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Director of Finance Matthew Kerwood provides a quarterly update to the Finance Committee on Thursday.

Pittsfield Still Concerned About Police, Fire OT Budgets

By Andy McKeeveriBerkshires Staff
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PITTSFIELD, Mass. — The city will overspend on public safety overtime and snow and ice this year fiscal year.
 
The accounts have been on the watch list for Director of Finance Matthew Kerwood and by halfway through the year, the budgets for police and fire overtime are just about spent and snow and ice removal is overspent. Kerwood says the city will have to transfer money from other budget lines to cover those deficits.
 
"We will have to figure out where those additional funds will come from," Kerwood told the city's Finance Committee on Thursday.
 
The overtime budgets are easier to manage. The police force has struggled to find enough officers to fill out the ranks that are budgeted for in a given year, which contributes to the need for overtime. That leaves a number of vacancies with salaries that can be transferred to cover the extra overtime. The Fire Department is in a similar place with a large number of retirees this year. 
 
Those overtime deficits are nothing new for either department. Budget transfers are regularly made to cover the additional expenses. Overtime for fire is budgeted at $400,000 and as of Thursday evening, $399,350 of that had been spent. The police budget is $900,000 and so far $886,305 has been spent. 
 
Snow and Ice removal is one budget that communities throughout the commonwealth intentionally underbudget for because it is one of the few allowed for deficit spending. Once a community overbudgets, it loses the ability to deficit spend in future years. To preserve that option, most communities underbudget for snow and ice removal.
 
In Pittsfield, the city budgets for $700,000 and has spent $907,271 to date -- or 129 percent of the budget. In recent years, the city has transferred money from various underspent or reserve accounts at the end of the fiscal year to cover that deficit.
 
Ward 4 City Councilor Christopher Connell has been pushing to raise the level of funding for each of those line items. Historically those lines haven't been funded properly while other accounts end up making up the difference at the end of the year. He said the moving of money in and out of budget lines makes it difficult to get a handle on the actual needed each year.
 
"It makes the budget process very difficult because when I look at what has been expended so far in certain line items and projecting what we would spend in the next month and a half, there is excess," Connell said.
 
Connell said he understands the idea behind underfunding snow and ice but said he'd like to see that be increased a bit to lessen the amount of money being moved at the end of the year.
 
Additionally, the account for benefits conversion in the unclassified budget is overspent. Kerwood said there have been a number of unanticipated retirements, particularly in Police and Fire departments, that have raised that cost. He said the city budgeted for $400,000 and has already spent $571,725.
 
Kerwood added that unemployment insurance is trending well with just 25 percent of the budget being spent to date and health insurance is trending slightly under budget. 
 
Those half-dozen accounts have been highlighted numerous times over the year when Kerwood provided quarterly presentations to the Finance Committee. However, those are areas are also a concern while overall the budget is trending well.
 
Kerwood said revenues are trending above estimates. He said the third quarter bills for property tax have gone out and $54,840,859 have been collected of the $76,390,2013 billed for the entire year. That is a 71 percent collection rate. Personal property is at 72 percent collected with $9,990,874 to be billed throughout the year and $7,223,161 collected so far.
 
Hotel-motel taxes at the mid-year point were already 64 percent collected and meals taxes were at 56 percent collected at the mid-year point. Motor vehicle excise is at only 17 percent collected but that's because the large billing hasn't gone out yet. In March the city sends out the majority of the excise bills. 
 
"The largest motor vehicle commitment goes out in March so we will see an uptick in revenue associated with that once that commitment goes out," Kerwood said.
 
The city has a windfall of revenues from the tax title auction held in October. The city expected interest from tax titles to come in at $120,000 but throughout the process of auctioning the titles, many set up payment plans or paid off back taxes plus interest. The city has collected $400,616 to date in tax title interest -- 233 percent of what was budgeted.
 
"This will drop down in 2020 so this is not a sustainable thing," Kerwood said.
 
The city has so far seen $93,868 in earnings on investments, which is 78 percent of the $120,000 budgeted. Kerwood has revamped the city's investment policy over the last four months and even the auditor has praised those efforts.
 
In total, 45 percent of all local receipts have been collected at about the halfway point in the year and that is without the motor vehicle excise bills being released.
 
In the overall scheme, the city has spent $83,207,053 by the end of the second quarter, which includes $10.4 million in holdovers from last year's budget. So far the city has taken in $74,947,107 in revenues at the end of the second quarters. 

Tags: fiscal 2019,   overtime,   pittsfield_budget,   revenue,   snow & ice,   

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Crosby/Conte Statement of Interest Gets OK From Council

By Brittany PolitoiBerkshires Staff

Architect Carl Franceschi and Superintendent Joseph Curtis address the City Council on Tuesday.

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — With the approval of all necessary bodies, the school district will submit a statement of interest for a combined build on the site of Crosby Elementary School.

The City Council on Tuesday unanimously gave Superintendent Joseph Curtis the green light for the SOI to the Massachusetts School Building Authority by April 12.

