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Hybrid Schedules — and Even a Four-day Week — Gain Traction

By
Mike Long and Alana Sambor
Features Special Coverage

Making It Work

Mike Long and Alana Sambor

Mike Long and Alana Sambor say Axia employees appreciate a four-day workweek.

 

They call it the ‘buddy system.’

And it’s just one of many elements that have gone into what has thus far been a successful transition to a four-day workweek at West Springfield-based Axia Insurance.

Mike Long, the company’s CEO, explains how it works.

“Everyone picks or is assigned a buddy; if someone is not on in Monday, their buddy will take anything that comes in that has to be handled on Monday,” he said, noting that, in insurance, there are some things that can’t wait a day, so the buddy system is imperative to this arrangement whereby employees can take either Monday or Friday off, thus earning a three-day weekend 52 weeks a year.

The success of the buddy system has helped Axia make conversion to four days — 34 hours, with a goal of eventually getting it down to 32 hours — a success story that is still a work in progress, said Long, adding that a great deal of study and preparation went into this, and the prep work is certainly paying off thus far — for employees and the company.

“If you want to work at home because you find there are fewer distractions there, that’s fine. But if you feel the need to be at work because there are fewer distractions there, that’s fine, too. For those of us with kids and dogs, there are fewer distractions at work.”

Alana Sambor, director of Operations, agreed. She said employees have enthusiastically embraced the change, as might be expected, and there have been a number of benefits, everything from steady, and in some cases improved, levels of productivity, but with happier employees, to a decline in the number of requests for other paid time off, with employees scheduling doctor, dental, and vet visits; home-appliance repair windows; and more on the one day a week they are off (more on all this later).

As noted, the four-day week has come about through a hard focus on employee satisfaction, followed by study, examination of best practices (what few there are in this realm), and what could be called beta testing, running the program through its paces over this past summer, said Long, adding that businesses thinking about following this course need to do their homework, think it through, and effectively communicate everything that needs to be communicated to employees at all levels.

Allison Lapierre-Houle

Allison Lapierre-Houle says remote work and hybrid schedules have earned a measure of permanence at ArchitectureEL.

Meanwhile, the Wilbraham offices of Giombetti Associates tout what Bobby O’Neil calls a four-and-a-half-day workweek. There is a half day on Friday, with almost all employees — often everyone but him — working remotely on that day. This is the latest spin, or evolutionary course, on remote policies that are working for the company on many levels.

“The other four days, there is flexibility, with remote work an option for those who prefer it,” said O’Neil, senior advisor at this company, which specializes in pre-employment assessments, leadership training and development, and talent-acquisition solutions.

“If you want to work at home because you find there are fewer distractions there, that’s fine,” he said. “But if you feel the need to be at work because there are fewer distractions there, that’s fine, too. For those of us with kids and dogs, there are fewer distractions at work.”

As for Fridays and the quietness in the office, O’Neil said he enjoys it, mostly. “I’m alone, but I’m not lonely,” he quipped.

“Everyone has a three-day weekend, which has improved morale exponentially and improved work-life balance for everyone. The positivity in the office and the energy have completely changed.”

Fridays are nearly as quiet at the ArchitectureEL offices in East Longmeadow. That’s because seven of the company’s 10 employees are working remotely. All employees have the option to work remotely several days of the week, and most of them, but not all of them, make Friday one of those days, said Allison Lapierre-Houle, office manager for the company.

She said this is the pattern, or schedule, that employees have generally settled into, adding that remote work has earned a measure of permanence here, as it has elsewhere.

For this issue, we examine this shift in the workplace, and the many variations on the broad themes of remote work, flex schedules, and, yes, a shorter work week.

 

Week Link

As he talked about how the four-day week came to be Axia, Long said there was some careful reflection deeply rooted in a focus on employee satisfaction, recruitment, and retention.

Elaborating, he said Axia had embraced remote work in the wake of the pandemic, and most employees were taking advantage of it.

Bobby O’Neil

Bobby O’Neil says Giombetti Associates’ four-and-a-half-day workweek is one of several initiatives to help employees balance work and life.

But it came with a price tag of sorts, he went on, referencing a loss of company culture because employees were not together in the same place at the same time. “We were losing the culture of Axia,” he said. “All of the sudden, it felt that they were slipping away from us; we weren’t a family anymore.”

But, and this is a big but, the company also recognized the need to create a work environment that was attractive to current and potential employees, especially in the middle of an ongoing workforce crisis.

“We realized that the most valuable asset we have at the company is our employees, and based on that understanding, we’ve tried to create a culture that is very employee-focused,” he said, adding that Axia even boasts a gym at its facility. “What we wanted to do is create an effective work-life balance because it’s good for the employees. And if it’s good for the employees, it’s good for the clients.”

One method that emerged for getting there is a four-day work week, something that has been tried, with some success, in Europe, but not so much in the U.S.

“Every company had an identity before they went remote and hybrid, and now you add to that the complexity of remote workers and hybrid workers, and they have to think of creative ways to preserve the culture that they have.”

At the heart of the initiative is effective communication about all aspects of the new system, from the nuances of the buddy system to what is expected in terms of productivity, said Sambor, noting that it was made clear that team members would be doing the same amount of work, but in fewer days.

“The best rule of thumb is to set the standards that you’re trying to accomplish,” she noted. “If you have a full-time staff, and they’re taking 100 calls a day, and that’s what you expect from them, when they go to a four-day work week, we’re still expecting them to take 500 phone calls.”

But the tradeoff — more work in less time for that three-day weekend — has been enthusiastically accepted.

“Everyone has a three-day weekend, which has improved morale exponentially and improved work-life balance for everyone,” Sambor said. “The positivity in the office and the energy have completely changed.”

Long agreed.

Amy Roberts

Amy Roberts says employees at PeoplesBank have come to appreciate an organization that allows them some flexibility.

“One thing we have really noticed is the attitude of the employees in the office is so much more positive,” he told BusinessWest. “People seem to more energized, more excited — they tell stories about what they did on their day off.”

And while the new system is set and now policy at Axia, this is still a learning process, he noted, adding the company has “stubbed its toe” a few times, but there’s been nothing to make it second-guess this huge decision.

 

Remote Possibilities

That same sentiment seems to apply to the companies that have fully embraced remote work and hybrid schedules.

Giombetti introduced remote work before the pandemic, said O’Neil, adding that it works with clients across the country, many of whom it simply cannot meet in person.

“While some companies were forced into remote work and a virtual workspace, we were honing it,” he explained, adding that such arrangements work for clients and employees alike.

Especially the four-and-a-half-day workweek, which has been in place for several years now, he said, and helps employees as they seek to achieve work-life balance.

As for the clients Giombetti is working with, many are doing some honing of their own when it comes to policies regarding where and how people work.

Like the managers at Axia, O’Neil said that, as companies look to embrace different schedules and policies, the best course is to effectively communicate with employees and job candidates alike about what they should expect — and what is expected of them.

“This could include, but is not limited to, goals, core hours of work, mandatory meetings, mandatory check-ins, and what it means to maintain their corporate culture, too,” he said. “Every company had an identity before they went remote and hybrid, and now you add to that the complexity of remote workers and hybrid workers, and they have to think of creative ways to preserve the culture that they have.”

Remote work has certainly become part of the workplace equation at Holyoke-based PeoplesBank.

“Everyone has certain days that they’re remote every week, but if something comes up and they have to change it, we’re totally flexible to that because everyone has a different lifestyle.”

With more than 325 employees, the bank has a large number of front-facing employees, such as bankers and branch managers, for which remote work is not an option, said Amy Roberts, executive vice president and chief Human Resources officer. However, for others, the bank has adopted policies that enable such employees to work a hybrid schedule, with most in the office at least a few days a week.

“We have some people who prefer to be in the office,” she continued. “But the hybrid choice is very popular for those positions where we offer it.” 

And while having this flexibility to work a few days a week is appreciated by existing employees, the bank is not moving in the direction of offering fully remote work, with the exception of a few specific positions. “We’ve probably lost a few candidates because they are looking for fully remote,” she said. “On the other hand, people have absolutely remarked that they appreciate coming to an organization that allows them some flexibility.”

Those same sentiments have been expressed at ArchitectureEL, said Lapierre-Houle, adding that the company was, like most, fully remote during the pandemic but has since embraced hybrid schedules to help maintain the concept of teamwork, which is critical in architecture. Most are in the office on Mondays, when there are all-office meetings, she told BusinessWest, while Fridays, as noted earlier, are quiet.

Overall, she said, flexibility is the driving force behind the policy.

“Everyone has certain days that they’re remote every week, but if something comes up and they have to change it, we’re totally flexible to that because everyone has a different lifestyle,” she explained. “We’re super flexible about it.”

 

For Employers, the Challenges of Managing a Workforce Keep Growing

By
Allison Ebner
Employment Special Coverage

Coping with the Elements

Allison Ebner

Allison Ebner says there is a good deal of tension between employees and employers in the workplace today.

 

Allison Ebner counts herself a fan of the Discovery Channel show Deadliest Catch, which chronicles the lives of crews fishing for king and snow crab in Alaska, with that name effectively communicating just how dangerous a profession this is.

And Ebner, who took the helm at the Employers Assoc. of the NorthEast earlier this year, can find seemingly endless parallels between the dangers of crab fishing in the Bering Sea and the perils of managing the modern workplace.

With the former, it’s gale-force winds, rogue waves, ice formations, and dealing with greenhorns. With the latter, well … it’s everything from new regulations like family medical leave to coping with heightened expectations among employees concerning remote work, hybrid schedules, and more, to the demands of the younger generations.

In both cases, things come at leaders quickly and with great force, Ebner said. They must be as ready as they can be for whatever might hit them and then able to cope with the rough seas, whether they’re of the literal or figurative variety.

“It’s difficult … if you’re a Baby Boomer C-suite executive and you’re trying to get your arms around this workforce, it’s a bear,” she told BusinessWest, adding that, over the past few years, there have been even more challenges heaped upon business owners and managers. These include everything from less tolerance of differing opinions (on everything from science to politics) to an apparent gulf between employees and employers when it comes to pre-pandemic levels of production and results, and whether businesses should be back there by now.

“There’s a very, very big Rock ’Em Sock ’Em Robots thing happening here — there’s tension between employers and employees,” she explained. “First, there was the Great Resignation, then there was quiet quitting, and now there is a great divide: employers’ expectations are coming back to pre-COVID expectations, but employees are not coming back to work with that same mindset.”

“It’s difficult … if you’re a Baby Boomer C-suite executive and you’re trying to get your arms around this workforce, it’s a bear.”

As for that lack of tolerance for differing opinions, it’s showing up in a rise of calls to EANE’s hotline that fall into the broad category of employee relations, said Ebner, who described them this way: “I have an employee who has done, or is doing, this; what do I do about it?”

She noted that “there’s a lot of workplace-respect things happening today; we seem to, as a general society, have lost our ability to get along with one another to some regard. And I think that translates to the workplace; there’s less tolerance for someone who doesn’t think as I do or believe exactly the same things I do.”

As a result, EANE has been doing considerably more workplace-respect and conflict-resolution training these days, but the underlying whitewater remains.

“There’s no happy medium, so there’s a lot of tension,” she went on, adding that, with what is shaping up to be an epic presidential race this year, this tension will only rise as 2024 progresses, probably creating more employee-relations-related calls to the hotline.

Overall, in this climate and at this time of seemingly constant change, employers must put a premium on communication and, especially, training their mid-managers, what Ebner called their “people leaders.”

“These are the mid-level managers that have been ignored for years,” she said. “They’ve been ignored, they haven’t been trained, and they’re just sort of hanging out there. They need to be focused on; this is how organizations are going to be successful. They’re closest to the money — the money is your employees; you can’t function without them.”

For this issue’s focus on employment, BusinessWest talked with Ebner about the forces rocking the boat that is the modern workplace and what can be expected in the months to come.

 

Riding the Waves

Returning to Deadliest Catch, Ebner explained that, while the boat captains captured on the show possess many admirable qualities, flexibility, a willingness to compromise, and even communication are generally not among them.

And these are traits that today’s business managers certainly need, she went on, adding that, without them, life is going to be much more difficult and stressful — as if it weren’t already difficult and stressful enough, for those reasons above, many of which started during, or were accelerated by, the pandemic.

“There’s a lot of workplace-respect things happening today; we seem to, as a general society, have lost our ability to get along with one another to some regard. And I think that translates to the workplace; there’s less tolerance for someone who doesn’t think as I do or believe exactly the same things I do.”

Return to work, or RTW — another acronym that has worked its way into the lexicon — is just part of it.

The larger piece involves who’s holding the cards in the workplace today, she went on, adding that, during COVID and the height of the workforce crisis that followed, it was clearly employees that were driving the boat. Many think they still have the upper hand, but, increasingly, employers believe they are back in control.

And that’s where the rock-’em-sock-’em turmoil comes in.

“With COVID, we kind of dropped all of our performance-management standards, and now, employers are trying to bring those back,” Ebner explained. “They’re saying, ‘you can’t call out four times and violate our attendance policy and still have a job.’ During COVID, you could, and you could post-COVID the past few years because the job market was so tight.

“Now, that’s settled down a little bit, so employers are trying to rein things in a little bit, and employees are very resistant to that,” she went on. “We see it with return to work … you see it nationally with large corporations that are trying to bring their employees back, some more successfully than others. Employees want their work-life balance, they want that flexibility, and they expect it.

“They have higher expectations from their employers because they got more during these past three years and they have more negotiating power, and they want to keep that,” she continued. “But employers are saying, ‘we have a business to run here, the economy’s tough, it’s getting more competitive, and we’ve got to buckle down.’”

This general difference of opinion is contributing to the uptick in employee-relations matters, said Ebner, adding that things have been at a slow boil since last summer, but they’ve been heating up in recent months.

And this is just one of the dynamics creating more challenges in the workplace, adding that relatively new regulations, such as family medical leave and changing demographics within the workforce — with Baby Boomers moving into retirement, Gen Xers on the downside, and Gen Y and Gen Z “taking over” — are among the others.

“They have higher expectations from their employers because they got more during these past three years and they have more negotiating power, and they want to keep that. But employers are saying, ‘we have a business to run here, the economy’s tough, it’s getting more competitive, and we’ve got to buckle down.’”

“We have to be mindful of who’s in the workplace today,” she said. “And if you look at five, 10, 15 years down the road, most companies are doing strategic planning and predicting the future … and it’s Millennials and Zoomers, and that’s a real mindset shift for a lot of the C-suite people we talk to, and they are extremely unhappy about it.”

They’re not happy because what they’ve done for benefits and the larger employee value proposition (EVP) was much different for the work-first, family-second Baby Boomers than it is for the younger generations, who have different priorities and are not shy about communicating them.

“It’s a reality, but it’s also a slap in the face for many,” she said, referring, again, to older, Baby Boom-generation leaders. “But there is no choice; the younger generations are here, they are dominating, and they are the future; we don’t have the robots yet that you can program.”

In this environment, the managers that are thriving (and, yes, that’s a relative term) are those who can communicate with their employees and train those that Ebner calls “people leaders.”

“It’s all about expectations, and the employer who sits down with their team and communicates what is expected will fare better in this environment,” she said.

“The number-one thing employers can do right now to help themselves is train their people leaders; they’re the ones delivering the message inside the organization regarding expectations and performance metrics,” she added. “They are the conduit; they are the veins that run through the organization where everything flows through. Good people leaders have good communications skills, and they help set expectations. And it’s a two-way street now; the employee feedback gets to the leadership of an organization through the people leaders.”

All this points to a need for more professional development in the workplace, she said, adding that employees are asking for it, if not demanding it, and employers should want to provide it.

 

The Sea Suite

Reflecting on the current scene in the workplace, Ebner said that many of the Baby Boom-aged HR professionals she knows say they can’t wait to retire.

“They’re kind of done; they’re ready,” she told BusinessWest. “They’re not ready for the brave new world we’re in.”

Those sentiments speak to how challenging the workforce has become in recent years, a pattern that will likely only accelerate in the future, a reality that brings still more comparisons to Deadliest Catch.

There is nothing easy about catching king crab in the Bering Sea. And these days, there’s nothing easy about managing a workforce. It all comes down to being ready for whatever might come at you.

Mont Marie Meets Rehab Needs Between Hospital and Home

By Contributor
Barbara Chiampa
Healthcare News Special Coverage

Bridging the Gap

By Emily Thurlow

With classic Christmas carols softly emanating from a TV across the room and an Irish wolfhound named Veren panting rhythmically a short distance behind her, Barbara Chiampa pedaled a stationary bicycle on a recent afternoon at Mont Marie Rehabilitation & Healthcare Center’s therapy gym.

With guidance from Reliant Rehabilitation physical therapy assistant Tara McCauley, Chiampa was working on improving her balance and walking. After noting improvement in her gait and movement with a handheld assist, Chiampa paused for a few kisses from Veren, a 2-year-old therapy dog.

The staff at the Holyoke facility benefits from the canine too, said his handler, registered occupational therapist Sylvia Korza of Reliant Rehabilitation. “He comes to work with me, and he loves everybody. He’s great for therapy — even the staff. He helps lift everyone’s mood.”

The gym, which was expanded in 2016, features several pieces of equipment dedicated to improving mobility, including parallel bars and practice stairs. Beyond the machines, the therapy gym offers opportunities for McCauley and Korza to customize regimens that are tailored to the specific needs of patients recovering from medical procedures, injuries, or illnesses.

The therapy offered at the center’s gym is one of multiple subacute rehabilitation care services offered at the 84-bed Mont Marie facility, which was built in 1962 and formerly owned and operated by the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Joseph. In 2014, Mont Marie was purchased by Tryko Partners, which is headquartered in New Jersey, and is managed by its healthcare subsidiary, Marquis Health Consulting Services. Mont Marie is one of 10 of Marquis’ facilities in Massachusetts.

In recent years, the licensed nursing facility’s short-term rehabilitation care services have continued to grow, adding new programs and certifications, to meet the growing needs of the community.

A need for subacute or short-term rehabilitative care can emerge after a hospital stay for hip surgery or a stroke, or if an individual needs some physical strengthening or medication management, said Natasha Pieciak, administrator at Mont Marie.

“Baby Boomers are getting older, so as the population ages, there’s more of a demand for supportive services. We’re not a hospital — we’re kind of like a step down; we’re supportive services to bridge that gap between home-care services and the hospital.”

Initially, the 26-bed first floor was dedicated to this service, but it has since expanded to the 29-bed second floor as well. At times, admissions have jumped as high as 50 per month.

“There are a lot of factors that influence this growth,” said Pieciak, who has served as administrator of the center since September 2022. “Baby Boomers are getting older, so as the population ages, there’s more of a demand for supportive services. We’re not a hospital — we’re kind of like a step down; we’re supportive services to bridge that gap between home-care services and the hospital.

“With the aging population, I think these services become more needed out in the community, so we’re here to support people in that way, so they can be successful at home. People want to be at home, so we’re really here to try to support them to get them ready to do that.”

Barbara Chiampa

Barbara Chiampa pedals an exercise bicycle at Mont Marie Rehabilitation & Healthcare Center in Holyoke.

Through Mont Marie’s partnerships with Baystate Medical Center in Springfield and Holyoke Medical Center, as well as referrals from Mercy Medical Center in Springfield and Cooley Dickinson Hospital in Northampton, Pieciak said Mont Marie has been made aware of the growing demand for these rehabilitative services.

“We work closely with our partners within the hospital systems; we collaborate,” she said. “With Baystate, for example, we have weekly calls with their accountable-care organization management team, who will follow a patient from hospital to home, and we communicate with them, and they tell us what they’re seeing, what their needs are. We’re just really building that relationship and working with them to help identify and meet the needs that we’re seeing out in the community.”

“The goal of these specialty programs is to educate and train the residents how to manage and live with their conditions.”

In working with Baystate, Pieciak said Mont Marie has become one of two skilled-nursing facilities that have qualified for a waiver for the three-day requirement under the Medicare Shared Savings Program. The waiver eliminates the requirement to have a three-day inpatient hospital stay prior to a Medicare-covered, post-hospital, extended-care service.

What this means, Pieciak explained, is that, if a patient is in a hospital emergency department but don’t have a three-day stay, instead of going back home and potentially falling or fracturing a hip, they could go to Mont Marie as long as they meet a skilled need.

“This is huge because there’s a gap there,” she said. “Residents would go home and could potentially have worse outcomes. What we’re doing is bridging that gap from hospital to home.”

In addition to physical and occupational therapies, Mont Marie’s subacute rehab offers speech therapy up to seven days a week.

 

Life Goals

Within its major focus on subacute rehabilitation care, Mont Marie offers three specialty programs: cardiopulmonary, chronic kidney disease management, and heart failure.

“The goal of these specialty programs is to educate and train the residents how to manage and live with their conditions,” Pieciak said.

Natasha Pieciak

Natasha Pieciak says Mont Marie works closely with its partners within hospital systems.

The cardiopulmonary rehabilitation program is physician-led under the direction of a pulmonologist and focuses on helping patients achieve the most active life possible despite any physical limitations and/or cardiopulmonary diagnoses. The program, which is geared toward individuals with diagnoses of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), post-lung transplants, emphysema, and acute respiratory failure, offers access to lab and radiology services, tracheostomy care and management, nebulizer therapies, bladder scanning, and several oxygen therapies, including liquid nitrogen.

The renal program is focused on reducing symptoms of chronic kidney disease, increasing a patient’s quality of life, and promoting independence. Mont Marie offers onsite dialysis provided by American Renal Associates, consultative visits by staff nephrologists, diabetic management and education, a monthly support group, and health coaching.

