PITTSFIELD, Mass. — The Berkshire Regional Planning Commission has been having conversations on community sustainability, and workforce issues were one of the topics taken up by its Regional Issues Committee last week. 

 

"It is no secret that the state of Massachusetts is having a hard time in all of the communities, finding town managers, town administrators and finance folks. And when I say finance, they're talking about your town accountant, your tax collectors, your assessors, anybody kind of in that realm," said Adams Selectwoman Christine Hoyt, chair of the Berkshire County Selectmen's Association. 

 

"So it's probably been the last six years that this has been a difficult task across the state to find people to fill these roles."

 

These challenges include a limited labor pool, an aging workforce, more challenging job requirements, and inadequate wages. 

 

Executive Director Thomas Matuszko, sitting in as interim chair of the committee, presented a summary of options that the committee has developed with the input from the full commission. 

 

These include recruiting, developing and training more candidates, raising the municipal wages for better retention, and sharing services between communities. 

 

The presentation referenced the fact that some municipalities are unable or unwilling to increase wages to attract candidates.

 

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.

 

This does not come without its shortcomings, he said.

 

"We don't know if anybody's interested, the young people now might have a different idea, and it doesn't necessarily have to be young people, but they might not want these types of jobs. There are limited existing educational training options within the region right now," he said. 

 

"And then we don't know there would have to be an investment by the municipalities to try to take on inexperienced entry level candidates and then try to grow those employees." 

 

The municipalities would also need to work with educational institutions to see if they are willing to develop programs that cover local government rather than international government, Dalton Green Committee Chair David Wasielewski said. 

 

This is something he ran into as a nontraditional student at the University of Massachusetts School of Public Policy. 

 

Hoyt said the state's Division of Local Services is rolling out a program this summer with the community college system that focuses on municipal finance positions. Students would intern in town and city halls to learn about the different finance jobs that exist.

 

Matuszko said paying employees a little more may attract more qualified employees and encourage people to remain in their jobs longer. 

 

"That's really only a short-term fix, but it still helps as part of the puzzle. It could make it possible for part-time employees to afford to remain in part-time positions. Some people are stuck in a situation where they have to work part time by other commitments," he said. "And if they were being paid more, they might stay in those positions longer. And then again, if we were able to attract applicants from outside the region, it could help with the overall issue that we have with the population decline in Berkshire County."

 

But, he noted, many towns cannot afford to pay higher wages.

 

Washington Select Board Chair Kent Lew agreed with this point adding that taxpayers probably would not approve of an increase.

 

"The idea that there's probably a tipping point, a point at which adding actually does achieve the desired result of creating a different pool of applicants or a better pool. And short of that you're basically just putting more money on the table for the exact same thing," Lew said. 

 

The towns would have to demonstrate the need for this cost increase, he said.  

 

"There's obviously a lot of education to be done. We've talked about this before … to make our residents and taxpayers appreciate the cost of doing business, the cost of being the kinds of small towns that were in," Lew said. "It is the flip side of the economy of scale. It's relatively more expensive to be in a small town."

 

He also noted that they would need to gather a lot of data to determine that "tipping point" so they are not spending too much money or not enough. 

 

The final option raised in the summary was to consider is "sharing services between communities to achieve high-quality candidates, at relatively affordable costs for individual municipalities," Matuszko said. 

 

Some towns are already exploring this in town administration, policing and planning. Adams, North Adams and Williamstown, for example, recently hired a shared human resources administrator and much of North County shares a veterans agent. 

 

Matuszko said the committee noted this could provide applicants with an overall higher skill set from inside or outside the region and remove competition between municipalities. 

 

"It removes the unfairness that occurs when one municipality provides benefits to an employee who works part time at a lower rate in another municipality. There's an inherent inequity here when one municipality is subsidizing an employee, a part-time employee from another community," Matuszko summarized. 

 

There are different sharing options municipalities can consider whether it be sharing between towns, agencies, or different cost structures. 

 

A limitation is that many town officials and residents are not willing to relieve direct and total control over their employees, Matuszko said. 

 

This option would also require some type of investment of staff time, consultant time, and funding to establish and maintain.

 

Another option that should be considered is getting services from a private sector. Several towns have used private firms for accounting and assessing services.

 

The committee is develop a survey that will be sent to municipal officials and administrators to help better inform these options.