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North Adams Mayor On COVID-19, MASS MoCA Reopening, 2021 Budget

The seal of the the city of North Adams, Massachusetts
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North Adams
North Adams Mayor Tom Bernard, speaking with WAMC in 2019

Berkshire County’s second city – North Adams – will see one of its biggest draws, sprawling contemporary art museum MASS MoCA, reopen on Saturday. The museum has been shuttered since March because of the pandemic, which is impacting many aspects of life in northern Berkshire County. WAMC spoke with Mayor Tom Bernard about how the city is preparing, as well as how North Adams is weathering the pandemic and planning its 2021 operating budget.

BERNARD: Like a lot of Massachusetts, we've been incredibly fortunate. You know, I think we all know that Berkshire County was one of the early spots for, you know, community spread, community transmission. But that galvanized us, it really did, into a lot of positive, positive effort around response. You know, I think we're still standing at about 43 cases total for North Adams. And you know, that that includes one fatality. And that's something that, that I think we all carry very seriously. But we also look at what could have been and what could still be, and realize that at this particular moment, we've done a good job of controlling the pandemic. But I think-  No, I won't say I think, I feel that it's all very fragile. And you know, when you see what's happening in other parts of the country, when you see transmission rates spike, the question, the concern, particularly as we move through this reopening process is: Will we be able to return to some levels of increased activity and still keep those numbers under control?

WAMC: One of the big reopenings for North Adams comes this weekend, when MASS MoCA opens its doors again. How is the city preparing for the reopening of one of its biggest tourism draws and economic drivers?

The first thing is looking at what MASS MoCA itself and the team is doing. And I think, you know, at even at the time MASS MoCA closed, there was a recognition that things would need to change. And I know that the team there has put good precautions in place about time, around timed reopening around limiting things like tours, around encouraging distancing, doing all the things you want to do, but also recognizing that they are a massive space. So the ability to physically distance and still enjoy the galleries and the campus is a lot easier there than it might be in some other places. You know, what we're what we're doing is we're continuing to roll out support for outdoor dining, to make sure that people who want to venture from the campus into the city have places to go. You know, we started that early. The state provided our licensing xommission expanded authority to approve, you know, additional outdoor seating and additional rapid approval of licensing requests. So we've done a lot of that. And now we're going into, after some really careful planning, into implementing a pilot of outdoor dining, with one particular space on Center Street, but also looking at how do we activate additional outdoor dining opportunities for other restaurants and other parts of the city. Both because we know there's a demand for it, we know there's an interest, but also because if we do see any kind of, you know, any kind of regression or any kind of return to more restrictive guidelines from the state, the ability to have more outdoor dining will help the restaurants that have started to reopen to continue to serve the community.

At this point, do you have a sense of the broader economic impact of the pandemic on North Adams?

You know, I think we're going to be years figuring that out. But the good news is we did see from, you know, April to May the unemployment numbers come down a little bit, that's going to be a slow and gradual process. But we're going to see, because of things like the closure of MASS MoCA and the limited opening, you know, the delays in opening some of our hotels, the delays in- Or the amount of time that restaurants were closed, you know, our meal taxes and our occupancy taxes, are going to be low into, you know, into the middle of the next fiscal year. The fiscal year 21 began on July 1st, and, and, you know, it'll be the end of, the end of the calendar year, if not sooner, before we really start to see those tallies come back to something like normal levels.

What kind of impact has the pandemic and the associated shutdown had on North Adams' budgeting for this new fiscal year?

You know, that the biggest impact has been just a tremendous amount of uncertainty as the state budget process has shown the same sort of challenge we've seen. You know, revenue projections from the state kind of started, was at, you know, $3 billion and go up to, you know, $6 billion or $7 billion at this point. You know, we haven't seen, you know, good, you know, good reliable numbers on what some of our state aid accounts are looking like. So what we did for July is what's called a continuing appropriation budget. So we're currently running under a 31 day temporary budget that meets all of our anticipated obligations. It's likely that unless we really get a lot of clarity in the next week or two that we'll do that again in August, and then really be ready before September to go to a full budget, which accounts for what we've spent in the first two months of the year, but also what we will need to run through the end of the calendar year. Whether we had passed a full budget, and then had to go back at some point and make adjustments and amendments, and you can only adjust downward, or passing a continuing appropriation budget on a month to month basis, the simple fact is that for right now the passage of a budget wasn't going to be a one time activity. So whether you, whichever way you approached it, we will- Which is to say me, my team and the City Council- Be coming back and revisiting the budget at least a couple more times before we have a fully passed budget, and potentially between now and the time we set the tax rate later in the year.

