WORCESTER—The Worcester City Council will be getting updates on the city budget and its response to the opioid crisis and the early January snowstorm at its meeting Tuesday.
Six months into FY24, “property tax collections and local receipts are stable, with no cause for concern at this time,” according to a letter from Worcester City Manager Eric Batista to council.
The city did see an approximately $250,000 decrease in what it was expecting to get in aid from the state, with the decrease mostly coming out of school aid, according to Batista.
The property tax collection rate in the city is stable at 47% of the FY24 budget as of Dec. 31, six months into the fiscal year, according to the city’s Chief Financial Officer Timothy McGourthy. In FY23, the city had also collected 47% of the FY23 budget six months in, according to data provided by McGourthy.
The city’s expenditures are trending higher in FY24 than in FY23, spending 49% of the total FY24 budget in the first six months, compared to FY23 when the city spent 46% of the budget in the first six months.
“Compared to this same time last year, expenditures are trending higher, but this is primarily due to timing and there is no cause for concern at this time,” McGourthy wrote in a letter to Batista. “Fixed costs are at a higher expenditure percentage, which is to be expected at this time of the fiscal year.”
Batista said his administration remains vigilant in monitoring the city’s finances and asked that departments be thoughtful with their budgets as it navigates the financial needs of the city throughout the fiscal year.
The state has seen $1 billion in revenue shortfall in the first six months of FY24, according to the Healey administration, with tax revenue shortfalls accounting for $769 million of the shortage. At the beginning of the year, Gov. Maura Healey announced $375 million in spending cuts to help make up for the shortfall.
Worcester is seeing an increase in opioid-related deaths, according to data from the Massachusetts Department of Public Health provided to the council by Commissioner of Health and Human Services Dr. Mattie Castiel.
From 2018 to 2022, the state saw opioid-related fatalities increase by 15.7%, with Worcester itself seeing a 17.8% growth rate during that period, according to the data.
In recent years, preliminary Worcester Police Department data showed an 11% increase in opioid-related deaths from January to September 2022 to January to September 2023.
Castiel also shared data specific to homeless encampments, with WPD data recording 16 deaths from 2019 to 2023 near encampments; two in 2020, two in 2021, three in 2022, and nine in 2023, with eight likely related to opiate overdoses.
The data has been used to identify hotspots in city, with a mortality hotspot among Hispanic residents concentrated from Main South to Vernon/Union Hill, a slightly elevated mortality rate among black residents in Main South and hotspots for white non-Hispanic residents.
Castiel’s office has come up with a strategic plan to address the crisis, with priorities that include: increasing transitional, sober and permanent supportive housing; creating a comprehensive and cohesive data system to be analyzed; working to reduce the negative consequences of opioid use with strategies such as expanding access to Narcan and creating public awareness on how to use opioids safely; preventing opioid addiction with awareness campaigns and educational programs; aiding individuals with rehabilitation and reintegration in society; and broadening access to treatment.
The priorities are being addressed by task forces operated out of the Office of Health and Human Services including the Opioid Taskforce, the Re-entry Taskforce; Equity Taskforce, Mayor’s Mental Health Taskforce, Housing First Coordinating Council, The Hub, and the Governance Council on Children, Youth and Families.
In a communication from Jay Fink, the commissioner of Public Works & Parks provided a breakdown of the city’s response to the Jan 6 to 7 snowstorm that dumped more than a foot of snow on the city.
Explaining the city’s response to the storm, Fink said 6 to 10 inches were expected Saturday into Sunday with moderate to light snow, when instead the city received 15.5 inches with 10 inches of snow by midday Sunday and another three to five falling throughout the rest of the day, which required the city’s equipment to go out and clean the streets again.
Fink said the city experienced challenges responding to the storm due to its duration and being short on trucks and equipment.
At the start of the storm, 362 pieces of equipment were assigned to routes in the city, but the number of trucks and equipment reporting to the call for plowing was only 312. During the storm, the Central Garage received 56 service calls on the city’s snow-fighting equipment including issues with the plow bolts or blades, lights going out, and issues with conveyors.
Around 20 trucks were still in the shop after the storm, according to Fink, who said mechanical breakdowns are common during the first storm of any year because specialty trucks or pieces of equipment are not used for long periods before winter months.
The Department of Emergency Communications & Emergency Management reported 43 accidents during the storm. Thirty-two reported property damage, five were hit and runs, six had personal injuries, and 15 disabled motor vehicles.
During the parking ban, 943 vehicles were ticketed and of those 510 were towed.
“Despite the challenges, thanks goes out to the men and women of the DPW&P, the contractors as well as all of the supporting city departments that did respond to the call and worked tirelessly to serve the residents of the city,” Fink wrote.
Kiernan Dunlop is an award-winning journalist who has spent the past five years reporting in Worcester, New Bedford and Antigua and Barbuda. She’s been published in Bloomberg, USA Today, Canary Media, MassLive and the New Bedford Standard Times, among other outlets. She can be contacted at kdunlop@theworcesterguardian.org
