DLS City & Town

An End of the Year Message from Lieutenant Governor Karyn Polito

With the end of 2020 just two weeks away, I would like to thank you for your critical efforts and leadership over the course of this past year through the many obstacles and hardships this pandemic has posed for every city and town in the Commonwealth. I am appreciative and proud of our continued partnership as we all work together to continue to fight COVID-19.

Over the past month, our Administration has worked to support Massachusetts’ 351 cities in towns through grant awards from multiple programs, including the Skills Capital Grant program, MassWorks grants and the Food Security Infrastructure Grant Program. In addition, last week I had the pleasure of meeting via Zoom with the 55 cities and towns that were awarded $3.7 million in grant funds under the latest round of the Community Compact IT Grant Program

As we continue our battle against this virus and look to the light at the end of the tunnel, I would like to highlight the continued resources available to municipal governments during this time.

Our administration is proud of the Community Compact’s value to each of our state’s cities and towns and are pleased to see municipalities continue to take advantage of this program. The Community Compact’s Best Practice Program and Efficiency & Regionalization (E&R) Grant Program will be available to cities and towns in Fiscal Year 2021. Last week, Governor Baker signed a budget that makes one million dollars available for both programs. The Governor and I are both appreciative of the Legislature’s support for these impactful programs.

The Community Compact Best Practices Program represents an opportunity for a municipality to enter into a voluntary, mutual agreement with the Commonwealth to identify and implement at least one best practice from a broad range of areas, allowing for any identified needs to be met or lessons learned during this unprecedented time to be put into action. Similarly, the E&R Grant Program will be available to governmental entities seeking financial support for implementing regionalization and other efficiency initiatives that allow for long-term sustainability.

While more details surrounding the opening of the Best Practices Program and E&R Grant Program will be made available in the coming days, these programs have a proven transformative impact and have made for more innovative, efficient and improved municipal government operations, ultimately strengthening each of our Commonwealth’s 351 cities and towns. The Community Compact has never been more relevant, and we look forward to seeing these programs in action once again over the coming months.

For more information on the Community Compact Program, reach out to DLS Senior Deputy Commissioner Sean Cronin at croninse@dor.state.ma.us.

We wish you a peaceful and safe New Year and thank you for your continued dedication to our Commonwealth.

DLS Offers New Online Trainings on Municipal Debt

Frank Gervasio - DLS Director of Special Initiatives

Municipal debt can be a complicated topic! With that in mind, we are very excited to share our new municipal debt training presentations and hope they will assist you and your community. Our training page and YouTube channel now offer an introductory training presentation that provides an overview of key concepts on local borrowing. In addition, we are excited to offer a “deeper dive” video series that delves further into each topic. These subjects include:

• Overview of municipal debt

• Borrowing authority

• Voting to borrow

• Borrowing subject to debt exclusions

• Issuance roles and responsibilities

• Credit rating agencies

• Long-term and short-term debt instruments

• Emergency spending

• Accounting for debt, surplus proceeds, and abandoned projects

• DLS oversight of borrowing activity

Also, don’t forget that DLS has developed a number of other related guides, templates, and other training materials on municipal debt to assist your community. These can be found on the debt section of the Municipal Finance Training and Resource Center. You can also always find debt data specific to your town in the Municipal Finance Trend Dashboard and Databank.

Be sure to bookmark the Municipal Finance Training and Resource Center page and subscribe to our YouTube channel to stay updated on new items added. Something you'd like to see added? We'd love to hear from you! Please email DLS's Data Analytics & Resources Bureau at DARB@dor.state.ma.us.