The door to the corner office at City Hall in Pittsfield.
PITTSFIELD — Mayor Linda Tyer says that her final budget proposal as mayor for a $205.6 million budget is a “maintenance budget” that will cover rising employee costs in a new letter to the City Council.
The proposed fiscal 2024 budget — which represents an 8.9 percent increase over this fiscal year’s $188.8 million budget — would direct $109.3 million to the municipal operating budget, $78 million to the Pittsfield Public Schools budget and $18 million to the city’s water, wastewater and sewer budgets.
“The costs associated with salary increases for both school and city employees, identified as priorities by both the City Council and the School Committee, have limited investments in new initiatives,” Tyer wrote.
The letter and proposal was included in the City Council’s Tuesday night agenda packet and was referred to several Committee of the Whole meetings over the next month.
These hearings, which will be hosted at 6 p.m. in City Council chambers on May 17, 24, 30 and June 5, will be the council and public’s opportunity to weigh in on the proposed spending.
The bigger budget means the city needs to raise more in property taxes. This year, city leaders are proposing raising $109.1 million, a nearly $8 million increase — or 7.8 percent — over the taxes raised this year.
Tyer plans to use $1 million in the city’s free cash — the unrestricted funds left over from the city budgets and operations of the prior fiscal year — to cover a portion of the money the city would need to raise to cover the budget and partially offset the burden to taxpayers.
Property taxes, along with $72.7 million in state aid and about $18.2 million from sewer and water bills, would be the primary funding sources for the city’s budget.
Tyer highlighted wages — $3 million for school employees and about $1.02 million for city employees — as well as a $1.5 million increase in health insurance costs and a $816,000 increase in the city’s retirement contributions as major drivers for the bigger budget this year.
A nearly $700,000 increase in the city’s solid waste collection and disposal costs is also pushing the budget upward.