In October, Mont Marie received its skilled-nursing facility heart-failure certification from the American Heart Assoc. (AHA). In order to be considered eligible for this certification, facilities must be located in the U.S. or a U.S. territory and implement a heart-failure program that uses a standardized method of delivering clinical care based on current evidence-based guidelines.

“This was a huge accomplishment,” Pieciak said. “There are very few facilities that are credentialed. The American Heart Association has armed us with innovative methods and additional tools so that we can be trailblazers and give our heart-failure patients the best care.”

The vetting provides an evidence-based framework for evaluating skilled-nursing facilities against the AHA’s science-based requirements for heart failure patients, including care coordination, clinical management, quality improvement, program management, and patient and caregiver education and support.

According to the AHA, nearly one in four heart failure patients are readmitted within 30 days of discharge, and approximately half are readmitted within six months. It has also been suggested that about 25% of readmissions may be preventable.

“We’re trying to get ahead of hospital readmissions,” said Raymonda Sample, the lead for the heart-failure program and unit manager.

With the certification, Mont Marie has been provided with access to centers on treating heart failure and its co-morbidities.

Sample noted that one of the biggest benefits to the staff’s education on the heart-failure program is being able to educate patients on how they can live more independently with fewer flareups of their disease.

To that end, Mont Marie uses what’s called a ‘zone tool.’ The traffic-light color-coded guide indicates an all-clear, or green, when a patient has no shortness of breath; chest pain; swelling of the feet, ankles, legs, or stomach; or weight gain of more than two pounds. It’s time to call a doctor if a patient is in the so-called warning (yellow) zone, when they’re experiencing dizziness; dry, hacking cough; more shortness of breath; uneasy feelings; no energy; difficulty breathing when lying down; swelling of the feet, ankles, legs, or stomach; or weight gain of three or more pounds in one day or five pounds in one week.

A medical alert, or red zone, is when the previous symptoms have been exacerbated and a patient is having a hard time breathing or is experiencing unrelieved shortness of breath while sitting still, chest pain, or confusion.

In addition to this tool, Sample has created an entire guide board for staff that she also uses to educate family members of patients. The tool helps provide a better continuity of care, she explained.

“With this education, we are able to identify how the patient is feeling for the day,” she said. “If say, the patient is in the middle of therapy and they’re feeling short of breath, or telling the therapist maybe they haven’t eaten much in the last couple of days, or not sleeping well — there’s a sort of board out there where you can see the different signs and symptoms of heart failure.”

 

Safe at Home

Even though a patient has a plan in place to be discharged from the facility following treatment at Mont Marie, care doesn’t end at the door.

“When we discharge patients, we do follow-up calls with the patient just to find out how the transition back home goes, the home care services … we make sure they’re seen by their primary-care physician within 10 days, and if they don’t have a scale, we make sure we send them home with one,” Sample said. “This is so both our patients and the staff recognize the signs and symptoms of heart failure, so we can try to avoid rehospitalization.”

EEOC Takes Action Against Associational Discrimination

By Contributor
Law Special Coverage

Guilty by Association

By Trevor Brice, Esq.

Under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), employers are required to provide reasonable accommodations to qualified individuals with disabilities who are employees or applicants for employment. However, the ADA does not require an employer to assist — or in other words, accommodate — a person without a disability due to that person’s association with someone with a disability.

Still, an employer cannot discriminate against an employee or applicant because of that person’s association with someone with a disability. This is what is called ‘associational discrimination,’ which, in the below case, was due to another’s disability under the ADA.

On Sept. 19, 2023, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), announced that it had sued a private school for associational discrimination under the ADA. According to the EEOC’s announcement, the school allegedly discriminated against one of its teachers by refusing to renew her contract over her daughter’s disability.

Trevor Brice

Trevor Brice

“An employer cannot discriminate against an employee or applicant because of that person’s association with someone with a disability. This is what is called ‘associational discrimination.’”

This was “precisely the kind of conduct the ADA’s associational-discrimination provision was intended to prohibit,” said Rosemarie Rhodes, EEOC’s Baltimore Field Office director. On Dec. 15, the EEOC announced that the matter had been settled for just over $85,000 by the private school, with the school to pay $50,858 in back pay, $4,428 in interest on the back pay, and $30,000 in non-wage damages.

This settlement brings associational-discrimination enforcement into the limelight and presents more scenarios for employers to look out for and train their employees on for the new year.

 

Associational Discrimination and the ADA

Associational discrimination based on another’s disability requires “that (1) the employee was qualified for the job at the time of the adverse employment action, (2) that the employee was subjected to an adverse employment action, (3) that the employer knew at the time of the adverse employment action that the employee had a relative or associate with a disability, and (4) that the adverse employment action occurred under circumstances raising a reasonable inference that the disability of the relative or associate was a determining factor in the employer’s decision” (Carey v. AB Car Rental Servs. Inc.).

The EEOC, in its announcement, stated that the school was aware of the teacher’s daughter’s disability and that it decided to not renew the teacher’s contract because it assumed (without investigation, or even asking the teacher) that her daughter’s disability, coupled with the COVID-19 pandemic, would undermine the teacher’s focus and commitment to her job. The school instead decided to renew the contracts of other teachers who had less experience and tenure than the teacher whose daughter had a disability.

In its complaint, the EEOC pleaded the requirements of an associational-discrimination claim based on disability through the circumstances described in its announcement. The teacher performed her job satisfactorily, according to the EEOC, making her qualified for the job at the time the private school refused to renew her contract. In order to not be qualified for her job, the school would have had to demonstrate the teacher had performance deficiencies or otherwise could not perform the essential functions of her job.

Further, the private school subjected the teacher to an adverse employment action by not renewing her employment contract. An adverse employment action can be any action by an employer that takes away a benefit of an employee’s employment, e.g. taking away a company car, suspension from employment, termination, etc.

“Without both knowledge and a reasonable inference, associational discrimination will most likely be unactionable. Nevertheless, it is important to stress to employees that discrimination and harassment based on protected class is prohibited, no matter the circumstance.”

Finally, the EEOC pleaded that the private school knew of the teacher’s daughter’s disability and allegedly specifically cited that reason for not renewing the teacher’s contract, making for the reasonable inference that the teacher’s daughter’s disability was a determining factor in its decision. As such, the EEOC met its burden for pleading its case of associational discrimination based on disability, which most likely prompted the private school to settle the claims.

 

Pitfalls of Associational Discrimination

As shown by the EEOC’s enforcement action, associational-discrimination claims are actionable claims that can cost employers a substantial amount of money. The pitfalls of these claims are that they are not the easiest to catch. For example, it is comparatively easier to catch when there is direct discrimination (e.g. a racial remark, comment against a disability) than to read into the subtext of a conversation that is deprecating to an associate of an employee who is part of a protected class.

However, there are ways to teach this kind of discrimination and harassment to frontline employees and make them aware enough of an associational-discrimination or harassment issue to report it.

First, employees should be aware that discrimination or harassment based on protected class (e.g. race, religion, sexual orientation, ethnicity, gender, etc.) is prohibited. Along these lines, it is equally prohibited to discriminate or harass another employee based on the protected characteristics of someone with whom the employee associates. For example, it is illegal to use the knowledge that an employee has Jewish friends to discriminate against that employee and subject him to adverse employment actions based on that knowledge.

Second, it is important to stress that it is the knowledge of the employee’s associates’ protected classes that makes associational discrimination actionable. An offhand comment by an employee that happens to relate to an employee’s associates’ or relatives’ protected class will not necessarily implicate associational discrimination, but making the same comment and directly referencing the associate or relative and their protected class will make for this implication. In this sense, if it is discriminatory or harassing to the associate or relative, it will most likely be discriminatory or harassing to the employee.

If cornerstones of associational discrimination like these are taught and enforced, it will be less likely that an employer will be subject to the same fate as the above-referenced private school.

 

Takeaways

Associational discrimination can raise its head in a variety of circumstances, including the contract-renewal scenario above; hiring, termination, and other employment decisions; as well as discriminatory and harassing behaviors from employees.

Though it is more difficult to catch than scenarios in which discrimination or harassment based on protected class is direct, the pivotal elements of associational discrimination are knowledge of the associates’ or relatives’ protected class and the reasonable inference that the knowledge was a determining factor in the adverse employment decision. Without both knowledge and a reasonable inference, associational discrimination will most likely be unactionable. Nevertheless, it is important to stress to employees that discrimination and harassment based on protected class is prohibited, no matter the circumstance.

Further, a related claim to associational discrimination is a retaliation claim for reporting discrimination or harassment perpetrated against another employee. In this scenario, an employee reports that another employee is being discriminated against because of their protected class, and then the reporting employee is subjected to an adverse employment action. This kind of ‘associational’ activity by employees is protected, and an employer can be subjected to legal action if the report is not handled properly.

As associational discrimination and related retaliation can be difficult to detect, it is prudent to contact legal counsel in order to avoid any potential liability and train staff to recognize and report associational-discrimination scenarios.

 

Trevor Brice is an attorney who specializes in labor and employment-law matters at the Royal Law Firm LLP, a woman-owned, women-managed corporate law firm that is certified as a women’s business enterprise with the Massachusetts Supplier Diversity Office, the National Assoc. of Minority and Women Owned Law Firms, and the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council.

Enfield Is on Track for Continued Progress

By
Kristine Koistinen
Community Spotlight

Community Spotlight

Kristine Koistinen

Kristine Koistinen says Enfield’s long-awaited rail stop is creating a great deal of anticipation in the community, as well as growing interest from developers.

 

For decades now, a rail stop in Enfield, Conn. on the line from Springfield to Hartford, New Haven, and points south has been a dream.

Finally, the dream is becoming reality.

Indeed, the Connecticut Department of Transportation made it real several weeks ago when it attached hard dates to the $45 million project to build a train station in the section of Enfield called Thompsonville, in the shadow of apartment buildings created at the sprawling former Bigelow Carpet complex.

Those dates include the summer of 2024 for the final design to be completed, the winter of 2025 for the construction bid to be awarded, the spring of 2027 for accompanying rail and bridge work to be completed, and the fall of 2027 for completion of the station and platform.

While a formal ribbon cutting is almost four years away, there is already a great deal of anticipation and excitement in this community of just over 42,000 — as well as interest from the development community, said Town Manager Chris Bromson, adding that the train stop will be, in a word, “transformational.”

“When you look at any of the other transit-oriented districts in Connecticut, it’s been just a boon to economic development and housing,” he told BusinessWest. “If you look at Meriden and other cities in Connecticut that have gotten a train stop, you’ve seen dramatic growth, so we’re very excited, to say the least.”

Elaborating, he said momentum toward a rail station has prompted developers to take options on several properties near the riverfront in the area near the planned station, including an old Eversource power plant, and he expects such interest to only escalate in the months and years to come.

“If you build it, they will come,” he said. “And two years is going to go by in a heartbeat, and developers … they don’t want to miss the train. They want to get in on the ground floor now because those properties are going to be hot.”

Meanwhile, the rail station is just one of many intriguing developments in this community, said Kristine Koistinen, Community Development specialist and also acting Economic Development director. Others include likely redevelopment of the dying mall known as Enfield Square; redevelopment of the former Strand Theater into housing; revitalization of the historic Hazardville Institute into a mixed-use facility that will become, among other things, home to the North Central Connecticut Chamber of Commerce; the recent conversion of the former United Presbyterian Church into the new home for the Opera House Players; and the expected arrival next year of L.L.Bean in the Brookside Plaza.

“It’s back to the future. Today, young people … they really aren’t interested in cars the same way that previous generations were; they want to jump on the train. They want to live in places like Thompsonville and jump on the train and go to New York for the weekend or go to Boston.”

“It’s a very exciting time in Enfield; there’s a lot going on and a lot to get excited about,” she said, adding that there are new developments in many different parts of the community, including Thompsonville, Hazardville, the retail district, and others.

Those sentiments apply to one of the community’s largest institutions as well.

Indeed, Asnuntuck Community College, which marked its 50th anniversary this year, is now known as CT State Community College Asnuntuck. It is one of 12 community colleges, some with satellites, that came together in a merger (creating CT State Community College) that has been years in the making, with the goal of bringing a number of advantages and new opportunities to the colleges, but especially students, said Michelle Coach, Asnuntuck CEO.

“What’s amazing for the students is that they apply once, and they can register on any campus anywhere in the state,” she explained. “In the past, we used to share less than 1% of our students among the 12; we now share about 28% of our students.”

But while the merger is generating new opportunities, Asnuntuck and all the other CT State schools are coping with budget cuts, and more dramatic cuts to come in the future unless the governor and Legislature reverse course and increase their overall commitment to public higher education (more on that later).

As for Enfield Square, it has been in a state of deterioration for several years, with the loss of anchors such as Macy’s, JCPenney, and Sears. It was acquired by New York-based Namdar Realty Group in 2019 amid hopes that there would be investment in the facility and the securing of new tenants. However, it has continued to decline, and there is growing speculation that it may be sold to a developer who will raze all or most of what exists and create a mixed-use facility that may include everything from retail to housing.

planned new housing

An architect’s rendering of the planned new housing to take shape at the site of the former Strand Theater.

A few developers have expressed interest, said Bromson, who declined to name them, adding that Enfield Square may follow the same path as Springfield’s Eastfield Mall, which is currently being demolished in favor of new development following the relocation of several dozen mostly smaller tenants. In fact, Koistinen has talked with officials in Springfield about the Eastfield Mall project and the relocation of tenants there.

For the latest installment of its Community Spotlight series, BusinessWest focuses on Enfield, the arrival of rail service, and the many other forms of progress in this community.

 

Train of Thought

Bromson is on his second stint as town manager in Enfield — he held that post from 2019 to 2021, when he resigned, only to return just last month. Overall, he’s spent more than 33 years working for the town in various capacities, including town attorney, Public Safety director, and acting town manager.

For all that time and more, securing a rail stop in town has been a dream and a true priority for the community, for reasons made obvious by looking at similar communities that have a stop. In those cities and towns, development has followed, Bromson noted, adding that there has been significant reversal of the development strategies of the ’50s, ’60s, and ’70s that focused on the automobile and creating infrastructure to support its use.

“It’s back to the future,” he went on. “Today, young people … they really aren’t interested in cars the same way that previous generations were; they want to jump on the train. They want to live in places like Thompsonville and jump on the train and go to New York for the weekend or go to Boston.”

Elaborating, he said Enfield’s station will be more than a metro stop, bringing people to Hartford to work; it will also be a larger hub for Amtrak for more distant destinations. Coupled with the planned spur off the Windsor Locks stop that will bring people to Bradley International Airport, it’s easy to see why a rail station is generating such enthusiasm.

“You can come down to the Enfield station, park — there will be ample parking here — get on the train, take the spur to Bradley, and get on a plane, and never have to deal with the parking or the congestion there,” Bromson said.

the historic Hazardville Institute

Renovation of the historic Hazardville Institute is one of many developing stories in Enfield.

While the rail plans are generating excitement among residents and officials, they are also gaining the attention of the development community, with more interest certainly to come, said those we spoke with.

Bromson said the rail service will likely generate interest in development of more housing, such as the hugely successful Bigelow Commons, now home to more than 2,000 people.

And if more housing becomes reality — and renovation of the former Strand Theater is already set to move off the drawing board — there will be a need for more retail and service businesses, said Koistinen, adding that such need will likely help fill some of the many vacant storefronts and other properties in Thompsonville, but also other parts of the city.

Enfield at a Glance

Year Incorporated: 1683
Population: 42,141
Area: 34.2 square miles
County: Hartford
Residential Tax Rate: $30.56
Commercial Tax Rate: $30.56
Median Household Income: $67,402
Median Family Income: $77,554
Type of Government: Town Council, Town Manager
Largest Employers: Empower Retirement LLC, Town of Enfield, LEGO, Advance Auto Parts Distribution Center, Eppendorf Manufacturing
* Latest information available

“For decades, people have been talking about how we revitalize Thompsonville,” she said. “Having the train come is the first step in all of this; here are several vacant properties there, and having the train station so close — that walkability to the downtown — will provide a real boost.”

Overall, there is a sizable trickle-down effect from the rail service, said Bromson, adding that it will likely extend to places like Enfield Square. Indeed, the station will be an intermodal transit center that will send buses and shuttles to locations such as the shopping areas off I-91.

This includes Enfield Square, he noted, adding that the community is talking to developers about the future of the site, while also working with existing tenants to help promote them and prepare them for eventual transition. “I’m very optimistic that we’re going to have a good result there in the near future.”

 

Course of Action

There have been several good results from the merger of the state’s community colleges, a process that has been in motion for more than seven years now, Coach noted.

The new infrastructure brings benefits for the schools, including additional buying power and greater ability to collaborate and share ideas, concepts, and, yes, students.

Indeed, she said there are students who now attend classes at as many as five different schools, taking advantage of each school’s specialty, such as Asnuntuck’s manufacturing program.

Indeed, Asnuntuck now boasts 1,329 students who call the campus home, and another 886 who call another school home but attend at least one class in Enfield, boosting enrollment and bringing more energy and vitality to the campus.

“If the governor doesn’t give us more money, that’s going to hurt our students — that’s what we’re worried about right now.”

Overall, said the merger has brought about a harmonized processing system across the 12 campuses, while allowing each school to maintain its own identity and culture.

“I’ve always said to the employees, our culture is our people, and we have our people,” Coach said. “We can give our students what they need, and I don’t think we’ve changed. But at the same time, they can now register anywhere, we have some amazing processes, and we just hired a behavioral-health counselor for the first time. We’ve always wanted an in-house counselor, and we haven’t been able to do so. By becoming CT State, every campus is getting at least one counselor.”

The merged system is still only a few months old, she said, adding that it will continue to evolve, hone processes, and bring new opportunities and greater collaboration — something that was missing historically — between the individual campuses and their students.

And greater collaboration will be needed because there are many current budget challenges, and deeper cuts likely to come in the year ahead.

“We are underfunded right now,” she said, noting that the system recently cut $33.6 million for this fiscal year, with Asnuntuck slicing roughly $500,000, in large part because elected leaders would not raise the spending limit for the state.

Asnuntuck was able to avoid personnel cuts this fiscal year, but it may not be so fortunate in FY 2025, when an additional $41.3 million will have to be cut, unless already-intense lobbying efforts succeed in garnering more support from the state.

“If the governor doesn’t give us more money, that’s going to hurt our students — that’s what we’re worried about right now,” she told BusinessWest. “And, of course, these are the students that need the help.”

Analysts Highlight Key Auto Trends That Will Shape 2024

By
high-speed EV chargers
Autos

The Road Ahead

 

high-speed EV chargers

Gary Rome has made a major investment in high-speed EV chargers, with capacity for more when demand increases.

The car-shopping experts at Edmunds say opposing market forces are expected to keep new vehicle sales relatively steady in 2024, forecasting that 15.7 million new cars will be sold. That forecast represents a 1% increase from its estimate of 15.5 million new vehicle sales in 2023. Meanwhile, electric-vehicle (EV) market share is expected to tick slightly higher to 8% of total new vehicle sales in 2024, up from 6.9% in 2023 to date through November.

Jessica Caldwell, Edmunds’ head of Insights, noted that “2023 experienced improved inventory levels from pandemic-era lows combined with pent-up demand to deliver strong sales, estimated up 12.7% year over year. While the year ahead holds the promise of further increased inventory and enticing deals that consumers have eagerly awaited, 2023’s high interest rates are expected to linger, provoking conflicting market dynamics. Automakers specifically will weigh one other key consideration in 2024: are they satisfied with this newly established supply-demand equilibrium, or are they willing and able to push sales volumes closer to pre-pandemic norms?”

Gary Rome, president and CEO of Gary Rome Auto Group, told BusinessWest that carmakers are responding to high interest rates by pushing 0% financing promotions, or close to it. At his two dealerships, he noted that Hyundai is offering 0%, and Kia is offering 0.9%.

“People have been buying the same car, and their payment is $80 to $100 more because of the higher interest rates,” he explained. “So manufacturers are starting to do something about it with low-rate financing.”

Edmunds put together a list of the three biggest industry trends it predicts will shape the road ahead in 2024.

 

New-vehicle Prices Will Plateau

The COVID-19 pandemic spurred a series of significant vehicle price hikes, first from consumers leveraging low interest rates to buy larger, well-equipped vehicles, and later from out-of-whack demand due to supply shortages. But Edmunds data reveals pricing has peaked, as improved inventory has driven incentives back into the market.

Shoppers seeking options on the affordable side of the new-vehicle market, however, will have a tougher time as those vehicles are selling quicker than their more expensive counterparts, the reversal of a trend witnessed from the fall of 2020 through the fall of 2021.

 

EVs Will Continue to Disrupt Brand Loyalty

A lack of consumer brand loyalty creates opportunities for electric-vehicle makers to win over buyers in the still-early stages of EV adoption, considered even more impactful given today’s lower overall sales rates relative to pre-2020 levels.

With brands jockeying for pole position in the EV adoption race, Edmunds’ experts note that shoppers ready to make the switch to electric should see plenty of incentives in 2024, even before tax credits kick in. As of November, EVs saw the largest discounts by powertrain at $2,326 below MSRP on average, compared to an industry average of $1,006 discounted.

Locally, Rome said he carries a lot of electric vehicles, but consumers are still wary about availability of charging stations. Still, he recently installed six high-speed ‘superchargers’ at Gary Rome Hyundai and has capacity for 10 more when the need develops.

“Our percentage of EV sales is only around 10%, so it’s a lot of investment for only 10% of sales,” he added. “When we see a trend toward more EV sales, we’ll certainly invest in more chargers.”

 

Hybrid Sales Share Will Grow Further

Edmunds experts say the transition to full EVs has slowed, and hybrids are the more comfortable choice for the majority of Americans seeking electrified options right now.

According to Edmunds data, hybrid market share increased to 9.7% in November from 4.9% the year prior, representing 99% growth. Over that same time period, EVs increased just 25% in share.

