With Friday being the last day of the fiscal year in Springfield, Massachusetts, City Councilors have disposed of the last of the city’s surplus cash.
Acting on a proposal from Mayor Domenic Sarno, Councilors voted to transfer $3 million in free cash to a new “Neighborhood Enhancement Fund” that city officials said could be used to pay for a variety of local improvement projects – everything from public art to cleaning illegal dump sites – for which no other source of funding exists.
This was the last of the free cash from fiscal year 2022.
If it was not allocated by Friday, June 30th, it would be unavailable to spend for months until the books are closed on this current fiscal year’s budget, warned City Comptroller Pat Burns.
“Unfortunately, its kind of a tight timeframe,” he said.
At a meeting earlier this month, Councilors balked at setting up the new fund because of questions about how it would be administered.
After officials from the city’s office of Planning and Economic Development explained how the fund would work during a Finance Committee meeting, Councilor Tim Allen, chair of the Finance Committee, endorsed the proposal.
“Everybody got a chance to ask their questions … and I believe it was a good report by the administration on both the financial side of it and also the usage side –the neighborhood side,” Allen said.
As for how the fund would be administered, Tim Sheehan, the city’s chief development official, explained that project proposals could originate from neighborhood councils, civic groups, elected officials, or a collection of business owners or residents. The proposal would then be vetted by the city’s Neighborhood Services Division, the City Hall finance team, and the municipal department that would implement the project – most likely either DPW or Parks.
“We do not want to have an overly onerous application process for this,” Sheehan said.
He said the city is currently working with the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission to identify needed investments in each city neighborhood over the next five years.
“Anything that would be coming out of those public investment plans for the specific neighborhoods, that would be eligible to come forward as a request,” Sheehan said.
Sheehan acknowledged there would not be enough money in this fund, initially at least, to give every neighborhood a share.
“As all of you know, $3 million does not go very far,” Sheehan said. “What we would be looking at in terms of criteria in determining priority is how deep does the (proposed) improvement touch on the neighborhood need.”
City Councilor Zaida Govan called the neighborhood fund “a great idea.”
“I just wish it was more,” she said.
Earlier this month, the Council voted to send $17 million in free cash to the city’s stabilization reserve, or “rainy day,” fund. They put $5 million toward offsetting next year’s property tax levy and allocated $2.5 million to the DPW for street and sidewalk repairs.
