Following lengthy and often heated debates in Holyoke’s city council chambers, landmark financial reforms are in place. Now, it's a matter of staffing up, officials say.
Mayor Joshua Garcia says while the fight may have been long, getting the city’s “Municipal Finance Modernization Act” across the finish line was not only needed – its passage earlier this month was a “giant step” forward for the city of 38,000.
If the “act” sounds bureaucratic– that’s because it is. Passed as a series of provisions, the city council effectively overhauled city hall’s financial operations on Feb. 3 – building up a new Department of Finance while ditching old systems that Garcia says led to continual issues.
“The impact that our antiquated process has had on free cash … we had years where we were negative [in terms of] free cash balances. We had years where the city couldn't set the tax rate on time because of our antiquated systems,” the mayor recounted after signing the provisions on Feb. 9. “This was before me - the city had to borrow … to pay the bills before the tax rate cold finally be set.”
As Garcia and other advocates have noted, Holyoke has lagged similar cities in terms of financials – and has paid a price for it.
Last year alone, on more than one occasion, local aid payments from the state were paused due to Holyoke’s prolonged struggles with filing state-required financial paperwork – temporarily freezing millions of dollars at a time.
As Council President Tessa Murphy-Romboletti tells WAMC, it’s been a multi-pronged problem the state has been flagging with the city since at least 2007.
“We are able to pay our bills, we do get grants. Where we have struggled for decades is the management, the administration: what comes after you get the grant? How are we tracking that? Are we making sure that we are closing our books each month the way we need to?” she explained. “Because of years of mismanagement and … not any one person can take the full-blame for this, but it is just decades of kind of ignoring the root causes.”
The issues, Garcia says, stem in-part from outdated municipal policies and roles that haven’t changed much over the past few decades. One of those policies: having the city’s treasurer be elected rather than vetted and appointed.
It’s led to treasurers in the past with varying degrees of experience and audits finding various issues, plus at least one case of $10,000 being lost via a scam.
An effort to change that part of the charter was approved by residents in 2025, while other reforms came together: changes Treasurer Rory Casey says were direly needed – especially given the city’s struggles with free cash certification, leaving potentially millions of dollars on the table.
“The unfortunate thing is we weren't able to get FY24 certified before the end of FY25 - so now, when we get FY25 certified this year, which will put us back on track, we'll also have FY24’s free cash as part of that,” he said. “What might normally be a couple of million dollars in free cash may be $4-5 million… it's hard to say until everything is finally closed.”
Casey says pre-Municipal Finance Modernization Act, Holyoke has been making headway.
The city’s accounting system had a major upgrade: the equivalent of going from “Windows 95 to Windows 7,” he says.
Payroll systems have also seen improvements and some strategic investments have been growing exponentially, including a trust intended for retirement benefits that the council seeded with $10,000, now said to have $2 million in it after 18 months.
Still, he and Garcia say the recent overhaul has been crucial. It’s meant creating a Chief Administrative Financial Officer position – a job focused on budgeting, overseeing financial policies and a host of duties that have long been scattered to different roles in city hall.
Role consolidation, internal controls and policy realignments that put the city on par with state recommendations are also part of the reforms, meant to ensure oversight and accountability for the city and its $180 million budget.
It also takes a load off whoever is mayor, Garcia says - a job that's long had a significant role in the city’s fiscal management.
“With our antiquated form of government … my mother [if she were] mayor - as lovely as she is and I love my mother – you’d dump this responsibility on her and say, ‘Hey, congratulations! Here's your job! Good luck trying to facilitate cooperation that you have no oversight controls over and make sure that you do your audits on time record, make sure the treasurer and the auditor reconcile their cash books,” the mayor and former Holyoke treasurer candidate said.
“[The modernization act] professionalizes, streamlines and ensures continuity,” he continued. “No matter who's the mayor, no matter who's on the council: we have professionals at the helm.”
Other changes are on the horizon, Garcia says: the treasurer and tax collector roles being consolidated. Casey, who was slated to depart the treasurer role this year, says he will temporarily remain as treasurer at least until that transition is complete.
Also on the docket: bringing on a comptroller and finance analyst for the city. For now, hiring a CAFO is the biggest priority. The deadline to apply is March 31.