Hybrids are transacting more quickly and at less of a discount than both EVs and pure gas competitors, the report notes. “If you’re on the hybrid versus EV fence and prefer leasing, Edmunds experts suggest EVs could be the way to go due to available inventory, discounts, and rebates. But if you’re a drive-it-until-the-wheels-fall-off shopper and are set on a hybrid purchase, you might be best off placing an order rather than scouring local lots in search of a strong deal.”

Altus Dental Confronts Challenging Landscape with Resolve

By
Jim Kinney
Insurance

Biting Comments

 

Jim Kinney

Jim Kinney says Altus Dental is well-positioned to handle the seismic changes taking place in the dental-insurance landscape.

 

Jim Kinney acknowledged that it will certainly take some time before the full impact of changes to the dental-insurance landscape in the Bay State — specifically a successful ballot initiative requiring insurers to dedicate 83% of revenue from premiums to patient care — is known.

But already, that landscape is changing, and in profound ways, said Kinney, vice president of Sales and Business Relations for Rhode Island-based Altus Dental, noting that several insurers have announced their intention to withdraw from the small-plan market in Massachusetts as a result of the measure, and more will likely do so in the months to come.

Altus isn’t one of them, he said, adding that the company is committed to staying in Massachusetts and continuing to provide small-plan coverage, despite the many challenges inherent with doing so.

“There’s been some contraction — five carriers have notified the Commonwealth that they’ll be exiting the market,” he told BusinessWest. “So right now, small group is really … turbulent. That’s the word I would choose to use; there’s going to be a lot of change.

“But we’re really committed to staying in the market,” he went on, adding that Altus prefers to look at these companies exiting the small-business market as an opportunity, one that will require an even greater emphasis on efficiency, something the company has always made a priority, and creating more volume — assignments we’ll hear more about later.

Meanwhile, beyond the turbulence, the companies exiting the small-market segment will be “doubling down,” as Kinney put it, on the large-market component, creating more competition and more challenges in the segment.

But Altus sees opportunities there as well, he said, adding that 2024 will certainly be an intriguing year, to say the least, as it looks to continue growing its membership in Massachusetts, which is currently about 230,000.

“We’ve been on a good growth trajectory, and with the market changes coming next year and going forward, we’re really expecting to see new sales in small group,” he said, adding that, in this environment, there is even more strength in numbers.

For this issue and its focus on insurance, BusinessWest talked at length with Kinney about how Altus, which has been steadily growing market share in Massachusetts, intends to continue its pattern of growth amid the tumultuous changes in the market.

 

Some Things to Chew On

In the run-up to the November 2022 election, insurers issued not-so-subtle warnings to Bay State residents that, if the ballot question passed, carriers would likely flee the state, leaving fewer options, especially in the small-plan market, and, more alarmingly, more people without dental insurance.

But, backed by the American Dental Assoc. and local dentists, the referendum question passed with ease, bringing dental insurers in line with healthcare insurers that are required by Obamacare to allocate 83% from premiums to patient care.

Now, some of those warnings are coming to pass.

Ameritas Dental Network and Principal dental insurance recently notified the National Assoc. of Health Plans, of which they are members, of their intention to abandon the Massachusetts small market. Those moves follow the announcement in August that Guardian Life Insurance, one of the country’s largest mutual insurance companies, had notified small businesses in Massachusetts that it would no longer provide dental insurance as a result of the ballot question.

And others will likely follow suit, said Kinney, who, when asked if the market was done shaking out, said simply, “there’s more to come.”

“The legislation goes into effect Jan. 1, but it’s going to be delayed, at least with some aspects of it,” he told BusinessWest. “We’re going to see more companies exiting the market, and unfortunately, that’s not a good thing for the health of the market.”

The small-business component comprises roughly 80% of the market in Massachusetts, with about 46,000 client companies, said Kinney, adding that this is a very large slice of the dental-insurance pie in the Bay State.

Now, there will be fewer players contending for slices of that pie, a scenario that, as noted, comes with opportunities and challenges, and probably more of the latter than the former, which is why companies are exiting the small-business market here.

“The numbers are very difficult; it’s difficult to make it work for carriers — they’re being really restricted,” he said of what’s known as the medical-loss ratio that is now being applied to dental insurers. “We have a bit of a different model — we’re more efficient, and we run a lot of new business on a much tighter margin than many can.”

And this efficiency, this ability to thrive on much tighter margins, will be ever-more important, said Kinney, who used some simple math to get his points across about this new regulation and why so many companies have decided to exit the small-business market.

He said a commercial market medical-insurance premium runs about $600 per month on average; this contrasts with $35 for a dental PPO and $20 for a dental HMO. Despite this huge monetary gap, dental and medical plans perform most of the same administrative tasks. That’s why most of the industry has long held that dental insurers should not be subject to the same medical loss ratio, in this case more than 80%.

Such numbers explain why, in this environment, there will be a premium on efficiency and providing value, he said, and with fewer competing players, on top of the new regulation, there will be added pressure on premium costs.

“We’re committed to being fiscally responsible, keeping premiums affordable, and focusing on high value for the premium,” he said. “But I do have concerns that less competition will erode some of that for the market. But our commitment is to remain affordable, with a good focus on value for our members.”

And one of the keys to keeping premiums affordable will be efficiency, Kinney noted.

“We’ve gotten down to a process with our technology where we get a lot done in a simple way,” he said. “I think we’ve just done a really good job of using technology to focus on getting the right things done in the most efficient way. Also, many of our employees have been here for 20 years, so they really understand our systems very well, and they can make things happen quickly.”

Elaborating, he said this emphasis on technology, such as electronic data files, enables Altus to sped up the approval process on many procedures and process claims more quickly, thus improving overall customer satisfaction.

 

Bottom Line

As noted earlier, this changing environment puts additional emphasis on both size and efficiency, Kinney said, adding that Altus, which, unlike some carriers, focuses exclusively on dental, is better-positioned to thrive in this climate than its smaller and larger competitors.

“We’re small enough that we’re nimble and able to make changes and really meet the demands of the market very quickly,” he explained. “But our infrastructure is large enough to handle the administration and be able to actually support all the things that go into this.

“We understand that this legislation is going to impact us financially, there will some challenges, and the policy is going to bring some negative consequences for Massachusetts,” he went on. “But with our 20 years of experience focused on dental and our position as one of the fastest-growing companies, we really think we’re well-positioned to navigate this market and the changes and challenges that are going on.”

Consider These Key Fiscal Resolutions for a Strong 2024

By Contributor
Accounting and Tax Planning

Setting the Course

By Barbara Trombley, CPA, MBA

 

As we usher in the new year, it is an opportune time to make financial resolutions that will secure your financial future. Whether you are new to investing and personal financial planning or you are approaching retirement and contemplating estate planning, here are some tips for making the most of your financial life in 2024.

“Peace of mind comes with knowing you can cover unexpected expenses in the case of emergency or job loss.”

Build or Enhance Your Emergency Fund

In an era marked by economic uncertainty, we all need a robust emergency fund. This means having three to six months of living expenses in a money market or high-yield savings account. Peace of mind comes with knowing you can cover unexpected expenses in the case of emergency or job loss.

 

Pay Down Debt

In today’s world of high interest rates, it is imperative to not carry ‘bad debt.’ What is bad debt? Credit cards, personal loans, and some car loans are all examples. The interest on some of these debt instruments can be financially crippling. Come up with a plan to tackle the debt sooner rather than later.

 

Review Your Credit Report and Credit Score

Federal law gives you the right to get a free copy of your credit report every 12 months from the three nationwide credit bureaus. To get the free credit report, go to annualcreditreport.com. Review for any inaccuracies and report them right away. Make a plan to increase your score, if needed, by making timely payments and attacking outstanding debt. A strong credit score is the key to favorable interest rates when financing a house, car, or other business opportunities.

 

Meet Your Match

Many companies offer a match in contributions to retirement plans. There is a reason this is called ‘free money.’ You do not have to earn the money. You need to contribute enough to get the match that the company provides. Most companies match 50% or 100% of your contribution, up to a certain percentage.

 

Increase Your Retirement Contributions

Beyond just getting a match, you should increase your retirement-plan contributions each year and certainly when receiving any type of raise or bonus. The 2024 contribution limit for 401(k), 403(b), and most 457 plans is increased to $23,000, up from $22,500. The catch-up contribution for those turning 55 or older in 2024 is $7,500. The limit on annual contributions to an IRA plan will increase to $7,000, up from $6,500. If you are over 55, the limit is $8,000.

Also consider whether a Roth 401(k) or IRA is a good option for you. You need to weigh whether it is more advantageous to pay taxes now or later on to the contributions to your retirement accounts. Having both a traditional retirement account and a Roth retirement account may give you the tax flexibility that you need in retirement.

 

Review Social Security

Social Security makes up the bulk of many Americans’ retirement income. Do you know how much you will get at full retirement age? Do you know that you receive about 30% less if you take your social security payment at age 62? Do you know that you can wait until age 70 to begin your payments and realize a significant pay increase of 8% for each year that you wait? Be cognizant of how much you can anticipate receiving in retirement and how much your spouse will receive. Work with a financial planner to strategize the possibility of staggering claiming ages to reach your retirement goals.

 

Do a Pension Calculation

About 20% of Americans receive a pension. This is a stream of payments that come each month in retirement. Do the research now to calculate at what age your pension will be maximized. Also, find out what options you may have in retirement to provide for a spouse. There also may be the ability to consider a lump-sum payment in lieu of monthly payments. Knowing all your options will allow you to calculate how much additional money you may need to save to have an enjoyable retirement.

 

Consult a Financial Planner

It is never too early or too late to see if you are on track for retirement. A good financial planner is a trained professional in the field and can assist you in setting and achieving your financial goals. A financial planner can also evaluate your investment options and suggest suitable investments for your risk profile. Many planners will also help optimize your tax strategy and possibly save you money in the long run.

 

Barbara Trombley is a financial planner with Wilbraham-based Trombley Associates Investment and Retirement Planning. Securities offered through LPL Financial. Member FINRA/SIPC. Advisory services offered through Trombley Associates, a registered investment advisor and separate entity from LPL Financial. This material was created for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended as ERISA tax, legal, or investment advice. If you are seeking investment advice specific to your needs, such advice services must be obtained on your own separate from this educational material.

New Facility Represents the Evolution of Remote Work

By
Chris Orszulak, left, and Bill Laplante
Commercial Real Estate Cover Story

Improving on the Model

Chris Orszulak, left, and Bill Laplante

Chris Orszulak, left, and Bill Laplante at the Modern Workspace facility they are building in East Longmeadow.

 

Before going into some detail about the new co-workspace initiative he’s part of in East Longmeadow, Chris Orszulak first wanted to talk about another project he partnered on in the town next door.

Specifically, he referenced restoration of the historic Brewer-Young mansion in the center of Longmeadow and, even more specifically, conversion of its third floor into what has become known as 734 Workspace, to match the mansion’s address on Longmeadow Street.

He started there because it was success in that endeavor that ultimately inspired the East Longmeadow project and, before it, something similar on the Cape.

Indeed, when they conceived the new co-work facility in Longmeadow in the year before the pandemic, Orszulak, a financial planner by trade, and partners Andrew Lam, Henry Clement, and Jason Pananos were not exactly sure what they would find.

What they found — and it took a while for things to fully shake out because the pandemic hit just after they opened, and it changed the dynamic in many respects — is that there are professionals, and a healthy number of them, who don’t want to work in a large office, but also don’t want to work at home — at least all the time.

Many need a place where they can bring clients; where they can access reliable, high-speed internet; where they can have some privacy; where they can get some work done; and where they can have their mail sent.

“What this has turned into is the evolution of working from home and remote work that is permanent now in the workforce, post-pandemic.”

And, yes, 734 Workspace became that place — a place where there is remote work, but with some twists and some style. There are 17 small offices there, all of them are leased out, and there is a good-sized waiting list, Orszulak noted.

“What I found attractive about the model, pre-pandemic, was simply its flexibility,” he explained. “When you have a membership with us, it’s month to month, and we include everything with your membership. But what this has turned into is the evolution of working from home and remote work that is permanent now in the workforce, post-pandemic.

“And the reasons why people would join a place like ours are what you might expectm” he said. “You can’t get everything you want to get done at home; you’re distracted by your pets, your kids, your husband, your wife; you need a change of scenery — you’re not productive at home.”

Brewer-Young mansion in Longmeadow.

Modern Workspace was in many ways inspired by the success of an earlier venture on the third floor of the Brewer-Young mansion in Longmeadow.

This model, this change of scenery, has worked so well that Orszulak, partnering with Pananos and East Longmeadow-based luxury homebuilder Bill Laplante, moved with confidence and optimism to create something similar in a commercial condominium in Chatham on the Cape.

Further inspired by success there, they are moving forward aggressively with construction of a unique co-working space on a small lot owned by Laplante in East Longmeadow that will be branded Modern Workspace — a name that will eventually go on all the facilities in the portfolio.

Unique — and modern — for several reasons, starting with energy efficiency. Indeed, this will be a net-zero building, said Laplante, adding that it features a solar array on the roof that will provide 100% of the electricity for heating, cooling, and hot water; a car-charging station; and more.

It also features 24 individual spaces across two floors; multiple conference rooms; printing, scanning, and copying equipment; 24/7 access; and more, said Orszulak, adding that the doors are expected to open late in the spring of 2024.

There has been considerable interest in the East Longmeadow facility already, said the partners, adding that results there will help determine if and where this concept might go next.

Indeed, Orszulak stressed that Modern Workspace is certainly scalable, but the model will likely work only in communities like Longmeadow and East Longmeadow, which don’t have existing co-workspace but do count large numbers of professionals among the population base.

The partners are considering Wilbraham and some communities in Northern Conn., such as Suffield and Simsbury. But for now, they are focused on the new East Longmeadow facility, getting it off the ground and on a path to success.

“We’re really excited to see how it does here in East Longmeadow,” Laplante said. “And if does well, and we expect that it will, we’ll see where we can go from there.”

For this issue and its focus on commercial real estate, BusinessWest talked with Orszulak and Laplante about this latest venture in the broad and ever-changing co-work realm, and what it might lead to down the road in terms of further expansion.

 

Right Time, Right Place

As he talked about this expansion of the model forged in Longmeadow, Orszulak first addressed the larger topic — the elephant in the room, if you will — of remote work and its long-term future.

And he was direct in his opinion that there is a large degree of permanence to what is being seen in most workplaces in terms of not simply flexibility, remote work, and hybrid schedules, but also the notion that, for many professionals, there will be a need for a place that isn’t home and isn’t the office, at least in the traditional sense.

“The hybrid model is the model of the future, where there’s partial work from home, and you also work from an office space,” he explained, adding that, in his estimation, this office space will not be in an office building or office park, but a smaller space in a co-working facility that will be used a few days a week, often with the employer reimbursing for space rental.

Chris Orszulak, left, and Bill Laplante

Chris Orszulak, left, and Bill Laplante say Modern Workspace was conceived and designed to reflect changes in the workplace they believe are permanent.

“This is a permanent thing,” he went on. “We’re in the very early innings of complete generational change to the way people work; it will never revert back completely.”

It is with this mindset, as well as the high degree of success recorded at the Brewer-Young mansion, that Orszulak and his partners are moving forward with the facility in East Longmeadow, which is quickly taking shape.

As they offered a tour of the work in progress, Orszulak and Laplante pointed to rows of studs outlining future individual offices and other facilities, such as a conference room and common space, and gestured to where flat-screen TVs, standing desks, and storage would be in those offices.

“You can basically come in with your laptop and immediately work,” said Orszulak, adding that he expects some tenants will come in several days a week, others a few, and still others maybe just one.

He expects this new facility will attract roughly the same demographic as the Brewer-Young mansion, which includes several lawyers, a few financial advisers, several entrepreneurs with various types of small businesses, and other professionals. There are men, women, both younger and older professionals — “it pretty much appeals to everyone.”

Also appealing are the various levels of membership — from simply having a mailing address to a 10-day membership, to a ‘common-space membership,’ which enables members to come in as many days a week or month as they want to use a common space that includes soft chairs, high-top tables, and stand-up desks and use of the conference room; from a ‘dedicated common-space membership’ (a member has his or her own desk) to rental of an office. The rates vary accordingly, from $150 for a mailing address to $850, on average, for office rental.

The lawyers within the membership base provide an effective snapshot of the type of client the partners are attracting there, and expect to attract at the East Longmeadow facility.

“In many cases, it’s attorneys who had office space, but they didn’t require as much office space as they had rented,” Orszulak said. “Some of them might be winding down the practice, but they don’t want to stop working, so they’ve reduced the size of the practice, and this facility gives them an area they can go to, one that gives them a great deal of flexibility.”

Like the 10-day membership, which, as that name suggests, enables members to use the various facilities 10 days a month.

“There are many people who permanently work from home, but they would prefer not to have their home be the place where they meet clients,” he explained. “So they’ll just use our conference room for meetings, and we have a really simple app on your phone where you can book time and meet clients. There’s a handful of attorneys that just do that; they’ll use the conference room half a dozen times a month.”

Meanwhile, some members just want a business address, he went on, adding that there are mailboxes for these individuals, as there will be in East Longmeadow.

 

Getting Down to Business

Overall, each of the successful elements of the model created in Longmeadow and followed in Chatham — where the partners have found a strong market for co-work space among permanent residents, professionals with summer homes in that area, and even those on vacation for two weeks who need a place to take a Zoom meeting — will be used in East Longmeadow, where the setting will be decidedly different.

Indeed, while the Brewer-Young mansion is more than a century old, historic, and in most all ways energy-inefficient, the facility under construction in East Longmeadow will be anything but.

“This will be a net-zero project; we will not be purchasing any electricity or gas — there will no gas to the property,” Laplante explained, adding that the building will be ultra-modern in many other ways as well, from reliable, high-speed internet to the car-charging stations.

And while they proceed with construction of the East Longmeadow facility, the partners are already thinking about where they might go next with the concept, although they obviously want to see how this space does before expanding further.

Overall, they believe it will work in mostly residential communities with many working professionals, scenarios where people can live and work in the same town, but not necessarily in the same place.

“We don’t see someone from South Hadley jumping in the car and going to the Brewer-Young mansion for their co-working office space,” said Orszulak, adding that several members at the facility actually bike or walk to the ‘office.’

Elaborating, he said there are co-work spaces that people can get on a highway and drive to, but there is an increasing need for something right around the corner.

Given those patterns, the concept could work in other area communities in Western Mass., such as Wilbraham, as well as Connecticut, he went on.

“We think Simsbury in Connecticut is a great market,” he noted, adding that other communities in that area, such as Suffield, may be attractive landing spots as well. “The towns are very similar to Longmeadow and East Longmeadow, and we see great potential there.

“We want to be smart about where we grow; I think we’re learning more as we talk to more people, and we’re learning a lot here,” he said, adding that there are certainly challenges to expansion, including finding appropriate locations and building facilities, often from scratch. “It’s a scalable model.”

For now, though, they are laser-focused on opening the doors in East Longmeadow. They said they have already received a good amount of interest and expect there will be much more as the facility starts to take shape.

Co-working is not a new concept, per se, but it continues to evolve, and this model represents what would be considered state-of-the-art.

It represents work in progress — in every sense of that phrase.

 

 

Some Concerning Trends Continued in 2023 — but There Was Good News, Too

By
Features Special Coverage

A Year of Challenge and Progress

By Joseph Bednar and George O’Brien

Way Finder CEO Keith Fairey

Way Finder CEO Keith Fairey says the housing crisis has been years in the making and results from several factors, including a lack of investment in new housing.

One one hand, every year removed from the pandemic of 2020 is a step toward normalcy, and, for the most part, business rolled on in 2023 — but the effects of that pivotal year still linger, through persistent challenges like inflation, workforce shortages, the deepening roots of remote work, and behavioral-health crises.

But other trends have emerged as well, from a harsher landscape for cannabis businesses to actual movement on east-west rail, to positive developments in downtown Springfield.

As 2024 dawns, undoubtedly bringing a new host of challenges and opportunities, BusinessWest presents its year in review: a look back at some of the stories and issues that shaped our lives, and will, in many cases, continue to do so.

 

The Housing Crisis Deepens

One of the more poignant stories of 2023 was a deepening housing crisis that is touching virtually every community in this region, the state, and many parts of the country.

“We got here over decades of underinvesting in housing production nationally, and not tuning that production to the needs and demographic changes of communities,” Keith Fairey, president and CEO of Springfield-based Way Finders, told BusinessWest in an interview this fall, adding that a resolution to this crisis won’t come quickly or easily, either.

“One of the things we have to do is make sure Massachusetts remains a competitive state for years to come. And one of the main indicators of whether you are competitive is ‘can people afford to live in this state?”

The major challenges involve not only creating more housing, because not much was built over the past few decades, but housing that fals into the ‘affordable’ category.

Indeed, state Rep. John Velis, a member of the Senate’s Housing Committee, said there are many side effects from the housing crisis, especially when it comes to the state’s ability to retain residents. “One of the things we have to do is make sure Massachusetts remains a competitive state for years to come. And one of the main indicators of whether you are competitive is ‘can people afford to live in this state?’”

 

Inflation and Interest Rates

The Fed was on a mission in 2023 — to tame inflation but without putting the country into recession, as it famously did in the ’80s. By and large, it was mission accomplished.

Indeed, the latest data on inflation showed a 3% increase over last year in November, a significant improvement on the numbers from late last year and early this year. Meanwhile, the country seems to have avoided a recession, with the economy expanding at a seasonally adjusted, annualized rate of 5.2% in the third quarter, after generating 2.2% annualized growth in the first quarter and 2.2% in the second quarter. In short, the economy actually accelerated, rather than slowing down, due to persistently strong consumer spending.