There's concern about a coming tsunami of evictions and foreclosures due to the economic recession associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. Are you concerned that that could hit North Adams and if so, how are you preparing for it? Is the city bracing for that kind of crisis?

I can't say we're bracing, I'm worried about it. It's something that I'm seeing activity at the, at the state and the national levels to recognize that this temporary moratorium, if it comes to an end at the time that is, you know, the end of this month, will have a tremendous impact on people. And we don't have the supports in place. So I'm hopeful that there will be some additional relief provided. But I think I've probably said this to you before, I also don't think that hope is a strategy. So I'm looking at what the Berkshire Housing and, you know, some of our other housing and homelessness advocates and resources, both here and for Western Mass, are looking at. And I'm plugged into that network to make sure that as we get more information, we are able to, you know, to respond, to provide support, to connect people, to the resources that exist. And to make sure that everybody understands what their legal rights and their legal protections are, you know, if we do see that, that wave of eviction start to happen. But I also recognize there's a revenue loss. I mean, I talked about some of the challenges of revenue for the city- But for landlords who are not receiving rent for properties, they still have to pay taxes, they still have to, you know, if they're if they're a good, responsible landlord to do to do maintenance and upkeep and take care of property. So there's no good answer to this. It's just making sure that where we, I, the city are partners in working with tenants, with landlords, and then with the agencies and  the leadership that's available around this.

A huge question looming over Massachusetts communities is about how much state aid to expect this coming year for their schools. At this point, what does the 2021 school budget look like in North Adams?

Yeah. So, I talked about how the city approached the budget. The school committee and the school district side, we did pass a level funded budget, based on some guidance that we received from the state, that that the hope is that we will see that Chapter 70 account level funded. It's always important to note that level funding doesn't mean level service, because the same amount of money doesn't stretch as far, year over year, because certain costs increase. So, but we're starting from the assumption of level funding. And that's a good place to start because as a school committee, we looked at a number of budget scenarios, ranging anywhere from, you know, sort of 10% to 11 1/2% to 12 1/2% to 15% reduction, which and you've seen, you know, communities do this, which would also include layoffs and reductions in force. Being able to start from level funding gives us a good solid foundation, it gives us a little bit of reliability. If that changes, we would do what I said that the city would have had to do with it with a fully passed budget. We would have to go back and revisit it and look at some of the places where we had identified places to make reductions. But if you look at the, the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, the DESE preliminary guidance on reopening schools, there's a line in there to the effect of, I believe it was called 'Level Funding Plus', the plus being some additional funding to support the protective mandates that schools need to put in place: any barriers, any PPE that we need, any sanitizing, any additional cleaning, to make sure that when we bring students back in according to the guidance in the plan, we're able to do it in a way that keeps them safe and protected, keeps our educators and our staff safe and protected. And I think the other thing to realize is when you look at the reopening plan, you have kind of three different models: you have the return with protective measures in place, you have some sort of a hybrid approach, a mix of in-person and online learning, and you have the return to kind of fully remote learning. And I would imagine, based on public health data, if we do see numbers and data start to change, that over the course of a school year, we would move through at least, at least two, if not all three of those different modes of teaching and learning over the course of, over the course of the year, depending on what the data tells us. So we're, you know, we're really planning, or the district is really planning an approach that's going to require a lot of flexibility and a lot of communication with our staff and our educators, but also with parents and families to let them understand, as we understand it, what are the, you know, what are the needs, what are the requirements, what are the guidelines. And then to understand what parents and families need to take on the responsibilities and the burdens that will fall to them as they become part of, you know, really partners in delivering education as and if and when students are in that hybrid or fully at home model. When we closed in in March, we did it very quickly and we stood up as best a system as we could, but now we've got the chance to learn from that and to anticipate what it would look like and what people need going forward.

Josh Landes has been WAMC's Berkshire Bureau Chief since February 2018, following stints at WBGO Newark and WFMU East Orange. A passionate advocate for Western Massachusetts, Landes was raised in Pittsfield and attended Hampshire College in Amherst, receiving his bachelor's in Ethnomusicology and Radio Production. His free time is spent with his cat Harry, experimental electronic music, and exploring the woods.
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