Investigations

Ongoing: Project Paycheck

Where did all the Berkshire County workers go?

If you’ve noticed more ‘help wanted’ signs around Berkshire County, you’re not imagining things. But, the answer, we’ve found, is more complicated than ‘people just don’t want to work.’ Our new series focuses on why there is a labor shortage, what working in the Berkshires means and where our local jobs economy goes from here.

How the pandemic tipped Lenox onto a national list of ‘economically distressed’ communities

PROJECT PAYCHECK: Lenox is an “economically distressed” community. So is nearby Hinsdale, and even Becket. How these three relatively affluent Berkshire County towns got that designation – earning them a splash of red on a map – will be one of the pandemic’s weirdest footnotes.

Finding child care in the Berkshires went from hard to horrible since the pandemic. We look at the reasons behind the child care staffing crisis

PROJECT PAYCHECK: Child care centers in the Berkshires are fighting to hold it together, one positive COVID-19 test and one teacher resignation after another. By all accounts, the pandemic has steamrolled a stressed early-education system in Massachusetts. “It’s been difficult not being able to work because I can’t find child care for my daughter," said one Berkshire County mother. She's not alone.

The years the music died. A Berkshire songwriter’s pandemic lament

PROJECT PAYCHECK: Unlike some in the “great resignation,” singer-songwriter Bernice Lewis isn’t walking away from a career. She’d gladly run right back to the music business that’s been her life going on four decades, if it was still there.

How the pandemic pushed a party mom, a nature lover and a gardener to reinvent their Berkshire work lives

PROJECT PAYCHECK: Tommy doesn’t know it yet, because he's just one. But, his mom is chasing a new career that bears his name. We catch up with some of this year's breakout entrepreneurs.

This Lenox startup hunts job candidates who aren’t even looking

PROJECT PAYCHECK: One of this year’s tech startups in the Berkshires displays a little needle on its website, with a thread poking through. Jane and Eric Singer, of Lenox, aren't tailors, but they are altering what it means to post a local job online.

Other Investigations

Fixing Massachusetts' nursing homes is a complex problem; here are some of the ways lawmakers are trying to do it

Jan 5, 2022

EAGLE INVESTIGATION: As state lawmakers pursue nursing home reform, better wages for workers, improved reimbursements for nursing facilities and increased support for alternatives to nursing care are all on the table.

Danny Jin

Statehouse reporter

Nursing home owners blame Medicaid shortfalls for staffing struggles. Critics say they're being cheap for profit

Jan 4, 2022

EAGLE INVESTIGATIONS: The people who run Berkshire County's nursing homes agree with their critics that workers need better wages — and the buildings need more staff — to provide a higher quality of care. They disagree on how to achieve this.

Heather Bellow

Reporter

'Get me out of here.' Inside the staffing crisis at Berkshire nursing homes

Dec 31, 2021

EAGLE INVESTIGATIONS: Poor staffing ratios have festered for more than a decade in the majority of Berkshire County nursing facilities, and continue today. Our investigation puts faces to those numbers.

Heather Bellow

Reporter

Great Barrington doctor visited by FBI billed Medicare for more skin biopsies than any U.S. dermatologist

Dec 3, 2021

EAGLE INVESTIGATIONS: Dr. Scott Goffin of Great Barrington, whose office was visited by the FBI in October, performed procedures on Medicare patients at rates significantly higher than other Massachusetts dermatologists. In 2019, he took in more than $1.6 million in Medicare payments.

Francesca Paris

Data and public records reporter

Life in a patched-up station erodes morale, police officers say

Nov 12, 2021

EAGLE INVESTIGATIONS: Are officers beaten down by a beat-up police station? “I feel like every issue we bring ends up getting a Band-Aid,” said Dave Sherman, a detective and president of the union that represents North Adams police.

Greta Jochem

Reporter

The million-dollar question: Where to get millions for a new public safety building?