Efforts to stem inflation by raising interest rates were not without consequences, though, as the housing market cooled tremendously, if not historically. And commercial lending cooled as well, as many business owners took a wait-and-see approach with regard to where interest rates were headed.

 

New Challenges for Cannabis

Is the ‘green rush’ over for the cannabis industry in Massachusetts? If so, the Bay State is simply following the pattern of every other state that legalizes the drug.

According to that well-told story, the first dispensaries on the scene are bouyed by a favorable supply-and-demand equation — and long lines of customers. But as the market is flooded with competitors — not only locally, but from across state lines — not everyone survives, as a series of business closings this year demonstrates. In fact, according to the Cannabis Control Commission, 16 licenses in Massachusetts have been surrendered, not been renewed, or been revoked by the agency.

The heightened competition has caused retail prices to plummet for an industry already beset by profit-margin challenges. Unfavorable federal tax laws surrounding the growth, production, and sale of cannabis, coupled with local and state tax obligations and continued federal roadblocks to financing, transport, and other aspects of business have made it increasingly difficult to turn a profit. On the latter issue, federal decriminalization would ease the challenges somewhat, but progress there has been frustratingly slow.

Steven Weiss, shareholder at Shatz, Schwartz and Fentin

Steven Weiss, shareholder at Shatz, Schwartz and Fentin, says he’s surprised lawmakers haven’t moved more quickly toward decriminalizing cannabis on the federal level.

Workforce Challenges Continue

While many businesses and institutions, including the region’s hospitals, reported some progress in 2023 when it comes to attracting and retaining talent, workforce issues persisted in many sectors, especially hospitality.

Indeed, across the region, many restaurants have been forced to reduce the number of days they are open, and some banquet facilities have been limiting capacity due to challenges with securing adequate levels of staff.

Those are some of the visible manifestations of a workforce crisis that started during the pandemic and has lingered for a variety of reasons, from the retirement of Baby Boomers to an apparent lack of willingness to accept lower-wage positions in service businesses.

The ongoing crisis has led to stiff battles for help in certain sectors, including manufacturing, the building trades, engineering, and healthcare, among others, resulting in higher wages, more benefits, and greater flexibility when it comes to where and when people work, which brings us to another of the big stories in 2023…

 

Remote Work, Hybrid Schedules Gain More Traction

While some larger employers succeeded in bringing everyone back to the office in 2023, most have decided not to even try. Indeed, there was more evidence in 2023 that remote work and hybrid schedules have become a permanent part of the workplace landscape.

In interviews with employers large and small, a persistent theme on this topic has been the need to be flexible when it comes to schedules, and especially where people work. Many businesses, from banks to architecture firms to financial-services companies, have found that employees can be effective and productive working remotely, with many favoring a hybrid schedule that brings people to the office a few days a week. Such flexibility makes employees happier, they said, making it easier to attract and retain talent.

This pattern is causing some anxiety in the commercial office market amid speculation that companies will be seeking smaller spaces moving forward, but the full impact of the shift to remote work and hybrid schedules may not be known for years.

 

Movement on East-west Rail

This story might continue to inch down the tracks, so to speak, for years before the engine really starts moving, but after many years of debate, planning, and crunching the numbers, actual progress is emerging in the effort to connect Pittsfield with Boston by rail, with stops in Springfield, Palmer, and Worcester, among others.

“We can also make progress in breaking cycles of intergenerational poverty by helping residents complete their higher-education credentials so they can attain good jobs and build a career path.”

The big news this past fall was a federal grant of $108 million to Massachusetts for rail infrastructure upgrades, and Gov. Maura Healey also signed off on $12.5 million in DOT funding in the state’s FY 2024 budget toward the effort.

The additional east-west service would complement passenger trains now running north-south through Springfield’s Union Station, offering access to points from Greenfield to New Haven.

“The facts are simple: improving and expanding passenger rail service will have a tremendous impact on regional economies throughout Massachusetts,” U.S. Rep. Richard Neal said. “That is why we will continue to invest in a project whose framework has the potential to serve as a model for expanding passenger rail service across the country.”

 

Free Community College

Almost 2 million Massachusetts residents are over age 25 without a college degree. MassReconnect aims to change that, by offering free tuition and fees — as well as an allowance for books and supplies — at any of Massachusetts’ community colleges for residents over age 25.

Gov. Maura Healey pitched it as a strategy to generate more young, skilled talent in the workplace at a time when businesses are struggling to recruit and retain employees (more on that later). “We can also make progress in breaking cycles of intergenerational poverty by helping residents complete their higher-education credentials so they can attain good jobs and build a career path,” she added.

New HCC President George Timmons

New HCC President George Timmons says “community colleges are, to me, a great pathway to a better life.”

Holyoke Community College President George Timmons called the initiative “an exciting moment for HCC and all Massachusetts community colleges,” adding that “MassReconnect will enable our community colleges to do more of what we do best, which is serve students from all ages and all backgrounds and provide them with an exceptional education that leads to employment and, ultimately, a stronger economy and thriving region.”

 

New Higher-education Leadership

Speaking of Timmons, he was among the new presidents at the region’s colleges and universities, taking the the reins from Christina Royal, who had been at HCC since January 2017. Timmons was previously provost and senior vice president of Academic and Student Affairs at Columbia Greene Community College in Hudson, N.Y.

Meanwhile, Danielle Ren Holley, a noted legal educator and social-justice scholar, became the first Black woman in the 186-year history of Mount Holyoke College to serve as permanent president. Since 2014, Holley had served as dean and professor of Law at Howard University School of Law.

And at UMass Amherst, Chancellor Kumble Subbaswamy stepped down after 11 years leading the university, to be succeeded by Javier Reyes, who had been serving as interim chancellor at the University of Illinois Chicago.

“You’re not coming in to repair something, but to build on the shoulders of giants — and that is a very attractive opportunity,” Reyes said. “You’re not trying to catch up; you’re really trying to move and set the direction and be a forward leader. It comes with more pressure, but it’s more exciting.”

 

Thunderous Impact for the T-Birds

The Springfield Thunderbirds released the results of an economic-impact study conducted by the UMass Donahue Institute that shows the team’s operations have generated $126 million for the local economy since 2017.

The study included an analysis of team operations data, MassMutual Center concessions figures, a survey of more than 2,000 T-Birds patrons, and interviews with local business owners and other local stakeholders. Among its findings, the study shows that the T-Birds created $76 million in cumulative personal income throughout the region and contributed $10 million to state and local taxes.

The impact on downtown Springfield businesses is especially profound. Seventy-eight percent of T-Birds fans spend money on something other than hockey when they go to a game, including 68% who are patronizing a bar, restaurant, or MGM Springfield. The study also found that median spending by fans outside the arena is $40 per person on game nights and that every dollar of T-Birds’ revenue is estimated to yield $4.09 of additional economic activity in the Pioneer Valley. Meanwhile, since the team’s inaugural season, it has doubled the number of jobs created from 112 in 2017 to 236 in 2023.

 

Big Y Opens Downtown

In fact, despite the speed bump posed by the pandemic, downtown Springfield seems to have some momentum again. One of the more intriguing stories of 2023 was the opening during the summer of a scaled-down Big Y supermarket on the ground floor of Tower Square.

The new Big Y Express

The new Big Y Express represents an imaginative use of ARPA funds, addresses a food desert, and contributes to momentum in downtown Springfield.

The development was noteworthy for several reasons. First, it continued the reimagination of Tower Square, which now boasts the Greater Springfield YMCA, White Lion Brewing, two colleges, and other institutions. It also brings a supermarket to what had been a food desert. And it represents an imaginative, community-building use of ARPA funds.

The store opened its doors in June to considerable fanfare, and early results have been solid, with the store becoming a welcome addition to the downtown landscape. Combined with the Thunderbirds’ success, some of MGM Springfield’s strongest revenue months, and the ongoing residential development at the former Court Square Hotel, there’s a lot to be excited about.

 

New Home Sought for ‘Sick Courthouse’

Not all downtown news emerged from a positive place. Another developing story in 2023 was the ongoing work to secure a replacement for the Roderick Ireland Courthouse on State Street in Springfield, whose dilapidated conditions have been under scrutiny for years and have earned it the nickname the ‘sick courthouse,’ because many who have worked there have contracted various illnesses.

Gov. Maura Healey has called for investing $106 million over a five-year period to construct a new justice center in Springfield, and in November, the Healey administration issued an official request for proposals involving a least two developable acres on which to build a new courthouse. Proposals are due Jan. 31.

While redevelopment of the current site remains an option, Springfield officials are intrigued by the possibility of building not only a new courthouse, but also redeveloping the current site, which is right off I-91 in the heart of downtown.

 

Weather Challenges for Farmers

It’s called the Natural Disaster Recovery Program for Agriculture, and it exists because Mother Nature hit Massachusetts — in particular, its farmers — hard in 2023.

The state program provides financial assistance to farmers who suffered crop losses as a result of any of three natural disasters: the Feb. 3-5 deep freeze that impacted a large amount of peach and stone-fruit production, the May 17-18 frost that impacted a large amount of apple production and vineyards, and the July 9-16 rainfall and flooding that impacted a large amount of vegetable crops, field crops, and hay and forage crops.

But the government wasn’t alone in the effort to help farmers sustain this triple body blow. Area banks and other oranizations created funds, as did philanthropist Harold Grinspoon — a long-time and notable advocate for farmers through his foundation’s Local Farmer Awards — swiftly pledged $50,000 toward flood-relief efforts following the July rains, distributing checks to 50 farmers impacted by the floods.

 

Behavioral Health at the Forefront

In August, Baystate Health and Lifepoint Health celebrated the opening of Valley Springs Behavioral Health Hospital, a 122,000-square-foot, four-story facility in Holyoke featuring 150 private and semi-private rooms for inpatient behavioral healthcare for adults and adolescents.

It’s yet another development — the opening of MiraVista Behavioral Health Center in Holyoke in 2021 was another one — that aims to fill an access gap in behavioral health, at a time when the mental-health and addiction needs remain high. The pandemic caused a spike in both, the effects of which are still being felt today.

Dr. Mark Keroack, president and CEO of Baystate Health, said Valley Springs increases the inpatient behavioral-health capacity in the region by 50%. “Until now, about 30% of behavioral-health patients needing care would have to go outside the region. Valley Springs Behavioral Health Hospital will allow us to provide top-quality care for more patients right here in Western Massachusetts.”

 

Holyoke Celebrates Its 150th

One of the more fun stories of 2023 was Holyoke’s year-long 150th-anniversary celebration. BusinessWest printed a special edition in March to coincide with the St. Patrick’s Day parade, which included stories and photos that celebrated the past and present, while speculating on the future. The many interviews captured the unique essence and character of Holyoke, a close-knit community with a proud history and many traditions.

“There’s been a lot of change over the years, but what hasn’t changed is the spirit of the people,” Jim Sullivan, president of the O’Connell Companies and a Holyoke native, said. “There is a very proud heritage in Holyoke, and it still exists today.”

Said Gary Rome, another native of the Paper City and owner of Gary Rome Auto Group, “there’s a saying … as Holyokers, we can talk bad about Holyoke, but you can’t talk bad about Holyoke.”

Pickup Sales Are, Well, Picking Up Across the Board

By
Ben Sullivan, seen here beside the Chevy Silverado ZR2
Autos Special Coverage

Keep on Truckin’

Ben Sullivan, seen here beside the Chevy Silverado ZR2

Ben Sullivan, seen here beside the Chevy Silverado ZR2 he’s now driving, says demand for trucks is up across the board, especially in the compact category.

Before relocating to the 413 and a job with Balise Motor Sales, Ben Sullivan lived in Texas for 15 years.

In the Lone Star State, he said, one of every four vehicles sold is a half-ton pickup or larger. There, parking lots and parking garages are designed specifically to accommodate large pickups, with wide-open spaces and yellow lines that are farther apart. Pickups, he said, are part of the culture.

“Here, people drive diesel, heavy-duty trucks because they’re pulling a landscape trailer behind them or they’re going to a construction site,” said Sullivan, chief operating officer at Balise. “In Texas, people drive them because they want to look cool.”

Western Mass., and much of the rest of the country, is a long way from Texas — at least when it comes to pickups — but there is considerable movement in that direction, he said, adding that pickups are becoming increasingly popular with just about all age groups, and especially young people.

And part of the reason why is the wide range of options now on the market — from large trucks to the mid-range, half-ton offerings, to a growing number of smaller, modestly priced trucks that are especially popular with active, outdoor-loving young people.

These include Ford’s Maverick, which came out in 2022. This is a compact truck that seats five, boasts hybrid power, and has an XL trim with a base sticker price of $23,400, but also offers a Lariat model with leather seats.

“When you look at the truck market, there’s work trucks, there’s people who need them for towing boats, you have people who use them for leisure activities, and then, you have people who drive them for lifestyle — ‘I like the look of a truck.’”

That makes this an attractive option for people who don’t necessarily want to tow a boat or trailer and don’t work in construction, but do want everything else a pickup can provide, said Mike Marcotte, president of Holyoke-based Marcotte Ford.

“It’s been doing really well since it came out,” he said, adding that it’s become a solid option for many constituencies. “It’s popular with people right out of college, but also with contractors who want a vehicle they can go out and quote with, or people who may not need the size of F-150; it has the capability for multiple purposes.”

Marcotte said he’s selling a lot of Mavericks, but also a number of Rangers (another smaller truck) and F-150s, the ever-popular half-ton truck; the larger 250s and 350s; and even the Lightning, the all-electric version of the F-150, as well. With inventories improving, sales have been strong across the board.

Sullivan, whose company, Balise, sells several different nameplates, concurred, noting that there are a number of increasingly popular truck models on the market, with standard bearers Ford, Chevy, and Ram leading the way, but many others also doing well in this space, including Hyundai, Toyota, and Honda, especially with the smaller models.

Many of these ‘compact’ offerings now come with the descriptive phrase ‘adventure truck’ attached to them, said Sullivan, adding that, when these vehicles are on area lots, they’re usually not there for long.

In many ways, the current scene is reminiscent of the early and mid-’80s, when the market was flooded with smaller truck models.

“There were little trucks everywhere,” he said of those days. “Cheap little trucks, get-around trucks were very, very popular back then, and we’re seeing a return to those times; these smaller trucks are getting a lot of interest from young people.”

Mike Marcotte says Ford’s Maverick, a smaller truck

Mike Marcotte says Ford’s Maverick, a smaller truck, has been a hot seller, but there is demand for trucks in every category.

There are some differences between now and then, though, especially when it comes to accessibility. Indeed, while some makes and models are readily available — Marcotte said he has more than 150 trucks on his lot — others are not.

Indeed, Rob Pion, president of Bob Pion Buick GMAC, said he’s on his fourth year of struggles with truck inventory, especially the larger models needed by contractors and snow plowers, and especially toward year-end, when their accountants are urging them to make such purchases to take advantage of tax incentives, rather than in the new year.

“I have inventory, but not the right inventory,” he said, noting that he has several half-ton models, such as the Sierra 1500, on the lot. These are not what most of his contractor and snow-plowing customers are looking for. Meanwhile, what he does have is generally vanilla when most of his customers want something specific.

He said the market for the 1500 is somewhat soft at the moment, with those vehicles being “more of a want than a need.” Meanwhile, GM continues to struggle to supply him with the trucks for which there is a need, such as the larger 2500s and 3500s.

For this issue and its focus on auto sales, BusinessWest takes an in-depth look at the burgeoning truck market and what will happen down the road, as they say.

 

Bedding Down

Sullivan isn’t a dealer, per se, but like most executives in the auto-sales business, he takes full advantage of an industry perk — driving some of the latest models with dealer plates attached.

He has a hard and fast rule that he follows, though: “I drive what doesn’t sell,” he said, noting that he’s not going to hamstring any of the GMs at Balise by driving a vehicle that is in demand and could be easily sold.

So right now, he’s driving a white Chevy Silverado ZR2, which is, as they say in this business, fully loaded.

“It has the 6.2-liter engine, the big tires, the big wheels — it gets up and goes,” he said, adding that the price tag is roughly $80,000, which, in these days of higher interest rates and less-readily-available incentives, helps explain why it had been in inventory for more than six months at Balise’s Chevy story in Rhode Island and became a prime candidate for his next ride.

But while this particular Silverado wasn’t moving off the lot, trucks in many different categories (especially the smaller trucks) and across most makes and models are.

That’s because the manufacturers are making models that are, in some cases, affordable, versatile, comfortable, and fun to drive.

Rob Pion

Rob Pion says demand for trucks is growing, but there are still issues with availability.

All those adjectives apply to several Ford models, said Marcotte, adding that he’s enjoying robust sales of the Maverick, the Ranger, the F-150, and most other truck lines put out by Ford, which has been the top seller of trucks for 46 years running, he said — and, with just a few days left in 2023, appears to be headed for a 47th.

Sullivan agreed, noting that, while soaring interest rates and higher price tags — several higher-end models now go for $100,000 or more — have slowed some segments of the market, pickup sales are still strong across the board.

“When you look at the truck market, there’s work trucks, there’s people who need them for towing boats, you have people who use them for leisure activities, and then, you have people who drive them for lifestyle — ‘I like the look of a truck,’” he said, adding that all these elements are fueling sales.

Marcotte agreed. “Trucks are more versatile now — you can use them for multi-purposes,” he said. “You can use them for casual driving or also for work; the F-150 drives like a car these days.”

Meanwhile, many of the incentives that made trucks a ‘value play,’ as he called it, such as low lease rates, attractive financing offers, and more, are coming back — slowly — and availability is improving as well.

Perhaps the biggest growth in this segment is in the mid-size and smaller categories, he went on, adding that these are for people who don’t necessarily use a truck for work or towing, but for adventures and “utilitarian use.”

“They don’t need the big platform and the big motors,” he said, adding that there are many models now in the mid-size category — the Tacoma, Chevy’s Colorado, GMC’s Canyon, Nissan’s Frontier, Ford’s Ranger, and others.

And there is perhaps even more growth in what he called the “compact truck” segment — trucks built essentially on a car platform — with models like the Maverick, the Hyundai Santa Cruz, the Honda Ridgeline, and others, said both Sullivan and Marcotte.

“Those Mavericks sell the day that they land. It’s a small truck, it’s got a hybrid powertrain in it, it can carry stuff in the back, but it’s less expensive, it gets better gas mileage, and it rides better,” Sullivan noted, adding that the same things can be said of other trucks in this category; indeed, there is a lengthy waiting list for Santa Cruzes at Balise’s Hyundai store. “These trucks are a good value play, they’re not overly expensive, they’re good-looking … and there are a lot of young people who like all that they have to offer.”

And given the popularity of this segment, there will certainly be more of them in the future, said Sullivan, adding that Toyota is expected to come out with a smaller truck soon, and other makers will likely follow.

Meanwhile, with the larger trucks, there are still some lingering supply issues, said those we spoke with, citing everything from supply-chain issues — yes, still — to the recent UAW strikes.

For Pion, inventory has been a long-standing problem. He told BusinessWest that, if a customer isn’t too specific with their needs, he can probably find them something on the lot or order it, but the narrower the request, the more difficult it gets.

“If someone’s willing to work with you and just wants a 1500 pickup, you can probably find something,” he said. “But if they want something specific, like a Sierra Denali with a specific motor and a specific package, that can be very difficult to get, still.”

This environment has created great demand — and higher prices — for used trucks, he said, adding that “the value on a used one is almost as much as brand-new one because you can’t find a new one.”

With Ford, availability has greatly improved over the past year or so, said Marcotte, noting that they are, by and large, back to pre-pandemic levels. The recent UAW strikes certainly threw a scare into all dealers, he added, but production seems to already be back to what would be considered normal, meaning there are trucks being delivered regularly.

 

Towing the Line

Referencing the long-standing ‘truck war’ between Ford and Chevy — with Ram a close third — Sullivan said those hostilities took on much quieter tones during the pandemic and its aftermath as availability became a lingering issue.

“During COVID, there was no reason for a pickup-truck war; every truck that they could make — and they could only make some percentage of what they used to make — was sold before it hit the lot,” he said, adding that, as availability improves and the portfolio of in-demand models increases, the truck wars will heat up again.

And that’s only one aspect of a developing story in the truck market, one with some ongoing shifts and movement to a higher gear when it comes to overall interest and the laws of supply and demand.

Western Mass. probably won’t ever be like Texas when it comes to pickups, but there is movement in that direction.

 

How Umbrella Insurance Protects Against Catastrophic Loss

By
Insurance Special Coverage

Shelter from the Storm

Beth Pearson (left, with Alex Bennett) says a dog bite (not from this good boy, of course) could leave a homeowner without proper coverage in a bad spot for a long time.

Beth Pearson loves dogs as much as anyone else.

Working in the insurance world, she also knows people can be careless.

“If you have a dog, and that dog bites a dog walker or bites a child, if you’re sued, that’s a catastrophic impact that can affect your life for a very, very long time,” she said. “Or let’s say a teenage driver gets behind the wheel while impaired, and an accident ensues.”

In situations like this, she added, “I always say one thing: ‘I hope you have an umbrella policy.’ It’s that important.”

An umbrella policy, as its name suggests, essentially sits atop existing auto, home, or commercial insurance policies to deliver an additional layer of protection, especially against catastrophic liability loss, noted Pearson, president of Pearson Wallace Insurance in Amherst and Pittsfield.

Alex Bennett, vice president of Business Development at Pearson Wallace, suggested another example: an inground swimming pool.

“The neighbor’s child comes over, hops the fence, jumps in the pool, and even though he’s not permitted to get on your property, the owner can still be essentially responsible for the death — or responsible for someone who’s badly injured from a diving board, a slide, or any sort of pool-related incident on your premises.”