"The statement I would make is we should have learned by our mistakes in the past," Mayor Peter Marchetti said.

"Twenty years ago, we could have built a wastewater treatment plant a lot cheaper than we could a couple of years ago and we can wait 10 years and get in line to build a new school or we can start now and, hopefully, when we get into that process and be able to do it cheaper then we can do a decade from now."

The proposal rebuilds Conte Community School and Crosby on the West Street site with shared facilities, as both have outdated campuses, insufficient layouts, and need significant repair. A rough timeline shows a feasibility study in 2026 with design and construction ranging from 2027 to 2028.

Following the SOI, the next step would be a feasibility study to determine the specific needs and parameters of the project, costing about $1.5 million and partially covered by the state. There is a potential for 80 percent reimbursement through the MSBA, who will decide on the project by the end of the year.

Earlier this month, city officials took a tour of both schools — some were shocked at the conditions students are learning in.

Silvio O. Conte Community School, built in 1974, is a 69,500 square foot open-concept facility that was popular in the 1960s and 1970s but the quad classroom layout poses educational and security risks.  John C. Crosby Elementary School, built in 1962, is about 69,800 square feet and was built as a junior high school so several aspects had to be adapted for elementary use.

Ward 6 Councilor Dina Lampiasi said the walkthrough was "striking" at points, particularly at Conte, and had her thinking there was no way she would want her child educated there. She recognized that not everyone has the ability to choose where their child goes to school and "we need to do better."

"The two facilities that we are looking at I think are a great place to start," she said.

"As the Ward 6 councilor, this is where my residents and my students are going to school so selfishly yes, I want to see this project happen but looking at how we are educating Pittsfield students, this is going to give us a big bang for our buck and it's going to help improve the educational experience of a vast group of students in our city."

During the tour, Ward 5 Councilor Patrick Kavey, saw where it could be difficult to pay attention in an open classroom with so much going on and imagined the struggle for students.

Councilor at Large Alisa Costa said, "we cannot afford not to do this" because the city needs schools that people want their children to attend.

"I know that every financial decision we make is tough but we have to figure this out. If the roof on your house were crumbling in, you'd have to figure it out and that's where we're at and we can't afford to wait any longer," she said.

"We can't afford for the sake of the children going to our schools, for the sake of our city that we want to see grow so we have to build a city where people want to go."

Councilor at Large Kathy Amuso, who served on the School Building Needs Commission for about 18 years, pointed out that the panel identified a need to address Conte in 2008.

Curtis addressed questions about the fate of Conte if the build were to happen, explaining that it could be kept as an active space for community use, house the Eagle Academy or the Adult Learning Center, or house the central offices.

School attendance zones are a point of discussion for the entire school district and for this project.

"At one time I think we had 36 school buildings and now we have essentially 12 and then it would go down again but in a thoughtful way," Curtis said.

Currently, eight attendance zones designate where a student will go to elementary school. Part of the vision is to collapse those zones into three with hopes of building a plan that incorporates partner schools in each attendance zone.

"I think that going from eight schools to three would be easier to maintain and I think it would make more sense but in order to get there we will have to build these buildings and we will have to spend money," Kavey said, hoping that the city would receive the 80 percent reimbursement it is vying for.

This plan for West Street, which is subject to change, has the potential to house grades pre-kindergarten to first grade in one school and Grades 2 to 4 in another with both having their own identities and administrations. 

The districtwide vision for middle school students is to divide all students into a grade five and six school and a grade seven and eight school to ensure equity.

"The vagueness of what that looks like is worrisome to some folks that I have talked to," Lampiasi said.

Curtis emphasized that these changes would have to be voted on by the School Committee and include public input.

"We've talked about it conceptually just to illustrate a possible grade span allocation," he said. "No decisions have been made at all by the School Committee, even the grade-span proposals."

School Committee Chair William Cameron said it is civic duty of the committee and council to move forward with the SOI.
 
He explained that when seven of the city's schools were renovated in the late 1990s, the community schools were only 25 years old and Crosby was 35 years old.  The commonwealth did not deem them to be sorely in need of renovation or replacement.
 
"Now 25 years later, Crosby is physically decrepit and an eyesore. It houses students ages three to 11 in a facility meant for use by teenagers,"
 
"Conte and Morningside opened in the mid-1970s. They were built as then state-of-the-art schools featuring large elongated rectangles of open instructional space. Over almost half a century, these physical arrangements have proven to be inadequate for teaching core academic skills effectively to students, many of whom need extra services and a distraction-free environment if they are to realize their full academic potential."
 
He said  the proposal addresses a serious problem in the "economically poorest, most ethnically, culturally, and linguistically diverse area" of the city.
 
Cameron added that these facilities have been deemed unsatisfactory and need to be replaced as part of the project to reimagine how the city can best meet the educational needs of its students.  He said it is the local government's job to move this project forward to ensure that children learn in an environment that is conducive to their thriving academically.
 
"The process of meeting this responsibility needs to begin here tonight," he said.
 
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