Pittsfield received around $40 million from the American Rescue Plan Act or ARPA federal relief package signed by President Joe Biden in March 2021.
Gina Armstrong, the special project manager for Pittsfield’s ARPA funds, explained to the council that the city has around $2 million left due to unexpected factors like projects being completed under budget.
“One of those major adjustments was in the category of administration, where we did a reassessment of our projections through 2026 to administer the funds and close out the grant, and so that was significantly reduced that from what we had originally projected,” she said.
Pittsfield has until the end of the year to allocate its remaining ARPA funds and then must spend them by the end of 2026.
“We are looking for every city project that needs to get done, that we can get done with those monies and not have to borrow," said Mayor Peter Marchetti. "So, I know there will be a lot of ideas about how to spend that money. Community organizations are turned off at this stage of the game, and I'm going to be focusing on city projects so that we don't have to borrow the money and cost the taxpayers.”
Some of the examples offered to the council included repairing the McKay Street parking garage elevator and work on city parking lots.
“Initially, the library parking lot was not part of this conversation, the Willow Street parking lot was not part of this conversation," said Marchetti. "There are other city projects that are lying dormant, some within the fire department, police department, all projects that we would have to come to you and say, hey, we need to borrow money to do. And so, while we have these funds available and fit the needs, we will be using these funds to complete some of the city projects that have lied as deferred maintenance for a really long time.”
Later, Marchetti explained his opposition to Ward 5 councilor Patrick Kavey’s petition calling on the city’s public works department to restructure by merging its highway and traffic divisions.
“Before I can come to you and say, hey, great, you want to merge everything into one position, I need assurances from the commissioner and the rest of the department that when you have people in leadership positions, they're going to be leaders, and they're going to follow through in ensuring the people that are under them do their job,” said the mayor.
Kavey called up Commissioner of Public Works Ricardo Morales to debate the merits of consolidation.
“When you have people in one division who are able to complete work in-house, they have the proper licenses, then in another division who's actually overseeing the work, they don't have people with the same licenses and they're contracting out the work and we're spending significantly more money on contractors- It just doesn't make a ton of sense,” said Kavey.
“I agree with you, if we have enough to do both," responded Morales. "But the very act of taking someone from highway to do work that traffic is doing does leaves highway without people to do work.”
“That's why I'm asking for a restructuring, so certain things that are one department's responsibility might be better suited under another department, because they have the licenses and the ability,” said Kavey.
“But they still have to do all of the work," Morales said.
“I understand," said Kavey. "And-“
"We don't have enough people," said the commissioner. "If I, we wouldn't have this conversation, I guess, if we had all the people we wanted."
“But I feel we’re giving them the tools they need," said the councilor. "We've raised their pay, we've added positions, we've, I mean, we have since I've been on the council-
“We have,” Morales started.
“-we continue to try and give them the tools that they need to do their job, and I'm happy to do that," Kavey continued. "And you had mentioned training, how you can't expect someone to do the job if they don't have the appropriate training- Some of these people have been in their positions longer than I've been on the council. So, we get to a point where I start to scratch my head.”
Kavey told Marchetti that he understands the mayor is less than a year into his first four-year term, but that he expects him to address issues within the department before too long. Marchetti said he does not oppose overhauling city systems and is pursuing a state grant toward that end, but that he prefers a gradual approach and wants to appoint a deputy commissioner to the department first.