In short, personal liability coverage of $500,000 or $1 million is simply not enough when real tragedy — accompanied by soaring liability — strikes, said Nathan Lee, a Commercial Lines producer at Rush Insurance Group in Chicopee.

“We live in a litigious environment these days,” he noted. “One million does not go nearly as far as it did five or 10 years ago. It’s not a lot of money these days.”

Bennett said agents on his team look at the property and unique situations of each client and make recommendations based on their general net worth and the specific exposures they might have.

“You have to consider the potential impact of what could happen in a life-changing event, in a lawsuit, when you find yourself in a hole for something that insurance could have protected against.”

“Things can happen to anyone. If someone broke into your house and fell down the stairs, they can sue you,” he said, citing what most people would consider a particularly unfair example of liability. “You have to consider the potential impact of what could happen in a life-changing event, in a lawsuit, when you find yourself in a hole for something that insurance could have protected against.”

Perhaps the most compelling aspect of an umbrella policy is its cost — maybe $300 to $400 per year for $1 million in coverage, with additional layers of coverage available beyond that, typically in increments of $1 million.

“In its most basic form, an umbrella policy is an additional layer of liability insurance,” Lee said. “It’s additional layers above and beyond the primary, underlying policy, and its intent is to protect against catastrophic losses that exhaust that primary policy’s limits.

“If I have, say, $1 million in underlying protection, general liability, and I have an accidental death in an auto claim that comes to be a judgment of $3 million, that would exhaust the primary underlying policy, and I would look for that $2 million above and beyond that. The umbrella policy is really just an additional layer of liability.”

 

Know the Difference

On the commercial side, Lee said, there’s a difference between an umbrella policy and what’s known as an excess insurance policy. Essentially, excess policies provide coverage only when the underlying policy responds to a particular situation, like major injuries or death. Umbrella insurance, on the other hand, does expand terms and provides broader coverage for losses not outlined in the underlying policy. It also covers legal defense costs.

Nathan Lee

Nathan Lee says he recommends umbrella insurance to “absolutely everyone.”

“An umbrella policy is much broader, more comprehensive, and frankly, we don’t see it a lot in the commercial space,” he explained. “Excess liability policies are more common in the high-hazard businesses, like fuel dealers and aircraft machine shops.”

But it’s the unexpected nature of life that should cause all business owners to consider umbrella insurance, Pearson said.

“We know that the cost of insurance is expensive and continues to rise every year. But not having the umbrella is one of the major liabilities of running a business,” she added. “A commercial umbrella gives you excess coverage over the general liability limits, the auto limits, as well as workers’ compensation. If someone is gravely injured by a machine and the underlying workers’ comp is a million dollars, but this person is dismembered for life, it’s important for the umbrella to be in place to reach down and provide an additional million to the liability.”

Lee stressed that he recommends such a policy to “absolutely everyone.”

“It’s really the broker’s job to examine the historical claims of the individual, see where the trends are, and build a program that’s priced conscientiously to the customer around how much excess umbrella they can afford and what they need,” he told BusinessWest. “We make recommendations to the customer — they make their own decisions, but it’s up to us to recommend the overall program.”

Clients can also purchase multiple layers of umbrella insurance, each carrying a less costly premium than the one below it. The key is to make sure the underlying policy limit is high enough to trigger the umbrella with no gap in coverage.

“If the umbrella policy says they need an underlying limit of $1 million and you only have a half-million dollars, it may not respond because of that half-million gap,” Lee said. “In some instances, you can pay that half-million gap personally, but those are very critical components when building a program.”

On the personal-lines side, an umbrella policy sits on top of primary home insurance, primary auto insurance, or other underlying policies, Pearson noted.

“It doesn’t matter whether it’s a small businesses with few employees or an employer with 100 people. Businesses are not exempt from accidents. This can provide coverage against losing everything.”

“Say, for example, you have a car accident and someone is seriously injured in your vehicle and loses a limb or some other body part, and you’re brought into a lawsuit for medical expenses well as any liability issues. If another person is injured and can’t go back to work or has a long-term disability, your auto insurance becomes exhausted in situations like that. The umbrella comes down and covers costs above and beyond those limits, and defense costs as well.”

She agreed with Lee that $500,000 or even $1 million in primary coverage can disappear quickly in a catastrophic event. “When those become exhausted and completely paid out, the umbrella gives additional coverage if they need it.”

Most people, Bennett added, “can’t afford not to have one. It starts at $1 million, but it can go as high as $25 million or $50 million.”

Those numbers may seem exorbitant, he added, but clients should consider what they’re putting at risk without one, especially considering the reasonable cost of premiums.

“With the nature of our world and our country, you can’t have enough of it these days. I think of umbrella insurance as peace of mind and asset protection,” he said. “We look at the account holistically. We want to understand what the net worth is, and we want the umbrella to be equal to, or more than, the family’s net worth.

“God forbid something happens,” Bennett went on. “The question we never want to hear is, ‘why didn’t I have an umbrella policy, if there was a policy that could have covered me?’ In a death or a large lawsuit, all kinds of different things can come into play in a situation. You’ll sleep better at night knowing that you have protection.”

 

Critical Questions

In Massachusetts, most umbrella policies provide coverage for the policyholder and their immediate family members living in the same household, with some exceptions.

Meanwhile, on the commercial side, the nature of the business would impact the risk exposure and, hence, the level of coverage needed. While a $1 million umbrella might be fine for a storefront florist or clothing store, a business owner with a fleet of heavy trucks would likely need more.

In addition, the level of coverage should reflect not only one’s net worth, but future earning potential as well. A doctor who just graduated from medical school and plans a career in brain surgery might have little more than debt to show right now, but a lawsuit could put significant future earnings at risk.

The keys are to “make sure you have minimum underlying limits, and make sure that the excess umbrella policy responds. Those are critical,” Lee said. “And you really need to pay attention to whether it’s an umbrella policy or excess.”

Pearson said business owners of all kinds need to consider their exposure. While a new business might be trying to keep initial costs down, liability can rear its head at any time, and for often-unexpected reasons.

“It doesn’t matter whether it’s a small businesses with few employees or an employer with 100 people. Businesses are not exempt from accidents. This can provide coverage against losing everything,” she said.

“I’ve seen businesses have catastrophic events and not have an umbrella, and it’s a very tough situation to dig out of. This saves money because, even though you’re spending a little extra, you’re protected from the storms that may occur.”

Despite No Changes in Tax Law, It’s Still a Good Time to Craft a Strategy

By Contributor
Accounting and Tax Planning Special Coverage Wealth Management

Planning Is Key

By Kristina D. Houghton, CPA

 

Surprisingly, 2023 was a year with no tax-law changes. Congressional members of both parties introduced major tax policy legislation, but so far, most of those bills were partisan. For Congress to pass tax legislation, it will need to be the product of bipartisan compromise. Any tax-policy legislation should also adhere to core values of fostering domestic economic growth, providing support for workers and their families, and prioritizing fiscal responsibility.

Despite the lack of legislation, year-end is still the optimal time for tax planning. But you must be careful to avoid potential pitfalls along the way.

We have prepared the following 2023 year-end tax article divided into three sections:

• Individual Tax Planning;

• Business Tax Planning; and

• Financial Tax Planning.

Be aware that the concepts discussed in this article are intended to provide only a general overview of year-end tax planning. It is recommended that you review your personal situation with a tax professional.

“If you come out ahead by itemizing, you may want to accelerate certain deductible expenses into 2023.”

INDIVIDUAL TAX PLANNING

Itemized Deductions

When you file your personal 2023 tax return, you must choose between the standard deduction and itemized deductions. The standard deduction for 2023 is $13,850 for single filers and $27,700 for joint filers. (An additional $1,850 standard deduction is allowed for a taxpayer age 65 or older.)

YEAR-END MOVE: If you come out ahead by itemizing, you may want to accelerate certain deductible expenses into 2023. For example, consider the following possibilities:

• Donate cash or property to a qualified charitable organization.

• Pay deductible mortgage interest if it otherwise makes sense for your situation. Currently, this includes interest on acquisition debt of up to $750,000 for your principal residence and one other home, combined.

• Make state and local tax (SALT) payments up to the annual SALT deduction limit of $10,000.

 

Charitable Donations

The tax law allows you to deduct charitable donations within generous limits if you meet certain record-keeping requirements.

YEAR-END MOVE: Step up charitable gift giving before Jan. 1. As long as you make a donation in 2023, it is deductible in 2023, even if you charge it in 2023 and pay it in 2024.

• If you make monetary contributions, your deduction is limited to 60% of your adjusted gross income (AGI). Any excess above the 60%-of-AGI limit may be carried over for up to five years.

• If you donate appreciated property held longer than one year (i.e., it would qualify for long-term capital-gain treatment if sold), you can generally deduct an amount equal to the property’s fair market value (FMV) on the donation date, up to 30% of your AGI. But the deduction for short-term capital-gain property is limited to your initial cost.

 

Higher-education Credits

The tax law provides tax breaks to parents of children in college, subject to certain limits. This often includes a choice between one of two higher-education credits.

YEAR-END MOVE: When appropriate, pay qualified expenses for next semester by the end of this year. Generally, the costs will be eligible for a credit in 2023, even if the semester does not begin until 2024.

Typically, you can claim either the American Opportunity Tax Credit (AOTC) or the Lifetime Learning Credit (LLC), but not both. The maximum AOTC of $2,500 is available for qualified expenses for four years of study for each student, while the maximum $2,000 LLC is claimed on a per-family basis for all years of study. Thus, the AOTC is usually preferable to the LLC.

Both credits are phased out based on your modified adjusted gross income (MAGI). The phase-out for each credit occurs between $80,000 and $90,000 of MAGI for single filers and between $160,000 and $180,000 of MAGI for joint filers.

TIP: The list of qualified expenses includes tuition, books, fees, equipment, computers, etc., but not room and board.

 

Miscellaneous

• Install energy-saving devices at home that result in either of two residential credits. For example, you may be able to claim a credit for installing solar panels. Generally, each credit equals 30% of the cost of qualified expenses, subject to certain limits.

• Avoid an estimated tax penalty by qualifying for a safe-harbor exception. Generally, a penalty will not be imposed if you pay 90% of your current year’s tax liability or 100% of your prior year’s tax liability (110% if your AGI exceeded $150,000).

• Empty out flexible spending accounts for healthcare or dependent-care expenses if you will forfeit unused funds under the ‘use it or lose it’ rule. However, your employer’s plan may provide a carry-over to 2024 of up to $610 of unused funds or a two-and-a-half-month grace period.

 

BUSINESS TAX PLANNING

Depreciation-based Deductions

As the year draws to a close, a business may benefit from one or more of three depreciation-based tax breaks: the Section 179 deduction, first-year ‘bonus’ depreciation, and regular depreciation.

YEAR-END MOVE: Place qualified property in service before the end of the year. If your business does not start using the property before 2024, it is not eligible for these tax breaks.

Section 179 deduction: Under Section 179 of the tax code, a business may currently deduct the cost of qualified property placed in service during the year. The maximum annual deduction for 2023 is $1.16 million, provided your total purchases of property do not exceed $2.89 million.

Be aware that the Section 179 deduction cannot exceed the taxable income from all your business activities this year. This rule could limit your deduction for 2023.

First-year bonus depreciation: The first-year bonus depreciation applicable percentage for 2023 is 80% and is scheduled to drop to 60% in 2024.

 

Qualified Retirement Plans

The new SECURE 2.0 law includes a number of provisions affecting employers with qualified retirement plans.

YEAR-END MOVE: Position your business to maximize available tax benefits and avoid potential problems. Consider the following key changes of particular interest:

• For 401(k) plans adopted after 2024, an employer must provide automatic enrollment to employees. Certain small companies and startups are exempt.

• Beginning in 2023, employers with 50 or fewer employees can qualify for a credit equal to 100% of their contributions to a new retirement plan, up to $1,000 per employee, phased out over five years. The 100% credit is reduced for a business with 51 to 100 employees. This tax break is in addition to an enhanced credit for plan startup costs.

• Beginning in 2024, employers may automatically provide employees with emergency access to accounts of up to 3% of their salary, capped at $2,500.

• Beginning in 2024, an employer may elect to make matching contributions to an employee’s retirement-plan account based on student-loan obligations.

• The new law shortens the eligibility requirement for part-time workers from three years to two years, beginning in 2023, among other modifications.

• Any catch-up contributions to 401(k) plans must be made to Roth-type accounts for employees earning more than $145,000 a year (indexed for inflation).

TIP: This last provision was initially scheduled to take effect in 2024, but a new IRS ruling just delayed it for two years to 2026.

 

Employee Bonuses

Generally, employee bonuses are deductible in the year that they are paid. For instance, you must dole out bonuses before Jan. 1, 2024 to deduct those bonuses on your company’s 2023 return. However, there’s a special rule for accrual-basis companies. In this case, the bonuses are currently deductible if they are paid within two and a half months of the close of the tax year.

YEAR-END MOVE: If your company qualifies, determine bonus amounts before year-end. As a result, the bonuses can be deducted on the company’s 2023 return as long as they are paid by March 15, 2024. Keep detailed corporate minutes to support the deductions.

This special deduction rule does not apply to bonuses paid to majority shareholders of a C-corporation or certain owners of an S-corporation or a personal-service corporation.

TIP: Note that the bonuses are taxable to employees in the year in which they receive them — 2024. Thus, the employees benefit from tax deferral for a year even if the company claims a current deduction.

 

Miscellaneous

• Stock the shelves with routine supplies (especially if they are in high demand). If you buy the supplies in 2023, they are deductible this year even if they are not used until 2024.

• Maximize the qualified business interest deduction for pass-through entities and self-employed individuals. Note that special rules apply if you are in a ‘specified service trade or business.’ See your professional tax advisor for more details.

• If you buy a heavy-duty SUV or van for business, you may claim a first-year Section 179 deduction of up to $28,900. The luxury-car limits do not apply to certain heavy-duty vehicles.

 

FINANCIAL TAX PLANNING

Securities Sales

Traditionally, investors time sales of assets like securities at year-end to maximize tax advantages. For starters, capital gains and losses offset each other. If you show an excess loss for the year, you can then offset up to $3,000 of ordinary income before any remainder is carried over to the next year. Long-term capital gains from sales of securities owned longer than one year are taxed at a maximum rate of 15%, or 20% for high-income investors. Conversely, short-term capital gains are taxed at ordinary income rates reaching as high as 37% in 2023.

YEAR-END MOVE: Review your portfolio. Depending on your situation, you may want to harvest capital losses to offset gains, especially high-taxed short-term gains, or realize capital gains that will be partially or wholly absorbed by losses.

Be aware of even more favorable tax treatment for certain long-term capital gains. Notably, a 0% rate applies to taxpayers below certain income levels, such as young children. Furthermore, some taxpayers who ultimately pay ordinary income tax at higher rates due to their investments may qualify for the 0% tax rate on a portion of their long-term capital gains.

However, watch out for the ‘wash sale rule.’ If you sell securities at a loss and reacquire substantially identical securities within 30 days of the sale, the tax loss is disallowed. A simple way to avoid this adverse result is to wait at least 31 days to reacquire substantially identical securities.

Note that a disallowed loss increases your basis for the securities you acquire and could reduce taxable gain on a future sale.

 

Net Investment Income Tax

When you review your portfolio, do not forget to account for the 3.8% net investment income tax, which applies to the lesser of net investment income (NII) or the amount by which MAGI for the year exceeds $200,000 for single filers or $250,000 for joint filers. (These thresholds are not indexed for inflation.)

The definition of NII includes interest, dividends, capital gains, and income from passive activities, but not Social Security benefits, tax-exempt interest, and distributions from qualified retirement plans and IRAs.

You may consider investing in municipal bonds (‘munis’). The interest income generated by munis does not count as NII, nor is it included in the MAGI calculation. Similarly, if you turn a passive activity into an active business, the resulting income may be exempt from the NII tax.

TIP: When you add the NII tax to your regular tax, you could be paying an effective 40.8% tax rate at the federal level alone. Factor this into your investment decisions.

 

Required Minimum Distributions

For starters, you must begin ‘required minimum distributions’ (RMDs) from qualified retirement plans and IRAs after reaching a specified age. After the SECURE Act raised the age threshold from 70½ to 72, SECURE 2.0 bumped it up again to 73 beginning in 2023 (scheduled to increase to 75 in 2033). The amount of the RMD is based on IRS life-expectancy tables and your account balance at the end of last year.

YEAR-END MOVE: Assess your obligations. If you can postpone RMDs still longer, you can continue to benefit from tax-deferred growth. Otherwise, make arrangements to receive RMDs before Jan. 1, 2024 to avoid any penalties.

Conversely, if you are still working and do not own 5% or more of a business with a qualified plan, you can postpone RMDs from that plan until your retirement. This ‘still-working exception’ does not apply to RMDs from IRAs or qualified plans of other employers.

Previously, the penalty for failing to take timely RMDs was equal to 50% of the shortfall. SECURE 2.0 reduces it to 25% beginning in 2023 (10% if corrected in a timely fashion).

TIP: Under the initial SECURE Act, you are generally required to take RMDs from recently inherited accounts over a 10-year period (although previous inheritances are exempted). These rules are complex, so consult with your tax advisor regarding your situation.

 

Estate and Gift Taxes

During the last decade, the unified estate- and gift-tax exclusion has gradually increased, while the top estate rate has not budged. For example, the exclusion for 2023 is $12.92 million, the highest it has ever been. (It is scheduled to revert to $5 million, plus inflation indexing, after 2025.)

YEAR-END MOVE: Reflect this generous tax-law provision in your overall estate plan. For instance, your plan may involve various techniques, including bypass trusts, that maximize the benefits of the estate- and gift-tax exemption.

In addition, you can give gifts to family members that qualify for the annual gift-tax exclusion. For 2023, there is no gift-tax liability on gifts of up to $17,000 per recipient (up from $16,000 in 2022). You do not even have to file a gift-tax return. Moreover, the limit is doubled to $34,000 for joint gifts by a married couple, but a gift-tax return is required in that case.

TIP: You may ‘double up’ again by giving gifts in both December and January that qualify for the annual gift-tax exclusion for 2023 and 2024, respectively.

 

Miscellaneous

• Contribute up to $22,500 to a 401(k) in 2023 ($30,000 if you are age 50 or older). If you clear the 2023 Social Security wage base of $160,200 and promptly allocate the payroll tax savings to a 401(k), you can increase your deferral without any further reduction in your take-home pay. Note that SECURE 2.0 further enhances catch-up contributions for older employees after 2023.

• If you rent out your vacation home, keep your personal use within the tax-law boundaries. No loss is allowed if personal use exceeds the greater of 14 days or 10% of the rental period.

• Consider a qualified charitable distribution (QCD). If you are age 70½ or older, you can transfer up to $100,000 of IRA funds directly to charity, free of tax (but not deductible). SECURE 2.0 authorizes a one-time transfer of up to $50,000 to a charitable remainder trust or charitable gift annuity as part of a QCD.

 

CONCLUSION

This year-end tax-planning article is based on the prevailing federal tax laws, rules, and regulations. Of course, it is subject to change, especially if additional tax legislation is enacted by Congress before the end of the year.

Finally, remember that this article is intended to serve only as a general guideline. Your personal circumstances will likely require careful examination.

 

Kristina D. Houghton, CPA is a partner at the Holyoke-based accounting firm Meyers Brothers Kalicka, P.C.

 

Longmeadow Continues to Draw New Business

By
An architect’s rendering of the planned Towne Shoppes of Longmeadow.
Community Spotlight

Community Spotlight

An architect’s rendering of the planned Towne Shoppes of Longmeadow.

An architect’s rendering of the planned Towne Shoppes of Longmeadow.

There were more than 800 people at Longmeadow’s recent special town meeting in the high-school gym.

They were there to consider 30 warrant items, most of them of the smaller, housecleaning variety, but most residents were focused on one matter — a proposed zone change (from residence A-1 to business) for the former First Church of Christ, Scientist on Williams Street, just east of the Longmeadow Shops.

The church property, which has been unused for several years now, was acquired by the Springfield-based Colvest Group, a developer of a number of retail facilities across the 413, and its future use has been the subject of considerable speculation and anticipation in this town of roughly 10,000.

And also one failed vote to change the zoning, said Town Manager Lyn Simmons.

This time, the request passed, easily garnering the needed two-thirds majority, she noted, adding that the vote, and the number of residents who took part in it, spoke volumes about the importance of the project to this mostly residential community.

“This vote tells me that residents want to see something happen there,” she said, adding that the church has been closed for more than a decade, and the parcel it sits on comprises more than two acres in what is considered by many to be not just a retail strip, but the town’s center.

While there is speculation about the site, to be named Towne Shoppes of Longmeadow — it is expected to become home to a mix of high-end shops and restaurants, similar to what exists in the Longmeadow Shops, which will only enhance that area’s prowess as a destination — no firm plans have been put in place and no specific tenants announced, said Simmons, adding that plans should be announced in the coming months.

“This vote tells me that residents want to see something happen there.”

But the church-property project is not the only subject of conjecture in this community. There is also the long-awaited start of work to rebuild the Maple Shopping Center on Shaker Road, known colloquially as the Armata’s plaza (because the market was the lead tenant), which was destroyed by fire almost exactly two years ago.

Armata’s will not be part of the new plaza — owner Alexis Vallides cited high rebuilding costs and a lengthy timeline when she made that announcement in late August — but several new stores are expected at the well-traveled intersection, said Corrin Meise-Munns, Longmeadow’s assistant town manager and director of Planning & Community Development.

Lyn Simmons says there are many questions to be answered in Longmeadow

Lyn Simmons says there are many questions to be answered in Longmeadow in the months to come regarding everything from its middle schools to the reuse of Town Hall and the Community Center.

