Pittsfield, Mass., officials approve $206 million budget plan, including 12% water, 25% sewer rate hike

(UI) — The city council of Pittsfield, Mass., unanimously adopted a spending plan on June 13, narrowly clearing the roughly $205.6 million budget for fiscal 2024, the Berkshire Eagle reported.

The new budget, which will go into effect on July 1, represents an increase of 8.9% above the existing budget, which is $188.8 million. A $109.3 million municipal operations budget, a $78 million budget for Pittsfield Public Schools, and $18 million set aside for the city's water, wastewater, and sewage budgets are just a few of the areas where it will be split up.

During the same vote, it was decided to spend $1 million of the city's remaining $7.1 million in free cash — unrestricted income from city operations in fiscal 2022 — to support the budget for the following year and lessen the burden on property taxes.

The council also approved, by a 7-4 vote, raising water and sewer rates to cover the increasing cost of materials and rebuild savings within city enterprise funds. Councilors Karen Kalinowsky, Ken Warren, Charles Kronick and Anthony Maffuccio were opposed.

The new water rate will rise 12% and the new sewer rate will increase 25%. City documents calculate that those increases will amount to another $12.87 a month in bills for the typical two-bedroom home on scheduled service and $9.33 a month for the typical four-person home with a water meter.

The spending plan is the last one adopted under Mayor Linda Tyer's tenure. Tyer declared that she will not run for office again in the 2018 mayoral election.

The budget was described by the mayor as "a maintenance budget," and when the votes were finalized on Tuesday, it basically stayed as the mayor had presented it, despite various suggested cuts made over weeks of budget hearings.

Even yet, the government nevertheless encountered opposition to its spending choices. Councilors Kalinowsky, Warren, Kronick, and Maffuccio frequently spoke out against a bottom line that they felt was excessive throughout the budget hearings.

The councilors voiced worry about how the budget decision will affect citizens' water and sewer bills, property taxes, and income-restricted, elderly, and poor people, who have previously raised concern about existing city-related costs.

According to the Berkshire Eagle, Warren said, "Because the budget doesn't prioritize any additional tax relief, I will not be supporting it. That is not a commentary on any of the hardworking people of the city."

One of the more outspoken critics of the FY 2024 budget and the increased water and sewer bills was Councilor Kalinowsky.

Kalinowsky stated she was "disgusted with this council, disgusted with this budget" during a separate item to provide a tax increment financing agreement to a nearby business. She was speaking about how the budget will affect residential property taxes.

In an effort to reduce the amount that will need to be collected from people, Warren and Kalinowsky each made a strong case for the administration to raise the amount of free money it would provide to financing the budget.

Both plans were ultimately defeated after councilors learned that Tyer's steadfast budgetary tenet was to use free cash as a sort of rainy day bank for unforeseen one-time costs rather than to subsidize significant portions of the budget.

This story was originally reported by the Berkshire Eagle.

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