Nov 12, 2021

EAGLE INVESTIGATIONS: While a state program helps cities and towns pay for new school buildings, no such program exists to help communities build police and fire stations. It’s not at all clear how North Adams would pay for a new public safety building estimated to cost more than $10 million.

Greta Jochem

Reporter

Getting an MRI? Depending on what hospital you go to in the region, the price can vary by $3,000

Oct 30, 2021

EAGLE INVESTIGATIONS: Hospital price transparency data offer a revealing look at health care prices. But they're not usually helpful for patients.

Francesca Paris

Data and public records reporter

These six Massachusetts district attorneys spend a combined $3,534.41 a month on leased cars — and taxpayers foot the bill

Sep 18, 2021

EAGLE INVESTIGATIONS: The job perk that comes with a steering wheel is alive and well for the state’s district attorneys in Massachusetts, despite efforts to reduce the number of state employees allowed to take cars home from work.

Heather Bellow

Reporter

Most Popular this Week

'Toxic' political scene in North Adams spurred a meme, a 'sock of nickels' post and a police report

Sep 10, 2021

EAGLE INVESTIGATIONS: A look at why Marie Harpin, who just quit her post on the North Adams City Council, filed a police report last year. She feared for her safety after reading social media posts. The people commenting? They insist they were kidding.

Greta Jochem

Reporter

'Kimber would be dead': How an overdose safety hotline saved a North Adams woman's life

Aug 13, 2021

EAGLE INVESTIGATIONS: On a day that could have been her last, a woman struggling with substance use disorder in North Adams remembered a business card in her wallet — and picked up her phone. Call by call, the Never Use Alone program is saving lives.

Greta Jochem

Reporter

Vermont, Rhode Island decriminalized a lifesaving opioid treatment. Should Massachusetts?

Aug 13, 2021

EAGLE INVESTIGATIONS: In recent months, Vermont and Rhode Island have decriminalized possession of small amounts of buprenorphine, a medication used for opioid use disorder treatment. Advocates say decriminalization helps spread the treatment, destigmatize the medication and save lives.

Francesca Paris

Data and public records reporter

A survivor’s quagmire | Two decades after a Cheshire woman reported clergy abuse, she’s back to square one, again. Was her file lost or destroyed?

Aug 7, 2021

EAGLE INVESTIGATIONS: The Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield admits it failed Sheri A. Biasin, after she came forward to report clergy abuse. And not only once.

Larry Parnass

Investigations editor

Lanesborough officer fired over improper use of criminal records database

Aug 2, 2021

EAGLE INVESTIGATIONS: A Lanesborough police officer got caught using a state criminal records database to look up women he had dated or wanted to date. It's not your "personal Google," he was told before being fired.

Larry Parnass

Investigations editor

In Clarksburg, water isn't coming out of the faucet. Fixing the problem is expensive, and nobody’s getting paid.

Jul 16, 2021

EAGLE INVESTIGATIONS: What happens in a tiny water district when nothing comes out of the taps? Volunteers get to work, against long odds and with scant resources. Meet the heroes of the Briggsville Water District in Clarksburg.

Francesca Paris

Data and public records reporter

'My daughter was gone.' A Dalton girl lost years to a rare illness. Inside her mom's fight for answers

Jul 4, 2021

EAGLE INVESTIGATIONS: For most of her life, Teagan, 10, has suffered from an autoimmune disorder. Last year, advocates won a major battle when the state Legislature approved a bill to force insurers to cover treatments for the ailment known by the acronym PANDAS, which can cost tens of thousands of dollars for families like Teagan’s.

Francesca Paris

Data and public records reporter

Amid pandemic stress and stagnating dental care reimbursements, Berkshire dentists pull out of MassHealth

May 1, 2021

EAGLE INVESTIGATIONS: Skyrocketing supply costs during the pandemic, and years of stagnation in MassHealth reimbursements, have cut the number of dentists providing care to poor children.