FORWARD Bill - Projects by Municipality -> Franklin slated for $681K in ARPA grants

FORWARD Bill - Projects by Municipality Executive Office for Administration and Finance Last week, Governor Baker filed House bill 4720, An Act investing in Future Opportunities for Resiliency, Workforce, and Revitalized Downtowns (FORWARD). The legislation includes $2.3 billion in funding from the federal American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) and over $1.256 billion in capital bond authorizations to strengthen state infrastructure, create jobs, and invest in municipalities across the Commonwealth.   The FORWARD bill will make investments in all 351 cities and towns in the Commonwealth. Please click here to find a detailed list of the statewide and local projects included in the FORWARD legislation, organized by municipality.   It includes hundreds of projects identified by communities or stakeholders, usually through existing popular programs like MassWorks, that are deliverable within the tight timeframe required by federal ARPA regulations. ARPA funding must be authorized by 2024 and fully expended by 2026.    NOTE: If your community has a project listed from the last round of the Community One Stop for Growth and that project remains a priority for your city or town, please proceed with submitting a One Stop application for this project in the current FY23 One Stop round. Until the legislation is passed, funding for these projects is not guaranteed and submitting a One Stop application would ensure that the project is reviewed and considered for funding through the normal, competitive application process.                For a detailed overview of all the programmatic authorizations in the bill, please click here.

You are receiving this message through the Massachusetts Department of Revenue's Division of Local Services DLS Alerts system. These periodic notices include our City & Town e-newsletter, IGRs, Bulletins, Cherry Sheets and other municipal finance-related information. To unsubscribe to DLS Alerts and the City & Town e-newsletter, please email dls_alerts@dor.state.ma.us.

The Franklin section as an image is shown below as copied from https://www.mass.gov/doc/arpa-investments-by-community-v20/download 

The $220K MassWorks grant was confirmed previously. I don't recall hearing the other two grants as confirmed.

Franklin slated for $681K in ARPA grants

FORWARD Bill - Projects by Municipality

DLS Seeking Project Manager

DLS Financial Management Resource Bureau Seeks Project Manager   DLS is seeking qualified candidates for a Project Manager position within our Financial Management Resources Bureau. The Project Manager promotes best practices in municipal finance by providing consulting services to cities and towns across Massachusetts. To encourage efficient and effective municipal financial management, this individual works collaboratively with team members; conducts in-depth interviews with local officials and employees; analyzes complex data and information; prepares guidance on municipal finance policies and procedures; writes comprehensive reports; and provides technical assistance and training. In addition to being familiar with the workings of local government, the successful candidate will be a strong writer, analyst, and public speaker with excellent attention to detail. Experience in a municipal finance role is highly desirable. This is a telework position with periodic travel.   To review a complete job description and apply for the position, please click here.

MA Division of Local Services shares video on "Unfunded Mandate" appeal process

via the MA Division of Local Services:

"We are pleased to present our annual “What’s New” 2021 court decisions in a virtual format. The presentation consists of narrated videos discussing recent cases related to municipal finance and municipal law. You can view the videos individually or together as a group. "

What's New in Municipal Law 2021 (video)

"What's New" PowerPoint presentations (pdf)

Noteworthy among the videos is a five (5) minute clip on "unfunded mandates" and how they can be appealed. Good background on how this process was created (in 1980) and how it executes.

Video link on Unfunded Mandates  -> https://youtu.be/ljSBHzG4BGY 

Shared from the MA Municipal Law page -> https://www.mass.gov/service-details/municipal-law-seminar

New DLS Data Visualization Tool Now Available: Municipal Finance Snapshot

The Division of Local Services has a new tool available for quickly finding key financial and demographic information for all 351 Massachusetts cities and towns. 

The Municipal Finance Snapshot Dashboard uses Tableau visualizations to display data in 14 financial categories including Average Single Family Tax Bill, Local Receipts, New Growth and much more. Selecting a city or town from the map provides a wealth of data about that community. 

Please visit the Municipal Finance Snapshot Dashboard to explore all the information DLS has to offer in a new, easy-to-use way! 

In a trial run of the new snapshot dashboard, I found this Town of Franklin info (image below). Go try for yourself:  

https://edit.mass.gov/info-details/city-and-town-municipal-finance-snapshots

Municipal Finance Snapshot - Town of Franklin Info

DLS Alert: Commonwealth Employees Targeted by Phishing Campaign

The following is a notification from the Massachusetts Executive Office of Technology Services and Security (EOTSS). Commonwealth Employees Targeted by Phishing Campaign Curtis M. Wood - EOTSS Secretary and Chief Information Officer As many of us in state and municipal government are increasingly conducting our work remotely, the cybersecurity risks of data breaches, disclosures of sensitive data, and targeted cybersecurity threats have increased. As you will see below, we are seeing a rise in malicious cyber attacks, specifically aggressive phishing campaigns over e-mail and texts. The Commonwealth continues to be in contact with our federal partners at the Department of Homeland Security to stay vigilant of emerging cyberthreats and remains on high alert to protect Commonwealth systems and ensure continuity of government operations. The Commonwealth has recently been the target of an aggressive phishing and smishing campaign. The malicious actors are using free e-mail services, such as g-mail, to create fake e-mail accounts designed to impersonate Commonwealth Leadership and are using social engineering tactics to elicit a sense of urgency. In addition to e-mail, the scammers have started using text messages as another way to phish our community. This technique, often referred to as smishing or SMS phishing, is a text-message based variation of traditional phishing scams, and a growing cyber threat. This particular campaign does not contain any links or malicious documents, but rather requests that the user purchase a gift card on behalf of the executive. If you receive an e-mail or a text message requesting you to purchase a gift card, to pay by gift card, or to wire money – for any reason – that's a sure sign of scam. Any correspondence, whether e-mail or SMS-based, imploring (or even threatening) the need for an immediate response, should be treated with healthy skepticism. Remember to pay attention to key warning signs: False sense of urgency External e-mail address as either the sender or the reply-to address Misspellings and Typos Consider the purpose; is this someone you'd typically correspond with? Be wary of suspicious attachments and links

read the red outlines for details on what to look for

  

read the red outlines for details on what to look for 1