The following are excerpts from a June 9 budget briefing. It appears that Northampton mayor Mary Clare Higgins has no long range plan to fund her proposal to spin off from the Office of Planning and Development (OPD) a new department of Community and Economic Development. Higgins plans to primarily utilize Community Development Block Grant monies to fund the department initially. At the same time she is weaning the OPD off of grant money to better insulate it from the whims of the federal government.
This represents a policy paradox in my view because while she doesn't want to subject the OPD to uncertain funding sources, the creation of this new department does just that. If the grants disappear, how will this new department be funded? Hopefully the city council will heavily vet this proposal and vote no until a better fiscal plan is formulated. The city's economic development coordinator can be remunerated out of CDBG monies in the short term and Higgins can still reorganize some city functions, without including the move to expand the local bureaucracy. This expansion could further strain the city budget in the future thus inducing the need in part for more property tax override votes. In short, how can city officials commit to spending money they don't have? Hello, I hear the status quo calling…
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