Meanwhile, there is more speculation about the fate of the town’s two middle schools — combining the two nearly 60-year-old facilities is one of many options on the table — and also the Community Center and Town Hall properties, with the offices in those buildings slated to be consolidated into the town’s former senior center.

In short, there are many questions to be answered in the months to come, said Simmons, who noted that this is an intriguing — and, in many ways, exciting — time for the community.

 

Getting Down to Business

While there is anticipation about what will come next at several addresses across town, there have already been some significant additions to the business landscape over the past years, and even the past few months, Meise-Munns said.

She cited the arrival of the town’s first brewery, One Way Brewing on Maple Road; a new pizza restaurant, Frankie’s, in that same area; another new barbecue restaurant, Fletcher’s BBQ Shop & Steakhouse on Longmeadow Street; a bakery, the Latest Kraze, also on Longmeadow Street in a different shopping plaza; a new taco restaurant under construction in the Longmeadow Shops; a planned Indian restaurant in the former AT&T storefront in the Shops; and a Jersey Mike’s (the chain’s first Western Mass. location), set to take a spot vacated by Subway in the Williams Place Mall, across the street from the Shops.

“There have been many new businesses opening, with more coming in the next several months,” Simmons said. “It’s been an exciting time.”

“There have been many new businesses opening, with more coming in the next several months. It’s been an exciting time.”

What will come next — at the Towne Shoppes of Longmeadow and the rebuilt Maple Center shopping plaza — should be known in the coming months, said Meise-Munns, noting that the high degrees of speculation and anticipation concerning these projects are reflective of how rare such large-scale developments are in this community.

“There are not a lot of opportunities for properties in Longmeadow to change zoning like that,” she said of the church project specifically, but also in general. “The town is mostly residential, and the number of undeveloped parcels is very low, and the number of parcels that are available for redevelopment at any given time is probably lower; this doesn’t happen very often.”

Corrin Meise-Munns says a number of new businesses have opened in Longmeadow

Corrin Meise-Munns says a number of new businesses have opened in Longmeadow over the past year, and there are more in the pipeline.

In a press release issued after the town-meeting vote, Colvest founder and CEO Colaccino noted that “development of the Towne Shoppes of Longmeadow will essentially be an expansion of the adjacent Longmeadow Shops, consistent with the design and character of the property. We are committed to attracting high-quality, specialty retail shops, all of which would complement the stores at the Longmeadow Shops.”

As for the Maple Shopping Center, site plans for reconstruction have been submitted to the Planning Board, said Meise-Munns, adding that, while the exterior will look very much the same as what existed before the fire (although it will be modernized), the interior space for a supermarket has been enlarged, although no anchor tenant — or any other tenant — has been announced publicly.

There were several stores in the former plaza, including a restaurant, a liquor store, a nail salon, and others, said Meise-Munns, adding that the recent additions to the area — the brewery and new pizza restaurant among them — have brought more traffic to that section and should help make the new plaza an attractive landing spot.

Longmeadow at a glance

Year Incorporated: 1783
Population: 15,853
Area: 9.7 square miles
County: Hampden
Residential Tax Rate: $22.92
Commercial Tax Rate: $22.92
Median Household Income: $109,586
Median Family Income: $115,578
Type of Government: Open Town Meeting; Town Manager; Board of Selectmen
Largest Employers: Bay Path University; JGS Lifecare; Glenmeadow
* Latest information available

Meanwhile, on the municipal side of the ledger, there are several ongoing initiatives, including a long-range strategic plan for the community. Work on the plan is now in its second year, said Meise-Munns, adding that, in a town with little, if any, land to still be built upon, the plan is focused less on development and more on such matters as climate action and social equity.

“Much of it focuses on municipal services, transportation, infrastructure, zoning, housing, educational opportunities, parks, and open space,” she told BusinessWest, adding that this “blueprint for the future,” as she called it, should be finalized next spring.

There are also continuing discussions regarding the town’s two middle schools, Williams and Glenbrook, both now approaching 60 years of age. Simmons said there are several options on the table regarding replacement or renovation of one or both, with consolidation of the two schools a possible course.

The next step in the process is a feasibility study that will identify options, she said, adding that there will be several informational sessions to garner input from the public as part of the process.

Plans are also being discussed to consolidate the offices in Town Hall and the adjacent Community House in space at the Greenwood Center, formerly home to the town’s senior center before a new facility was built.

“Such a consolidation provides a lot of benefits for us — better parking, one floor, better ADA access, more meeting-room space, even more bathrooms,” said Simmons, adding that the project, as proposed, could lead to imaginative reuse of the two current town-office structures.

“We would pursue that once we knew if we were moving and what the timeline on the move would be,” she went on, adding that the structures are in a historic district but not historic themselves. “There would need to be a public discussion about what happens to Community House and Town Hall.”

 

Bottom Line

That would be the current Town Hall. What’s known as ‘old town hall’ on Longmeadow Street has long been vacant and unused, and its future is another of the questions to be answered by town leaders and residents, Simmon noted.

There are many such questions at a very intriguing time for this bedroom community with a rich history.

The answers will go a long way toward deciding what the next chapters in that history will look like.

MassTech Collaborative Awards $5 Million to UMass Amherst

By Contributor
UMass Amherst Chancellor Javier Reyes
Workforce Development

Expanding the Talent Pipeline

UMass Amherst Chancellor Javier Reyes

UMass Amherst Chancellor Javier Reyes speaks during the announcement of the $5 million grant from the MassTech Collaborative.

Leaders from the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative, also known as MassTech, recently announced a $5 million award from the Healey-Driscoll administration to UMass Amherst to help create an open-access additive manufacturing and design/testing facility on campus.

The grant, from the Collaborative Research and Development (R&D) Matching Grant Program, will augment UMass Amherst’s capabilities in the advanced-manufacturing space and increase its collaboration with universities across Massachusetts around research and development for advanced optical technologies, which have applications in biotechnology, defense, aerospace, environmental monitoring, and general electronics.

“The Healey-Driscoll administration is committed to building a more dynamic manufacturing ecosystem by supporting research and development opportunities across the state,” said Secretary Yvonne Hao of the Executive Office of Economic Development. “This investment will help connect leading innovators, foster workforce opportunities, promote creative problem solving, and accelerate the potential for breakthroughs in a field that underpins so many other essential industries.”

Carolyn Kirk, executive director of MassTech, added that “this investment is another example of Massachusetts’ commitment to strengthening innovative technologies and making R&D tools more accessible to growing businesses, academic researchers, and entrepreneurs across the state, providing opportunities that would normally be cost-prohibitive. Placing it at our flagship university, which has a track record of proven success and partnerships in the advanced-manufacturing space, made perfect sense. When we invest in technical training at a leading institution like this, we can expand training opportunities and the talent pipeline to manufacturing careers, helping diversify our workforce and the ability of the state to compete on a global scale.”

The announcement comes on the heels of the state’s recent award of $19.7 million in funding through the federal CHIPS and Science Act to expand production of microelectronics in the Northeast, work that will benefit from increased R&D in related sectors, including advanced optical technologies.

“We’re proud to make this investment in UMass Amherst to help establish a first-of-its-kind open-access facility that will expand our capability for innovation and strengthen training opportunities in a sector that will be so critical to the future of our economy.”

“Optical technologies are essential in the 21st century, acting as the backbone for transformational industries ranging from semiconductors to mobile technologies, medicine to national defense,” said Pat Larkin, director of the Innovation Institute at MassTech, which manages the collaborative R&D grant program. “That’s why it is critically important to expand collaboration and partnerships in this space, to encourage increased engagement between research institutions and private industry. We’re proud to make this investment in UMass Amherst to help establish a first-of-its-kind open-access facility that will expand our capability for innovation and strengthen training opportunities in a sector that will be so critical to the future of our economy.”

The facility will be the first publicly accessible facility of its kind in the country and will support testing, research, and production of advanced optical technologies. Through the project, UMass Amherst will collaborate with Electro Magnetic Applications Inc. (EMA), which specializes in the testing and design of materials used in space and operates at the Berkshire Innovation Center (BIC) in Pittsfield, and other industry partners, as well as Northeastern University, Springfield Technical Community College, and Berkshire Community College. The BIC will act as a bridge between industry, academia, and government to help develop an additive-manufacturing talent pipeline by providing workforce-development opportunities for students and young professionals.

“For 160 years, UMass Amherst has been an incubator for revolutionary thinking and big ideas,” UMass Amherst Chancellor Javier Reyes said. “Today we further this legacy as we celebrate advancements in precision optics, coatings, and metalens technologies in Western Mass. and prepare to establish an advanced optics manufacturing and characterization facility right here at UMass. By bringing together leading scientists, engineers, researchers, and industry partners, this new facility will accelerate the development and adoption of these transformative technologies.”

UMass Amherst will also use the grant to fund a full wafer imprint tool, which is a low-cost, high-resolution, nano-imprinting lithography device that generates patterns for various applications, a technology that is not currently available in any public facility in the U.S. This investment will provide a singular opportunity for research and collaboration for companies and institutions in Massachusetts.

“The state of Massachusetts and MassTech continue to prioritize investing in critical technologies and capabilities within the Commonwealth,” said Justin McKennon, principal scientist ii and the co-principal investigator for this project on behalf of EMA. “It sets the state apart as a place that not only welcomes, but believes in the companies that reside here. At EMA, we understand that any new technology requires the ability demonstrate it can work in harsh environments, and with our test and simulation capabilities, we are beyond excited to play a key role in helping companies in and around the Commonwealth to prove out their technologies in space and other harsh environments.”

The Collaborative R&D Matching Grant Program has awarded nearly $60 million to projects across the state that have leveraged more than $180 million in matching contributions from project partners. This includes 20 projects that have supported innovative industry and academic collaborations and investments in novel R&D infrastructure to bolster the Massachusetts tech and innovation economy.

The grant program has supported projects in emerging industries such as cloud computing, quantum computing, marine robotics, printed electronics, cybersecurity and data science, and nanomaterials and smart sensors. These investments have led to more than 80 industry partnerships and 60 intellectual-property and licensing agreements in the past two years.

 

Report Urges Changes to Costs, Affordability, Health Equity

By Contributor
Health Care Healthcare News

An Unsustainable Path

 

The Massachusetts Health Policy Commission (HPC) recently voted to issue the 2023 Health Care Cost Trends Report and comprehensive policy recommendations.

Notably, the HPC reports that the average expense of employer-based private health insurance in 2021 climbed to $22,163, outpacing growth in wages and salaries. Including co-payments, deductibles, and out-of-pocket spending, healthcare costs for Massachusetts families neared $25,000 annually. The HPC found that 72% of small-business health-insurance plans featured deductibles exceeding $2,800 for families (or $1,400 for individuals) in 2021, with annual family premiums simultaneously surging from $16,000 to $23,000 since 2012.

The report highlights the unequal burden of these trends, finding persistent disparities across income and racial/ethnic groups, with nearly one in five lower-income residents having high out-of-pocket spending, for example, and significantly higher infant-mortality rates and rates of premature deaths from treatable causes among Black and Hispanic residents compared to other residents. To address these complex and interrelated challenges, the HPC calls for urgent action to update the state’s policy framework to more effectively contain cost growth, alleviate the financial burden of healthcare costs on Massachusetts families, and promote equity in access to care and outcomes for all residents.

“Policymakers do not have to choose between high-quality care and affordability. We have tremendous opportunities for transformative action to support patients and employers.”

“The 2023 Health Care Cost Trends report makes clear how we must do more in Massachusetts to provide more affordable and equitable access,” said Deb Devaux, HPC board chair. “Policymakers do not have to choose between high-quality care and affordability. We have tremendous opportunities for transformative action to support patients and employers.”

Among the report’s findings were that, on average from 2019 to 2021, total healthcare spending increased 3.2% per year, higher than the 3.1% healthcare cost growth benchmark. Commercial spending grew by 5.8% per year, far outpacing the national average in a reversal of prior years of relatively slower growth.

Commercial expenditures for prescription drugs and hospital outpatient care grew the fastest; the average price per prescription for branded drugs exceeded $1,000 in 2021, up from $684 in 2017, while the average commercial price for hospital outpatient services grew by 8.4% from 2019 to 2021.

The average price for many common hospital stays also increased, with most growing by 10% or more over the same period. The HPC estimates that, by eliminating excessive spending due to unreasonably high prices, overuse of high-cost sites of care, and overprovision of care, the Commonwealth could see systemwide savings of nearly $3.5 billion annually.

 

Policy Recommendations

With the report, the HPC announced nine policy recommendations.

“The residents of the Commonwealth deserve a policy framework equal to the novel challenges facing our healthcare system today,” said David Seltz, HPC executive director. “The recommendations in this report provide a roadmap for policymakers to equip the state with the tools it needs to constrain healthcare cost growth equitably and sustainably in a manner that meaningfully addresses existing disparities in access and outcomes.”

The HPC recommends the following reforms to reduce healthcare cost growth, promote affordability, and advance equity, with an emphasis on modernizing the state’s nation-leading benchmark framework.

• Modernize the Commonwealth’s benchmark framework to prioritize healthcare affordability and equity for all. As recommended in past years, the Commonwealth should strengthen the accountability mechanisms of the benchmark, such as by updating the metrics and referral standards used in the performance improvement plan (PIP) process and enhancing transparency and PIP enforcement tools. The state should also modernize its healthcare policy framework to promote affordability and equity, including through the establishment of affordability and equity benchmarks.

David Setz

David Setz

“The residents of the Commonwealth deserve a policy framework equal to the novel challenges facing our healthcare system today.”

• Constrain excessive provider prices. As found in previous cost-trends reports, prices continue to be the primary driver of healthcare spending growth in Massachusetts. To address the substantial impact of high and variable provider prices, the HPC recommends the Legislature enact limitations on excessively high commercial provider prices, require site-neutral payments for routine ambulatory services, and adopt a default, out-of-network payment rate for ‘surprise billing’ situations.

• Enhance oversight of pharmaceutical spending. The HPC continues to recommend that policymakers take steps to address the rapid increase in retail drug spending in Massachusetts with policy action to enhance oversight and transparency. Specific policy actions include adding pharmaceutical manufacturers and pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) under the HPC’s oversight, enabling the Center for Health Information and Analysis to collect comprehensive drug-pricing data, requiring licensure of PBMs, expanding the HPC’s drug-pricing review authority, and establishing caps on monthly out-of-pocket costs for high-value prescription drugs.

• Make health plans accountable for affordability. The Division of Insurance (DOI) should closely monitor premium growth factors and utilize affordability targets for evaluating health-plan rate filings. Policymakers should promote enrollment through the Massachusetts Connector and the expansion of alternative payment methods (APMs). Lower-income employees should be supported by reducing premium contributions through tax credits or wage-adjusted contributions.

• Advance health equity for all. To address enduring health inequities in Massachusetts, the state must invest in affordable housing, improved food and transportation systems, and solutions to mitigate the impact of climate change. Payer-provider contracts should promote health equity via performance-data stratification and link payments to meeting equity targets. Payers should commit to the adoption of the data standards recommended by the Health Equity Data Standards Technical Advisory Group, and efforts should be made to ensure that the healthcare workforce reflects the diversity of the state’s population.

• Reduce administrative complexity. The Legislature should require standardization in payer claims administration and processing, build upon the momentum from recent federal initiatives to require automation of prior authorization processes, and mandate the adoption of a standardized measure set to reduce reporting burdens and ensure consistency.

• Strengthen tools to monitor the provider market and align the supply and distribution of services with community need. The HPC recommends enhanced regulatory measures including focused, data-driven assessments of service supply and distribution based on identified needs and updates to the state’s existing regulatory tools, such as the Essential Services Closures process, the Determination of Need (DoN) program, and the HPC’s material change notice oversight authority.

• Support and invest in the Commonwealth’s healthcare workforce. The state and healthcare organizations should build on recent state investments to stabilize and strengthen the healthcare workforce. The Commonwealth should offer initial financial assistance to ease the costs of education and training, minimize entry barriers, explore policy adjustments for improved wages in underserved areas, and adopt the Nurse Licensure Compact to simplify hiring from other states. Healthcare delivery organizations should invest in their workforces, improve working conditions, provide opportunities for advancement, improve compensation for non-clinical staff (e.g., community health workers, community navigators, and peer recovery coaches), and take collaborative steps to enhance workforce diversity.

• Strengthen primary and behavioral healthcare. Payers and providers should increase investment in primary care and behavioral health while adhering to cost growth benchmarks. Addressing the need for behavioral-health services involves measures such as enhancing access to appropriate care, expanding inpatient beds, investing in community-based alternatives, aligning the behavioral-health workforce to current needs, employing telehealth, and improving access to treatment for opioid-use disorder, particularly in places where existing inequities present barriers.

 

Key Findings

Prices continue to be the primary driver of healthcare spending growth in Massachusetts. In the report, the HPC identifies price, rather than utilization, as the primary driver of the increase in spending. Commercial prices grew substantially from 2018 to 2021, with an 8.8% increase for office-based services, a 12.1% rise for hospital outpatient services, and a 10.2% uptick for inpatient care. Total payment per hospital discharge for commercially insured patients grew by 23% between 2017 and 2021, primarily driven by a 34% price increase for non-labor-and-delivery discharges.

HPC’s analyses of excess spending found that private insurers paid providers more than twice what Medicare would have paid for nearly 40% of all lab tests and imaging procedures in 2021. Taken together, commercial spending on lab tests, imaging procedures, inpatient hospital stays, clinician-administered drugs, endoscopies, prescription drugs, and certain specialty services accounted for 45% of commercial spending. Among this spending, 27% was in excess of double what Medicare would have paid (or 120% of international drug prices), equivalent to approximately $3,000 annually for a family with private insurance.

Other findings include:

• Unnecessary utilization of care, such as procedures that could be performed in more cost-effective ambulatory surgery centers, care that provides no clinical benefit to patients, and low-risk births in academic medical centers that are reimbursed at higher rates than those in community hospitals, contribute to excessive spending.

• Administrative spending of both hospitals and insurers has increased substantially, with hospital administrative costs nearly doubling from 2011 to 2021 and insurers experiencing growth in administrative spending for both small- and large-group coverage.

• Escalating price trends are evident from 2018 to 2021, with commercial prices increasing for various services, including office services, hospital outpatient care, and inpatient services. Payments for inpatient hospital care grew by 23%, driven primarily by non-labor-and-delivery discharges.

• Variation in provider organization performance continues, with medical spending differing widely between major provider groups and the rate of avoidable visits and imaging utilization varying significantly.

• Massachusetts maintains the highest hospital-utilization rate for Medicare beneficiaries among all states, as well as higher statewide rates of inpatient stays, outpatient visits, and emergency-department visits. The Commonwealth also ranks among the highest in the nation in preventable hospitalizations and readmission rates.

• Between 2017 and 2021, primary-care spending grew more slowly than other medical spending, leading to a decrease in primary care’s share of total commercial spending. Meanwhile, significant disparities in access to primary care between low- and high-income communities persist.

• Behavioral-health trends show a substantial increase in psychotherapy visits and mental-health prescriptions among young adults, alongside a rise in the proportion of patients admitted to acute-care hospitals for mental-health conditions. While opioid-related hospitalizations declined overall, Black non-Hispanic residents experienced persistent increases until 2020.

Project Will Create 88 Units of Affordable Housing for Older Adults

By Contributor
Holyoke Mayor Joshua Garcia
Construction

A Long-awaited Transformation

Holyoke Mayor Joshua Garcia

Holyoke Mayor Joshua Garcia says the mill-conversion project will impact the city for many years to come.

 

On Nov. 20, Holyoke city officials and legislative leaders joined WinnDevelopment executives and Massachusetts housing lenders to break ground on a $55.3 million adaptive-reuse project at a long-vacant, historic mill complex that will be transformed into 88 affordable apartment homes for seniors ages 55 and older.

The redevelopment at the Appleton Mill property in downtown Holyoke will create new, loft-style apartments in three interconnected, 111-year-old industrial buildings that were once home to Farr Alpaca Co. and have been vacant for decades. In addition, WinnDevelopment will construct a new community building and connect it to the residential space via a closed skybridge spanning nearby railroad tracks.

“We’re excited to get to work on preserving this important feature of Holyoke’s proud industrial legacy and transform it into much-need housing for seniors who want to stay in the community they love,” WinnDevelopment President and Managing Partner Larry Curtis said. “This project is the first part of a two-phase redevelopment effort that will revitalize this historic mill complex and provide an economic boost to Holyoke’s downtown.”

All 88 apartments will be reserved for low- and moderate-income seniors, with 12 units reserved for households below 30% of area median income (AMI), 63 for those below 60% of AMI, and 13 for households below 80% of AMI. Eight of the units will be available to eligible households through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s project-based voucher program, and five units will be set aside for Massachusetts Department of Mental Health clients through the Facilities Consolidation Fund.

“This project represents our commitment to history, preservation, and housing. It also represents our commitment to senior living, affordability, compassion, and care,” Holyoke Mayor Joshua Garcia said. “The renovation of the former 111-year-old Alpaca Mill building to achieve these commitments is another Holyoke thing we do. I am excited to witness this unfold at this time in our city’s history and even more excited to see the impact it will have for many years to come.”

The project was made possible with significant federal, state, local, and private financing. Bank of America is serving as the project construction lender and as the investor in the project’s state and federal Low Income Housing Tax Credits, authorized by the Massachusetts Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities (EOHLC), and state and federal Historic Tax Credits, awarded by the Massachusetts Historic Commission and the U.S. National Park Service.

“We’re pleased to help finance much-needed affordable housing for seniors in Holyoke,” said Mary Thompson, senior vice president of Community Development Banking at Bank of America. “We applaud Winn for their sustainable design that incorporates modern, energy-efficient heating, cooling, and appliances, while preserving the historic character of the Farr Alpaca Company complex.”

