North Adams Council Votes $55M Budget
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| Police Chief Mark Bailey explains the increases in the police budget during Tuesday's public hearing. |
NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — The $55 million fiscal 2027 budget approved by the City Council on Tuesday had been cut by $298,000, as of Monday.
The proposed fiscal 2027 spending plan is $54,964,135.99, up 5 percent over this year. The Finance Committee gave a final recommendation of the draft on Monday.
Of the amount approved, nearly $24 million comes from state aid (minus $4.5 million in charges), $9.5 million from local receipts, and $25 million through taxation.
Mayor Jennifer Macksey told the Finance Committee, as it was giving its final look at the plan, that she'd made cuts on previously recommended budget lines. The budget has been under review for several weeks.
"We were trending at $1.8 million that we were closing the gap on, and then it became evident that we couldn't push any more really on local receipts," she said. "The team really took a deep dive into what can we really survive without. ... I feel like we, as an administration, tightened up a lot, but we are trying to keep the budget in balance."
The reductions, use of $663,000 in reserves and accounts sitting outside the general fund, will be used to close the gap, along with an anticipated $1.1 million more in local receipts.
"We have the reserve, we should use it. It's hard to both on the city side and on the school side, you know, to say to a taxpayer, your taxes are going to go up, we have spread out this $2 million and we're sitting on a savings account for $2 million right?" the mayor said.
Among the reductions was a part-time post in the city clerk's office, a long vacant position in Wire & Alarm, the vacant administrative officer, about $13,000 from the assessor's office and cuts in overtime in public safety. The biggest reduction was in the information technology, which was sliced by $100,000.
The IT department's $1,189,113 budget was up $235,594 and presented to the Finance Committee two weeks ago by Mark Pierson, chief technology officer.
"I will say that I believe that Mark this year gave a fully inclusive budget presentation, more so than we ever had," the mayor said. "But there were some things that we could pull back on in light of trying to close the gap, so that's what we did."
Committee member Lillian Zavatsky asked if there was a look at structural cuts or changes, pointing to increases in the Police Department as one example. "Is that justified?" she asked.
"Absolutely, there is no doubt in my mind, every dollar for public safety is well spent," said the mayor. "Should we go back to the days when we had only 12 police officers? Absolutely not. It was dangerous, not only for our city, but it was dangerous for our staff, and that's when I think we were seeing more people getting hurt. ...
"I would defend that public safety budget to the hilt, especially with the things that we have going on in this community."
Zavatsky acknowledged it was a challenging budget, but added "for every person that we have, we want them to be well compensated ... I'm just saying if we have less people and less somewhere then we're not in this position."
I'd rather have 10 people that are well paid than 15 people we're struggling to pay, she added.
Her questions sparked a long discussion on budget priorities, staffing and processes.
Auditor Stacy Abuisi responded that there might be 10 people well compensated but they would also be overworked.
"If you decrease the salaries and decrease the amount of compensation again, what's going to happen is those people every year are underappreciated, and they're going to go elsewhere," she said.
Zavastky also expressed concern over the use of reserves, with which her colleagues agreed, and that the commercial taxes are double residential.
"This is painting a pretty concerning image for me," she said, later adding that the city's properties and businesses haven't changed much.
"We haven't seen an influx of new people moving in, we haven't seen an influx of new businesses, and we're not seeing a lot of money coming from the state," Zavatsky said. "Maybe it does not make sense to make those cuts, but we are the only full-time fire department in this area ... these are not popular things to say, but do we need to look at that? Are we going to be in this position in five years? What are we expecting to change in five years?"
The mayor said she'd never consider reducing the Fire Department even if it cost her an election.
"I will not jeopardize the safety of this city when we have a school, we have a hospital, we have a museum," Macksey said, with Chair Lisa Blackmer adding there's also an elderly population and a university.
Blackmer noted that they were in a Catch-22 with salaries when they could only increase the total budget by 2 1/2 percent but had employee contracts that are going up 3 1/2 percent.
But she added, "some communities have just made ridiculous cuts, and it's like they're proud of the fact that they've made all these cuts, and I feel like you still have to provide services, and you still have to have a safe environment in your community."
Zavatsky pointed to the long wish list on the capital how it would be nice to have wiggle room in the budget for key things.
"These might be dead ends, but the reason I'm pushing is if we want to have money for those things that I think we need, we either need to cut or we need to increase revenues," she said. The councilor expanded on her thoughts on the budget during Tuesday's meeting.
Councilor and Finance Committee member Andrew Fitch said on Tuesday that he "believed in the budget" and the finance team that put it together but would also like to see future funding toward priorities like housing.
Abuisi on Monday described it as "just trying to balance every day" and while they would love to fund the capital plan, "we are just focusing on right now on our operating budget."
The mayor said her financial team is looking at options where more revenue could be achieved or reductions in costs made, citing the possiblity of outsourcing the water treatment plant again.
The city took over the plant in 2010 and hired its manager, Timothy Lescarbeau, as commissioner of public services as a cost savings move. Macksey noted that Lescarbeau is will be retiring at some point and the city will lose his licensure.
"I will say, speaking for myself, the last five years, four years, we've come in with a balanced budget and we've met or exceeded our revenue," said the mayor. "This is definitely a tougher year. This is probably the hardest budget I've done in the last 30 years."
On Tuesday, the residents spent more than an hour asking questions about the budget (some answers which can be found in our budget coverage below).
Resident Virginia Riehl reiterated her suggestions made at Finance Committee to have the administration meet with Finance quarterly to review revenues and expenditures, and create a panel with financial experts to study possible revenue streams. She said the city and its residents were taking a risk by drawing down reserves and depending on revenue estimates.
"Having outside people give us a fresh look, help us think about this maybe in new ways, or just tell us, hey, it's really tough and validates that, you know, we are doing everything we can," she said.
"Having outside people give us a fresh look, help us think about this maybe in new ways, or just tell us, hey, it's really tough validates that you know we are doing everything we can."
Paul Moriarty, however, said there was no way to look five years down the road as North Adams was so dependent on state aid and the uncertainty of funding with the federal government, there
"So I would personally say nix that idea right now," he said.
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Tags: fiscal 2027, north adams_budget,
