North Adams Proposing $41M ‘Placeholder’ Budget

The North Adams City Council is reviewing a $41 million "placeholder" budget for fiscal 2021 that comes with a host of unknowns.

Mayor Thomas Bernard submitted the document to the council on Tuesday night with the anticipation of having a spending plan in place by the end of the fiscal year on June 30.

North Adams, like municipalities across the state, are working on budgeting in the dark because no one knows how the growing deficit at the state level will affect local and school aid. Bernard shared an article from the State House New Service  reporting that the state's tax collections that been exceeding benchmarks just a few months ago are now $2.25 billion behind.

The Legislature is rewriting a fiscal 2021 plan that had been nearly complete in the midst of on of the worst economies on record because of the novel coronavirus pandemic that brought nearly everything to a standstill in March.

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