MassHousing provided tax-exempt bonds for the project financing, while the EOHLC provided soft financing, along with its partners, the Community Economic Development Assistance Corp. and the MassHousing Affordable Housing Trust.

The property’s current condition is a stark contrast to what it will look like in the future, according to this rendering.

The property’s current condition is a stark contrast to what it will look like in the future, according to this rendering.

“This decades-long-vacant and blighted mill property in the heart of Holyoke will be transformed into new, vibrant housing for older residents who will be able to live affordably and comfortably in downtown Holyoke,” MassHousing CEO Chrystal Kornegay said. “WinnCompanies has the experience and expertise to make this abandoned eyesore into a new affordable-housing community that will serve city residents for many years to come. The city of Holyoke has provided strong support, and MassHousing is pleased to be among the many public and private partners working closely together to complete this important project.”

Enterprise Bank, a locally owned and managed full-service commercial bank based in Lowell, played a key role in the redevelopment through the direct purchase of the bonds and the provision of bridge financing.

“We are pleased to have been able to partner with WinnDevelopment, a respected, award-winning property manager and creator of high-quality and exceptionally managed affordable housing, on this transformative project,” Enterprise Bank CEO Jack Clancy said. “We continue to remain committed to supporting affordable-housing initiatives throughout our footprint.”

The Holyoke Redevelopment Authority (HRA) provided a ground lease for the mill structure for a discounted value and provided additional funds for structural stabilization of the mill complex. Additional local partners include the city of Holyoke and local nonprofit OneHolyoke, which provided critical gap financing through local ARPA and CDBG funds. BlueHub Capital served as lender on the state credit loans.

“The HRA is proud of the partnership with WinnDevelopment and excited to see this project come to fruition,” said Aaron Vega, Holyoke’s director of Planning and Economic Development. “The whole team in our office worked on this project, and we believe in its transformative impact for our downtown and in addressing the housing needs of our community.”

Once the largest alpaca wool mill in the world, the 168,000-square-foot, brick mill complex features nine buildings on six acres and is one of Holyoke’s most prominent historic properties. After the Farr Alpaca Co. ceased production in the early 1940s, the complex declined and has been largely vacant since the 1970s, with deteriorating conditions hindering efforts to revitalize the area.

Located across the street from a state park dedicated to showcasing Holyoke’s industrial and cultural heritage, the site has been a priority for redevelopment since the city took title to the property a decade ago.

WinnDevelopment’s work is focused on an 86,000-square-foot section of the complex that includes three structures: Building 4, erected in 1880 and the oldest on the site; Building 5, a storage, washing, and sorting facility erected in 1905; and Building 6, also built in 1905 and the largest structure on the property.

Designed to meet the sustainability criteria of Enterprise Green Communities, the new apartment community will be completely fossil-fuel-free and will feature LED lighting; Energy Star appliances; low-flow, water-conserving plumbing fixtures; and premium roof insulation.

Resident amenity spaces will include on-site management offices, a fitness center, a resident lounge, an outdoor recreation area along the adjacent canal, laundry facilities, and 109 parking spaces.

Scheduled for completion in the spring of 2025, the project is being led by WinnDevelopment Senior Project Director Matt Robayna, with support from Senior Project Director Lauren Canepari and Assistant Project Director Hagop Toghramadjian.

Keith Construction of Canton is serving as general contractor for the construction effort, with the Architectural Team of Chelsea serving as architect. VHB is providing civil engineering and permitting services through its office in Springfield. Robinson+Cole of Boston served as transaction counsel.

Ashley Batlle Takes Her ‘Advanced Beauty Spa’ to Next Level

By
Ashley Batlle calls confidence a “superpower,”
Women in Businesss

Growth Spurt

Ashley Batlle calls confidence a “superpower,”

Ashley Batlle calls confidence a “superpower,” and aims to instill more confidence in her clients by making them look and feel better.

 

Ashley Batlle says she just took a “teenage step.”

That’s different from the baby steps businesses take after they open, in everything from products and services offered to marketing and workforce. She’s been taking those baby steps since opening her beauty and wellness spa, Beauty Batlles, five years ago.

The teenage step was more dramatic (as teenagers often are). It took the form of a physical move from a somewhat hidden space on Front Street in Chicopee to a prominent storefront on nearby Cabot Street — and a much larger floor area to provide new and expanded services.

“We’ve grown with baby steps, and now we just took a huge teenage step to where we’re at right now,” Batlle told BusinessWest. “We’re more of an advanced beauty spa now, and we’ve added a whole wellness section to it.

“That being said, a lot of people don’t understand what advanced beauty is,” she admitted. “It’s a term that I just started using to make my elevator pitch a little easier.”

Perhaps the most notable advanced service is a cryotherapy chamber. Cryotherapy, also known as cold therapy, exposes the body to cold temperatures to heal and treat various medical ailments, she explained.

“Cold helps with inflammation. It helps with circulation. It helps with mood regulating if you have anxiety or if you’re really stressed.”

“Cold helps with inflammation. It helps with circulation. It helps with mood regulating if you have anxiety or if you’re really stressed,” she said. “And there aren’t too many cryo chambers in the area.”

Batlle gave a few examples of people who might benefit from that technology.

“Obviously, athletes are number one when it comes to that. But if you suffer from fibromyalgia, if you have arthritis, any kind of condition that is caused by inflammation, when the pain comes from the inflammation, the cryo chamber would be amazing for you,” she explained. “If you have migraines, we do have localized cryo as well; we have clients that come here just to get a quick treatment to help them when they feel a migraine coming on or if they’re actually suffering through a migraine. We have some clients that are seeing some results with their vertigo. If you have back issues, we have something for you. So everybody can come in for help just getting through the day.”

 

Taking the Leap

Batlle was licensed as a cosmetologist in 2002, a path she pursued mainly because she didn’t know exactly what career she wanted to pursue after high school, and wanted something she could always fall back on no matter what career choices she made.

“After I went to cosmetology school, I worked at a couple of salons, doing hair, and realized that was not my jam,” she recalled. “So I left the industry for about 14 years. I focused a little bit more in sales — I sold everything from cell phones to cable and solar panels, which was a really great journey because it taught me a lot and led me to where I am now.”

She also worked as a makeup artist in films and television before deciding to open her own business in 2018, first in a tiny space in Holyoke, then, about a year later, in downtown Chicopee.

Beauty Batlles’ new cryotherapy chamber

Beauty Batlles’ new cryotherapy chamber is useful for a range of conditions, from fibromyalgia to arthritis to migraines.

“I started with microblading, which is a semi-permanent tattoo for your eyebrows, which is still a service that I offer. Then, little by little, we became more of a spa, adding more aesthetic-type services. I added lash services and waxing services, and then we added body-sculpting treatments, which help with reducing fat and tightening skin.”

On Front Street, she began adding body-waxing services, facials, and skin-care services, creating more of a spa atmosphere, she explained.

“We offer a lot of advanced-type facials that help with either severe acne or with anti-aging, where you can literally walk out of here looking a few years younger without any kind of surgeries, without any kind of injectables, without any invasive treatments.”

And at the new location on Cabot Street, “we added the wellness aspect to it. We have a lot of big machines that do a lot of really awesome things. They help with pain management, they help with anxiety, they help with stress, they help if you have any issues with sleeping, and they’re great for recovery. They’re not just for athletes; these are also treatments that any person can do to help them with whatever it is that they’re struggling with on a day-to-day basis.”

Finding a larger, more prominent space was necessary for a number of reasons. The business was growing to the point where she needed more staff to serve clients, but didn’t have enough space to house more staff and more clients. “Plus, I was in a space where I wasn’t really in a storefront. I was kind of hiding behind another business.”

“I’m glad I went down the path of wellness. It’s brought me into a whole different world, with all this technology and all of these amazing biohacking tools that I’m able to bring into our community.”

The new location on Cabot Street had been a dance studio with two storefronts, allowing her to reconfigure the interior space to both meet current needs and introduce the new wellness elements, including the cryotherapy chamber.

“I’m glad I went down the path of wellness. It’s brought me into a whole different world, with all this technology and all of these amazing biohacking tools that I’m able to bring into our community,” she said. “And I’m not done with the growth. Like I said, this is my teenage stage. I’m waiting to get to adulthood.”

 

Community Minded

The growing-up years have been marked by a commitment to community involvement as well, including the fourth annual toy and coat drive, going on through Dec. 21, which Batlle called a “pride and joy” of hers.

New, unused toys collected at Beauty Batlles are donated to children in the foster-care system through the Department of Children and Families (DCF). New, unused coats are donated to Alianza, a domestic-violence shelter in Chicopee, while used coats are donated to Tapestry to support the homeless community.

A newer wrinkle is an “adopt-a-teen” effort for teenagers in the DCF system.

“Because of all the toy drives that are happening everywhere, a lot of the younger children in DCF get toys, and they get to open presents on Christmas morning, and the teenagers just get, like, a $25 gift card because there are no presents that are age-appropriate for them,” Batlle explained. “So I’ve teamed up with DCF, and they give me a list of teenagers that are in the system; we get their name, gender, age, and their wish list, so that they can have some personalized gifts given to them on Christmas morning, just like the little ones.”

Beauty Batlles also just wrapped up a canned-food drive to benefit Lorraine’s Soup Kitchen & Pantry in Chicopee. And in 2020, when the world — and many businesses — were shut down, Batlle launched the Hero Project, collecting funds to provide complementary self-care services for healthcare workers and first responders, which they were able to use when the spa reopened.

“I was sitting at home doing absolutely nothing,” Batlle recalled. “So, I thought, let me put some time and effort into giving back to people who are doing this work.”

Collectively, such efforts simply make her happy.

“There’s something so rewarding about being able to give back … when you have a platform where you’re able to bring awareness to your clientele, and in return be able to give back to people who are less fortunate,” she told BusinessWest. “It’s joyful, and it makes me feel good. I just want to do what I can and use my platform to do it.”

Meanwhile, Batlle continues to promote her new services and treatments, with an eye toward future growth. But at the end of the day, she said, the most gratifying element about her job is making people feel better, in every way.

“My big thing is, if you look good, you feel good. Confidence is a superpower. I feel like you can take on the world if you’re feeling better about yourself,” she said. “Sometimes it’s just an eyebrow wax or being able to make somebody’s aches and pains go away, or just a facial. Sometimes we need a little TLC, and we don’t realize that. But if we make ourselves feel better, then we feel like we can take on the world and do whatever it is that we need to do.”

Giving Guide 2023

By
Giving Guide Special Coverage Special Publications

Regional Philanthropic Opportunities

When importance of giving to those in need — and to the organizations who help others secure their basic needs — doesn’t take a holiday, and there’s no season of the year when their work is not critical, especially at a time when the pandemic is barely in the rear-view mirror and an uncertain economy continues to pose challenges to so many individuals and nonprofits.

Still, there’s no doubt that people think about giving more around the year-end holidays, and that’s why BusinessWest and the Healthcare News publishes its annual Giving Guide around this time: to shine a spotlight on specific community needs and show you not only how to support them, but exactly what your money and time can accomplish.

The 18 profiles below of area nonprofit organizations, are just a sampling of the region’s thousands of nonprofits. These profiles are intended to educate readers about what these groups are doing to improve quality of life for the people living and working in the 413, but also to inspire them to provide the critical support (which comes in many different forms) that these organizations and so many others so desperately need.

These profiles within the Giving Guide list not only giving opportunities — everything from online donations to corporate sponsorships — but also volunteer opportunities. And it is through volunteering, as much as with a cash donation, that individuals can help a nonprofit carry out its important mission within our community.

BusinessWest and HCN launched the Giving Guide to 2011 to harness this region’s incredibly strong track record of philanthropy and support of the organizations dedicated to helping those in need. The publication is designed to inform, but also to encourage individuals and organizations to find new and imaginative ways to give back. We are confident it will succeed with both of those assignments.

Joseph Bednar, Editor
John Gormally, Publisher
Kate Campiti, Sales Manager and Associate Publisher

View the 2023 Giving Guide PDF Flipbook HERE

BFAIR

Big Brothers Big Sisters of Hampden County

Community Foundation of Western Massachusetts

Glenmeadow

The Gray House

Healing Racism Institute of Pioneer Valley

Hospice of the Fisher Home

JGS Lifecare

Lorraine’s Soup Kitchen

Martin Luther King Jr. Family Services

Michael J. Dias Foundation

Miracle League of Western Massachusetts

Pathlight

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What’s Behind Labor’s Surge in Momentum?

By
Education Special Coverage Workforce Development

Striking Results

Jasmine Kerrissey acknowledged that, when it comes to labor and business management, it’s difficult, but not impossible, to chart who’s winning and losing the various types of skirmishes between the two sides and post standings, as they do in sports.

But if they did … labor would be enjoying a sizable lead in the standings as this year comes to a close.

Indeed, there have been some recent — and significant — wins for the labor movement in this country, said Kerrissey, associate professor of Sociology and director of the UMass Labor Center, and co-author of the recently released book Union Booms and Busts: The Ongoing Fight Over the U.S. Labor Movement. She cited recent strikes involving United Auto Workers (UAW), who won 25% wage gains from Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis; employees at UPS; and TV and film actors and writers, among others, as well as union campaigns at large employers such as Amazon, Starbucks, REI, and Trader Joe’s.

In a word, labor is enjoying a large dose of momentum and one of the most pronounced ‘booms’ in recent times, she said.

“The number of strikes, and the number of new types of elections and new union organizing, is much higher than it’s been in the last several decades,” Kerrissey noted. “And many of those elections and strikes are being won by workers.

“Momentum is really important,” she went on. “And we should never underestimate momentum; when other workers see other workers winning, it’s really powerful, and it inspires others to think that they might be able to do the same.”

“Momentum is really important. And we should never underestimate momentum; when other workers see other workers winning, it’s really powerful, and it inspires others to think that they might be able to do the same.”

This momentum was perhaps best exemplified in early September when President Biden joined the UAW picket line at a General Motors plant in Michigan — the first time in U.S. history that a sitting president had done so. (Presidents have traditionally worked to broker deals, not take sides in labor disputes.)

Wearing a UAW cap and toting a bullhorn, Biden said of automakers’ profits after receiving federal assistance, “now they’re doing incredibly well. And guess what — you should be doing incredibly well, too.”

Such sentiments, the notion that workers should be doing as well as the CEOs running these large corporations, are at the heart of labor’s recent surge, said Tanzania Cannon-Eckerle, a labor attorney at the Springfield-based Royal Law Firm, who represents businesses in such matters.

Jasmine Kerrissey says labor is enjoying some real momentum in 2023

Jasmine Kerrissey says labor is enjoying some real momentum in 2023, especially though victories in several recent, high-profile strikes.

Elaborating, she said that, while the 25% wage hikes won by the auto workers during their month-long strike are certainly an aberration, such a figure emboldens workers in other industries and instills what she called “overexaggerated fear” among employers, including those in the 413.

“Those numbers are extraordinary,” she said. “Usually, when you see these union pay increases, we’re talking 3% to 8%, with 8% being the max. These 25% increases … I honestly don’t think we have that to fear locally, but … there is that public sentiment.”

Indeed, workers are further emboldened by seemingly endless headlines concerning the salaries of CEOs — and by the ongoing workforce crunch that is impacting virtually every sector of the economy, putting a premium on retention of talent.

“With the tight labor market, people can’t find workers — people don’t want to do the traditional jobs anymore,” Cannon-Eckerle said. “Employers need employees, so they do have that leverage, that bargaining power. And with this crunch being in the public, workers know it, and they feel it.”

Meanwhile, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) recently announced new union election rules and issued six significant union- and employee-favorable decisions that, among other things, make it easier for unions to gain the right to represent employees, redefine the standard for what constitutes concerted activity subject to protection under the NLRB, and substantially heighten employers’ collective-bargaining obligations.

“The NLRB has also shortened the period from election time to when to when it actually happens, so it can come hard, and it can come fast. You have one upset employee that you’re tiptoeing around, and before you know it, you have someone who’s asked for there to be a union election, and within 14 days, it’s happening. That’s scary for employers, and it should be.”

“The NLRB has also shortened the period from election time to when to when it actually happens, so it can come hard, and it can come fast,” Cannon-Eckerle added. “You have one upset employee that you’re tiptoeing around, and before you know it, you have someone who’s asked for there to be a union election, and within 14 days, it’s happening. That’s scary for employers, and it should be.”

For this issue and its focus on workforce and education, BusinessWest looks at the momentum that labor is enjoying at present, what it means, and what might come next.

 

Labor Gains

What labor is enjoying now would certainly qualify as a boom, said Kerrissey, who told BusinessWest there have been a number of upsurges and periods of retraction since 1900, the period studied for her book, co-written with Judith Stephan-Norris, professor emerita in the Department of Sociology at the University of California Irvine.

That book was essentially finished before the pandemic, she said, adding that the scene has changed dramatically since it was sent it to the printer.

“When we were writing this book, it was hard to imagine that we would be in a boom period like this, but here we are,” she said. “It has been great timing for this book, and it’s been really exciting to apply some of the historical lessons to the present day.”

Tanzania Cannon-Eckerle

Tanzania Cannon-Eckerle says that, in the current labor climate, the best quality employers can display is transparency.

Kerrissey said booms are defined by momentum on several different fronts. Successful strikes — with success meaning that workers were able to win all or most of what they were asking for when they went to the picket lines — are easily the most visible.

And there have been many of those over this past year and in many different industries, said Kerrissey, citing the UAW strike, the averted UPS strike — a settlement that was reached gave more than 300,000 workers represented by the Teamsters significant wage hikes and new minimums — and the new contracts won by actors and screenwriters. But there have also been “successful” strikes in healthcare — In October, Kaiser Permanente struck a deal with a coalition of unions granting them 21% wage increases over the next four years — and many teacher strikes, including several in Massachusetts, that have garnered higher wages, especially for paraprofessionals.

But momentum is visible in other fronts as well, Kerrissey said, including what she called a “wave” of new union organizing over the past few years, elections that go through the National Labor Relations Board.

“These have stood out, both because it’s more workers doing these elections, but it’s also in industries that have typically not had a lot of union presence,” she said, listing the action at Starbucks as both the most visible and impactful example of such movement, with more than 300 locations across the country now unionized and the total of represented workers approaching 10,000.

But there have been others as well, including Trader Joe’s, Amazon, Chipotle, and REI, the camping and outdoor sports equipment retailer.

“That’s a real shift to have those types of elections in industries that have long been non-union,” Kerrissey told BusinessWest, adding quickly that workers in those industries, while now unionized, have mostly had a difficult time bringing companies to the table to negotiate.

“The bottom line is … if workers are happy, they’re not going to strike. If your employees are happy, they don’t feel like they need to organize. Usually, it’s one or two people that are upset about something and start to gather their forces, and they start nodding their heads and say, ‘yeah, you’re right, we do deserve more.’”

And while some numbers are trending upward, she went on, overall union representation is relatively flat, if not actually declining.

Indeed, according to the NLRB, union petitions increased 3% in fiscal 2023 compared to 2022, with 2022 seeing a 53% increase in union election petitions from the previous year. However, U.S. union membership declined to 10.1% in 2022 from 10.3% in 2021, the lowest on record, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Although the number of workers belonging to unions increased by 273,000 workers to 14.3 million in 2022, the total number of workers in the U.S. workforce grew by 5.3 million, resulting in the drop in union density.

Those numbers show that, while labor is enjoying momentum, there is still room for more improvement, Kerrissey said.

“The next big hurdle is making the playing field more even for working people, and that comes down to labor policy,” she said. “The labor policy we have in this country is antiquated, and it’s been hard to change; the basic structure is still from the 1930s. But work has changed a lot since then.”

“It’s been quite difficult to make an updated, 21st-century labor policy,” she went on. “And I think some of the strikes are in reaction to that — there are few alternatives.”

Meanwhile, it’s difficult to project what will happen short- and long-term.

“It’s hard to make predictions,” she said. “Historically, when workers are striking and winning, union membership also surges — those two things are correlated. But it’s really hard to look too far into the future.”

 

Labor Pains

While long-term projections may be cloudy, Cannon-Eckerle said it’s rather easy to look short-term and see a time (it’s already here, actually) when it is much easier for unions to gain the right to represent employees, and for an election to come much more quickly.

Indeed, as she recapped the changes made by the NLRB in September, she said they have the potential to be as impactful as any of the recent strikes and could cause some real anxiety among employers.

The NLRB decisions, which came down in one hectic week in late August, bring significant changes to the landscape and essentially enable unions to get faster elections, make it easier to show that individual employee comments or actions constitute concerted activity, and limit past practice as a justification for unilateral changes, she explained, adding that these are all clear wins for employees and unions.

Summing them all up, Cannon-Eckerle said, “my clients are afraid — and they should be. They don’t know what they’re allowed to say or not allowed to say; there’s a gray line about whether you can actually say something to somebody, even if they’re being disruptive to the workplace.

“The fear is, ‘am I not going to be able to police the conduct of my employees, because they’re essentially allowed to say and do whatever they want?’” she went on. “And it just takes that one really upset or really vocal employee to create that pre-storm, if you will.”

That pre-storm is the series of events that can lead to a union election, she said, adding that the NLRB decisions can bring one about faster and more easily than perhaps ever before. In essence, the new rule resurrects what was known as the ‘ambush election’ process, which inhibits employers’ ability to educate their workforces about union representation and adequately prepare for union elections — hence the term.

In such a climate, businesses large and small should be focused on transparency, she said, adding quickly that this doesn’t necessarily mean wide-open books but does mean being open and honest about the financial big picture and a detailed explanation of revenues and expenses.

