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This budget which was given a positive recommendation by the Finance Subcommittee earlier this month is $1,059,797 higher than this year s budget. This increase in the spending plan is primarily due to several new grants for economic development, education, and public health programs. The budget includes salary increases of $496,455 that are largely for the promotion of a senior planner to a program manager, hiring a senior economic planner, an additional planner, and an open administrative position. BRPC s overall benefits have increased by $193,231 from $640,138 to $833,369. This is mostly due to more staff and staff having a larger amount of unused vacation or unused compensation hours.
LENOX â Whatâs missing from the rapidly greening Berkshire landscape? Daffodils, tulips, cherry blossoms, apple blossoms, pear trees, dogwoods and forsythia abound.
But, the usual, easily spotted âfor saleâ signs in front of homes are few, even though springtime is normally high season in the real estate market. Thatâs because âinventory,â as the brokers call it, is at near-record lows and the mostly expensive homes that are listed are being snapped up, often at or above the asking price.
The countyâs Board of Realtors states that only about 300 houses are on the market throughout the Berkshires, compared with the typical 800 at this time of year, pre-pandemic. In Pittsfield, only 40 active listings are available, apparently an all-time low.
PITTSFIELD â The Berkshire Regional Planning Commission has received $842,522 in federal CARES Act money to develop a program to provide technical assistance to area businesses and municipalities recovering from the economic disruptions caused by the coronavirus pandemic and better prepare them for similar events.
1Berkshire, the countyâs state-designated economic development organization, also is involved in this two-year initiative. The agency will help the commission identify county businesses that qualify to receive technical assistance by focusing on economic clusters that were identified in the groupâs Berkshire Blueprint 2.0, an updated 80-page document on the state of the local economy and recommendations to move it forward that was released in 2019.
Executive Director Thomas Matuszko informed the Executive Committee that BRPC would be going out for bid for office space shortly with a possible deadline in early October. The offices are off Fenn Street, just a couple of blocks away from Park Square. I guess one of the things that this committee would be most helpful with for me is getting some input on one of the criteria we had was that we needed to be within a mile, I think, of Park Square and trying to be located in downtown Pittsfield, he said. There are a lot of benefits to that I will say, I mean, when we could meet in person walking over to the City Hall for stuff in Pittsfield was quite easy but I don t know if there s still a desire to do that.