in the aftermath of the departure of Sprague Electric Co. in North Adams officials tried to recruit companies by touting a workforce that was ready to go -- only to find that the current workforce didn't have the right skills for potential new jobs. No jobs of any magnitude have replaced Sprague, he said to the detriment of the region.

"We have stayed in poverty," he said, adding that Berkshire County is the only county that has to import people to fill available jobs. "We have to do something about job trainings."

Also speaking at the poverty forum were new District Attorney Andrea Harrington and the mayors of North Adams and Pittsfield, Tom Bernard and Linda Tyer, respectively. Harrington spoke of a "new approach" in criminal justice that looks at why people end up in the system and said she was especially interested in the relationship between poverty and domestic violence, which continues to be a problem in the Berkshires.

Bernard spoke about the loss of the LIHEAP money that the state legislators are trying to recoup and echoed the concept that education is a key in raising people out of poverty. He also spoke about the need for collaboration between the "growing list" of agencies whose missions include assisting those in poverty to make it easy for those in need to find help.

"We have to get collaboration right," he said.

And Tyer spoke about the "Berkshire Bridges: Working Cities Pittsfield Initiative," which is "designed to support the journey from poverty to sustainability by collaboratively building community resources and removing barriers." While she is optimistic about the 300 new jobs coming to the city from Wayfair, she said she knows people who are working are still poor and in need of help.

"Poverty does a lot of damage," she said. "It steals people's joy. We've got to do better for the people of our cities."

To that point, Alisa Costa, who is the director of the Pittsfield initiative, talked about the "cliff effect," which references the drop in services a person receives when he or she starts earning more, even if what is being earned isn't a living wage. This is where the system itself is problematic, and where policies matter. That, of course, is actually a good thing, said Nancy Wagner, the Kids Count director of the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center, because policies change.

What works to get people out of poverty, Wagner said, is in addition to communities with safety-net resources, like the LIHEAP money: as Hinds mentioned, minimum wages that people can live on and an economy that benefits everyone, not just the top earners.

"I want to reiterate that policies matter and that's good because we can change policies," she said. "Victories can be done."


Tags: legislators,   LIHEAP,   poverty,   

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Mount Greylock School Committee Votes Slight Increase to Proposed Assessments

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Mount Greylock Regional School Committee on Thursday voted unanimously to slightly increase the assessment to the district's member towns from the figures in the draft budget presented by the administration.
 
The School Committee opted to lower the use of Mount Greylock's reserve account by $70,000 and, instead, increase by that amount the share of the fiscal year 2025 operating budget shared proportionally by Lanesborough and Williamstown taxpayers.
 
The budget prepared by the administration and presented to the School Committee at its annual public hearing on Thursday included $665,000 from the district's Excess and Deficiency account, the equivalent of a municipal free cash balance, an accrual of lower-than-anticipated expenses and higher-than-anticipated revenue in any given year.
 
That represented a 90 percent jump from the $350,000 allocated from E&D for fiscal year 2024, which ends on June 30. And, coupled with more robust use of the district's tuition revenue account (7 percent more in FY25) and School Choice revenue (3 percent more), the draw down on E&D is seen as a stopgap measure to mitigate a spike in FY25 expenses and an unsustainable budgeting strategy long term, administrators say.
 
The budget passed by the School Committee on Thursday continues to rely more heavily on reserves than in years past, but to a lesser extent than originally proposed.
 
Specifically, the budget the panel approved includes a total assessment to Williamstown of $13,775,336 (including capital and operating costs) and a total assessment to Lanesborough of $6,425,373.
 
As a percentage increase from the FY24 assessments, that translates to a 3.90 percent increase to Williamstown and a 3.38 percent increase to Lanesborough.
 
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