“If you explain to your workforce, ‘here’s what our budget is, and here’s the cost of each employee,’” she began, noting that this means the full cost of each employee, meaning salary, benefits, training, and more. “Most employees don’t know that; they understand budgets, and they understand what it costs to run their households, most likely, but they don’t fully understand everything that goes into charging $7 for a cup of coffee.”

Overall, Cannon-Eckerle said, business owners and managers should do what they can to impress upon workers that they are valued and heard when it comes to the issues that impact them, meaning everything from wages to working conditions to flexibility around where people work.

“The bottom line is … if workers are happy, they’re not going to strike,” she noted. “If your employees are happy, they don’t feel like they need to organize. Usually, it’s one or two people that are upset about something and start to gather their forces, and they start nodding their heads and say, ‘yeah, you’re right, we do deserve more.’

“The way to control that, first of all, is to right your ship; you have to make sure that your house is in order at your company,” she went on. “If it’s not, maybe there’s justification for the union cozying up to the workforce.”

Hospitals Create Some Momentum, but Stern Challenges Remain

By
Dr. Lynnette Watkins
Healthcare News Special Coverage

Building Blocks for the Future

Dr. Lynnette Watkins

Dr. Lynnette Watkins called 2023 a rebuilding year and a time for “getting back to basics.”

 

As she talked about the relative fiscal health of hospitals, and especially Cooley Dickinson Hospital (CDH) in Northampton, which she serves as president and CEO, and the outlook for the coming year, Dr. Lynnette Watkins looked back on 2023 and described it with phrases often reserved for struggling sports teams — yes, like the one in Foxboro.

“It’s been a very challenging year,” she told BusinessWest. “It was definitely a rebuilding year, with a lot of focus on getting back to basics, and getting to what I would call a new normal.”

While we’re used to hearing those terms in sports, they work in healthcare, and especially when it comes to hospitals, said Watkins and others we spoke with.

Indeed, hospitals are rebuilding from several years of turmoil, falling revenues, rising costs, and struggles with recruiting and retaining a workforce. Many of these issues predate the pandemic, to one extent or another, but COVID certainly exacerbated the problems.

Dr. Mark Keroack, president and CEO of the Baystate Health system, which includes four hospitals — Baystate Medical Center in Springfield, Baystate Noble Hospital in Westfield, Baystate Franklin Medical Center in Greenfield, and Baystate Wing Hospital in Palmer — put things in perspective with some eye-opening numbers.

“It’s been a very challenging year. It was definitely a rebuilding year, with a lot of focus on getting back to basics, and getting to what I would call a new normal.”

He said the Baystate system, which also includes the health insurer Health New England, a range of physician practices, and a home-health agency (a $3 billion organization), essentially lost $61 million in the fiscal year that ended on Sept. 30 — $44 million from health delivery and $17 million from the health plan, which “had a bad year.”

And that’s a significant improvement over the previous fiscal year, when it lost $177 million.

And when it comes to workforce, the Baystate system has roughly 1,400 openings across several different departments, he said, noting that, again, this is an improvement from the peak of more than 2,000 in 2022.

Spiros Hatiras

Spiros Hatiras says HMC has taken aggressive steps on the workforce front, such as large sign-on bonuses and staffing ratios for nurses.

“It’s still more than double what it used to be before the pandemic,” said Keroack, who will be retiring next summer, adding that the system has nonetheless seen progress when it comes vacancy rates, turnover rates, and overall retention through strategies including flex scheduling, workforce-safety initiatives, upward movement on salaries and benefits, wellness programs, career counseling, and more — progress he expects will continue on these and other fronts in 2024.

Dr. Robert Roose, president of Mercy Medical Center in Springfield, agreed there was some improvement in 2023 on several of the fronts on which hospitals are battling, from overall volumes in the ER and with hospital stays (sometimes for the wrong reasons) to decreased use of travel nurses and their sky-high costs.

But there are still formidable challenges in the form of higher costs for everything from labor to equipment to medication; inadequate reimbursements for care (a problem hospitals have been dealing with for decades now); and, most recently, backlogs on the patient floors and the ER resulting from a shortage of nursing-home beds.

Overall, there are still many “mismatches,” as he called them, when it comes to demand in various settings and with specific needs, such as behavioral health.

“Hospitals are at a crossroads,” Roose said, noting that the pressures currently facing them will not likely abate in the years to come. “We have to think about how we focus on three main areas — health equity, system redesign and how we can do things differently, and workforce development.”

When it comes to getting back to basics, that phrase applies to everything to improving access, through initiatives such as an expansion of the ER at CDH (more on that later), to different strategies for recruiting and retaining employees — everything from greater flexibility with hours to a concert to celebrate nurses.

In that latter realm, there is certainly room for innovation and even what amounts to risk taking, said Spiros Hatiras, president and CEO of Holyoke Medical Center and Valley Health Systems, who said he and his team have certainly done so with some aggressive initiatives with bonuses for nurses, staffing ratios, and taking on nursing students right out of college.

“Hospitals are at a crossroads. We have to think about how we focus on three main areas — health equity, system redesign and how we can do things differently, and workforce development.”

Elaborating, he said HMC took some of the federal and state money funneled to hospitals in the wake of the pandemic and “invested” in programs to bolster the workforce through initiatives such as rising pay scales and benefits, ratios, and especially bonuses for nurses, both recent graduates and those with years of experience — initiatives that have generated strong results and eliminated the need for travel nurses, as we’ll see later.

For this issue, BusinessWest talked with these hospital administrators about the various forms of progress made in 2023 — and there were several — as well as the stern challenges that remain and the expectations for the year ahead.

 

Working in Concert

They called it Nurses Rock.

That was the name attached to a concert last spring featuring the local cover band Trailer Trash, staged in the former Colony Club space in Tower Square and orchestrated by Holyoke Medical Center. And that name speaks volumes about what this different kind of event was all about.

Indeed, this was a celebration of nurses, said Hatiras, noting that nurses from across the region, not just HMC, were invited. And more than 400 turned out.

Nurses Rock II is well into the planning stage, he went on, adding that the band Aquanett has been secured, and the event has been scheduled to coincide with National Nurses Week in early May.

Dr. Mark Keroack says 2023 was another difficult year

Dr. Mark Keroack says 2023 was another difficult year for hospitals, on several fronts, but it was a vast improvement over 2022.

Nurses Rock is just one example of rebuilding, going back to basics, being innovative, and, yes, thinking outside the box when it comes to the many challenges that are still confronting hospitals, which are, in many ways, still digging out from the fiscal turmoil created by, or exacerbated by, the pandemic.

With that, Keroack returned to those numbers he referenced earlier, such as the posted losses of $61 million system-wide in FY 2023, and put them into historical perspective.

“To really understand this, you need to turn the clock back to before the pandemic,” he said. “Before the pandemic, we would routinely generate margins of 2% to 3%, and we were generally stable; we were rated A+ by Standard & Poor’s, which put us roughly in the top quartile of health systems in New England.

“In 2020 and 2021, we were propped up by some generous federal subsidies from the CARES Act,” he went on, adding that these amounted to roughly $180 million. “They papered over some serious financial problems and enabled us to post 1% to 2% margins those two years.”

But that relief went away in 2022, and the system was still left with a huge bill for contract labor and overtime pay, he continued, adding that, when it comes to that $177 million loss in FY 2022, more than 70% of that came from higher labor costs.

In 2023, Baystate was able to make about $170 million worth of margin improvement, Keroack said, adding that much of this resulted from one-time grants from FEMA and ARPA monies, as well as some revenue-enhancement initiatives, efforts to improve supply-chain expenses, and a reduction of roughly 60 positions from the executive leadership ranks.

“We’re running an extraordinarily lean organization right now,” he told BusinessWest. For example, I used to have six direct reports, and now I have 12.”

What’s more, the system “turned the tide,” as he put it, when it comes to the use of contract labor, while also embarking on a number of joint ventures, such as the new behavioral-health hospital that opened recently in Holyoke, that help avoid capital expenditures, and exiting some small lines of business such as in-vitro fertilization and urgent care, areas where Baystate either couldn’t recruit talent or determined that these areas were not the core mission and were better left to others to handle.

Overall, volumes returned in 2023 across the board, Keroack said, meaning in the ER, surgeries, and discharges. But hospital stays or ‘days’ were considerably over budget because length of stay has increased, often because it’s more difficult to discharge a patient to a nursing home or home care.

“Hospitals are at a crossroads. We have to think about how we focus on three main areas — health equity, system redesign and how we can do things differently, and workforce development.”

“It’s causing a traffic jam,” he explained. “And it results in dozens and dozens of patients being stuck, waiting for a discharge to happen; that jams up the in-patient unit, causes backup in the emergency room, long waits, etc. It’s been stressful, but we’re beginning to get some progress on that.”

Watkins agreed, noting that more progress is needed in 2024 and beyond because there are many consequences as hospital stays lengthen, everything from greater potential for hospital-acquired infections and patient falls to further financial hardship for hospitals because insurers will not reimburse for those longer stays.

Much of the problem results from workforce issues, she went on, noting that “workforce drives access — access to our acute-care facilities, access to our ambulatory clinics, access to our VNA and hospice — and it really drives the value and quality of service that we offer.”

 

Work in Progress

Overall, there has been even more progress on the workforce front, although considerable challenges remain, said all those we spoke with.

Due to a heightened focus on various strategies regarding recruitment and retention, hospitals have greatly reduced their dependence on travel, or contract, nurses, who are paid at rates at least double what staff nurses receive, Watkins said.

At HMC, use of travel nurses has been eliminated altogether, said Hatiras, with a discernable dose of pride in his voice, noting that this was achieved through some rather aggressive risk-taking.

And, overall, the hospital has made itself a good place to work, he said, making it easier to recruit not only nurses but also doctors and other providers as well.

“The main theme in 2023 for us was to really leverage many, many years of work to create a great culture here,” he said. “That work, that culture, enabled us to attract physicians here where otherwise, we would have no shot. And it has essentially enabled us to solve our staffing problem. We have solved it for now — knock on wood.”

The most significant progress has come with attracting and retaining nurses and thus eliminating dependence on travel nurses, he went on, adding this has been accomplished through creation of that culture, but also through large bonuses and staffing ratios, initiatives launched in the early stages of the pandemic that are paying real dividends now.

“We gave the nurses something that no one else wanted to give them — something they really wanted, and something we fought for years not to give them: ratios,” he said. “None of my colleagues like my answer, but it has worked for us.”

Elaborating, Hatiras said that, pre-pandemic, his hospital, and all hospitals, fought hard against ratios demanded by nurses unions, primarily because there was no flexibility built into the equation, and penalties were imposed upon those who did not comply. HMC has injected some flexibility, keeping a 5-to-1 ratio whenever possible.

Meanwhile, rather than spend pandemic-related state and federal assistance on the “middleman,” meaning agency nurses for which the hospital paid $200 per hour, the hospital opted to put it toward retention bonuses and other initiatives for nurses and other providers of care.

“We basically said, ‘you’re here, and you work for us; we don’t want you to leave — so we’re going to pay you $20,000 over the next four years as a bonus, just to stay,’” he said, adding that very few nurses who accepted those terms have left.

Meanwhile, more recently, the hospital decided to make some additional investments, this time in recent college graduates, at a time when fewer hospitals were taking on such inexperienced individuals because of the high cost of training them. HMC offered them the chance to join the staff in May, after graduating, but not take on a full patient load until October.

On top of that, it offered something most “couldn’t say no to” — a $50,000 sign-on bonus for a commitment to stay five years.

“We said, ‘listen, we’ll cut you a check so long as you sign a note that says you’ll come and work for us,’” he said, adding that these bonuses were larger than most being offered and upfront in nature.

And they have worked, with many recent graduates signing on. And while many of his colleagues have questioned his math, Hatiras has told them, as he told BusinessWest, that, in the long run, it’s more cost-effective to incentivize nurses to stay in this aggressive fashion than it is to replace them when they leave. And that same guiding philosophy prompted him to put in place a similar program for experienced nurses, one that offers them $40,000 bonuses if they stay three years.

 

Reality Check

While there has been progress on workforce issues and other fronts, there are still a large number of pain points for hospitals, said Roose, adding that these will certainly continue in 2024.

“The pressures on hospitals have been increasing; they’ve been changing, and the needs of our community have been changing over the past several years, but the pressures have not relented,” he said, noting that the pandemic exacerbated the workforce crisis and compounded a financial crisis for hospitals across the country.

“Those various elements lead to pressures on everything from access to care for patients through traditional models that we’ve had for the past several decades, to having enough colleagues to provide care to meet the demands in different kinds of settings, to how to continue to invest in resources to innovate and grow to where healthcare is going.”

Moving forward, he said the healthcare system must continue to evolve to meet the changing needs of the public and continue to provide access to care, especially amid an ongoing shift toward more care being provided in outpatient settings.

“Hospitals and healthcare systems are evolving, but perhaps not quick enough to best meet those needs,” he went on. “We need to provide access points of care that are the most convenient, that are readily available, at the right level of care when needed, and with a high level of excellence.”

Watkins agreed, but noted that, while 2023 was certainly a time of ongoing challenge and duress for hospitals, it was also a period for rebuilding and, at CDH, celebrating such things as the 10th anniversary of the hospital’s partnership with Mass General Brigham, an expansion and renovation of the hospital’s labor and delivery suites, and the advancement of plans for expanding the ER, a project that will greatly enhance the delivery of care in that unit.

Ground will be broken on the new facility shortly, she said, adding that work to enlarge and redesign the ER brings into focus many of the pressing issues in healthcare today — everything from access to care to workplace conditions to retention of talent.

All are addressed in a design that adds 7,000 square feet of space but also improves safety through an overall configuration that enhances lines of sight while also improving staff satisfaction.

“They want to be in an environment that is pleasing to them, that they can move around in, because we spend a lot of the day at work,” Watkins said. “All of these things come back to workforce, which is going to be the key driver as we move into 2024.”

 

Bottom Line

As he talked briefly about his pending retirement and tenure at Baystate, Keroack joked that it has “never been dull.”

That’s an understatement and a rather polite way of summing up the past few years in particular.

It’s been a time of extreme challenge, but also intriguing and sometimes even exhilarating work to confront those challenges and find solutions.

As for what is to come and the outlook for 2024, hospitals will continue to rebuild and stress the basics. And, like any struggling sports team, they’ll look forward to the new year with optimism.

That’s the best you can do when you’re at a crossroads.

Tech Foundry CEO Tricia Canavan Is Excited About Latest Project

By
Tricia Canavan (far left) and HCC President George Timmons (far right) in the Tech Hub digital classroom with Tech Foundry graduates (and current Tech Hub fellows) Lasharie Weems, Shanice McKenzie, and Anelson Delacruz.
Special Coverage Women in Businesss

Promising Pipeline

Tricia Canavan (far left) and HCC President George Timmons (far right) in the Tech Hub digital classroom with Tech Foundry graduates (and current Tech Hub fellows) Lasharie Weems, Shanice McKenzie, and Anelson Delacruz.

Tricia Canavan (far left) and HCC President George Timmons (far right) in the Tech Hub digital classroom with Tech Foundry graduates (and current Tech Hub fellows) Lasharie Weems, Shanice McKenzie, and Anelson Delacruz.

 

Tech Foundry was launched in 2014 with a specific goal: to increase the technology workforce in Western Mass. at a time when employers were struggling to attract and retain talent.

“Since then, we’ve grown and really have focused on working with low- to moderate-income people and also people from non-traditional backgrounds who may be underrepresented in the tech sector,” said Tricia Canavan, who came on board as Tech Foundry’s CEO last year.

The nonprofit does so by offering professional development, technical career training, career coaching and internships, and job placement in order to connect people to existing IT opportunities, she added. “We’re very proud of the fact that our alums access living-wage jobs and are on these great career pathways.”

If anything, she noted, the need for Tech Foundry is stronger than ever. Recent studies of the workforce environment in Massachusetts suggest up to 400,000 people need to be attracted, recruited, or reskilled in order to keep business in the Bay State humming at optimal levels — many of those in the broad realm of IT.

“There has been a talent shortage in the tech sector and in other sectors, even pre-pandemic, but since the pandemic, we’ve seen those trends accelerate.”

“We all know that the tech sector is on fire, and there are lots and lots of opportunities for growth, and you don’t always need a college degree to access those things,” Canavan said of Tech Foundry’s innovative model that lets students stack certifications to help them get their foot in the door in IT and then progress up the career ladder.

“There has been a talent shortage in the tech sector and in other sectors, even pre-pandemic, but since the pandemic, we’ve seen those trends accelerate,” she added.

The reasons are varied, from mass retirements of Baby Boomers — which means the departure of much senior and middle management, as well as rank-and-file IT workers, from the workforce — to fewer children in the K-12 pipeline.

“Just by sheer numbers, we have fewer kids that are going to be graduating from high school and entering the workforce and/or going to college — that’s fewer kids to engage as young professionals once they complete their education. Also, some of the forecasts that I’ve seen have upwards of 60,000 young professionals projected to move from Massachusetts,” she added, for reasons ranging from cost of living to a housing shortage.

“It’s sort of this perfect storm of economic conditions that are creating persistent needs in the workforce for workers of all types, but there is absolutely a need for more workers in the tech sector.”

Tricia Canavan says Tech Hub is a way to address the region’s digital divide.

Tricia Canavan says Tech Hub is a way to address the region’s digital divide.

The core, 18-week Tech Foundry program has helped produce more of those workers locally, but the nonprofit is equally excited about its newest initiative, called Tech Hub, a broad collaboration that also includes Holyoke Community College (HCC), the Western Massachusetts Alliance for Digital Equity, the Massachusetts Broadband Institute, the Accelerate the Future Foundation, Comcast, Google, Bulkley Richardson, and other partners.

“This has been created as part of the Western Mass. Alliance for Digital Equity’s efforts to address digital equity, and the digital divide here in Western Mass.,” Canavan explained. “We, as part of the consortium working on the digital divide in Western Mass., identified an opportunity to be able to support digital-equity efforts while also continuing professional-development training for our staff, students, and alums.”

Located at 206 Maple St. in downtown Holyoke, Tech Hub, which opened to the public on Oct. 26, offers basic and intermediate digital-literacy training, with an eye on enabling people to access jobs of all kinds, not just specifically in IT.

“It starts off as basic as, ‘do you know how to use a mouse? Do you know how to use a trackpad? This is how you get on the internet,’ all the way up to exposure to things like Google Sheets, Google Docs, Microsoft Word, Excel, that sort of thing. We want to help people access the basic digital literacy that they need to thrive at work, at school, in healthcare, and connecting to others in the community.”

That’s the first leg of the Tech Hub stool, she explained; the others are providing computers free of charge to eligible people, and providing technical support and one-on-one troubleshooting services to people in the community.

“Everybody probably has someone in their family that uses technology but maybe is not an expert. When they have a problem, where do they go? So we envision providing that support for the community through Tech Hub.”

 

Confidence Restored

As a single, stay-at-home mother with young boys, Lasharie Weems often felt overwhelmed — particularly when it came to technology.  “My 5-year old was probably more digitally literate than I was,” she said.

The remote instruction her children required during the pandemic proved even more baffling, she added. “My older two sons go to a science and technology school. I struggled to even help them with their homework.”

“We want to help people access the basic digital literacy that they need to thrive at work, at school, in healthcare, and connecting to others in the community.”

After enrolling in Tech Foundry’s free, 18-week program, she said her confidence was restored, and it actually brought her family closer together.

Weems now works for Tech Foundry. She told her story at the grand opening of Tech Hub, where she will be serving as an American Connection Corps fellow.

“Today is an exciting occasion for all of us,” Weems she told the crowd assembled outside Tech Hub’s digital classroom. “But for me, it’s a personal achievement as I celebrate the journey it took to get me here. Tech Hub is my opportunity to pay it forward, to help countless others identify and bridge the gap in digital equity.”

Canavan said connections like that are important.

“What was exciting to us about this project was the ability to expand the impact of Tech Foundry, but we’re also staffing Tech Hub in part with alums of Tech Foundry through a one-year professional digital fellowship program,” she explained. “They work under the guidance of Tech Foundry staff to provide the training and technical support services. In addition, we will have students who will be doing co-op and internship work while they’re in the program.”

From left: Tech Hub fellow Shanice McKenzie, Tech Hub manager Shannon Mumblo

From left: Tech Hub fellow Shanice McKenzie, Tech Hub manager Shannon Mumblo, and Tech Foundry deputy director Michelle Wilson in the Tech Hub digital classroom.

HCC President George Timmons said it was fitting for Tech Hub to be based at the Picknelly Adult & Family Education Center (PAFEC), one of the college’s satellite campuses in the heart of the city, which also houses HCC’s Adult Learning Center as well as other community programs, including the Holyoke High Opportunity Academy, an alternative public high-school program. 

“The mission of Holyoke Community College is to educate, inspire, and connect,” he said. “Through this initiative, we hope to promote access to technology and connectivity, digital literacy, and education, while giving individuals the tools they need to be successful.”

Holyoke Mayor Joshua Garcia agreed, noting that four students who attend the Holyoke High Opportunity Academy at PAFEC have already signed up to be part of the Tech Hub program. 

“I think we can all agree that digital literacy in 2023 is as vital as reading literacy was 50 years ago,” the mayor said. “Whether it’s filling out a job application, communicating with a customer, maintaining accessible records, or even booking a flight, digital fluency is a necessary life skill.

“But the Tech Hub mission recognizes something else: that there exists a digital divide that is the result of inequities in access, opportunity, housing, income, and schooling,” he went on. “The free training and support that will take place at this site and at community partner locations is going to be a liberating game changer.”

 

Opportunity Knocks

Meanwhile, important work continues at Tech Foundry, Canavan said, and applications for the next cohort of students are open at thetechfoundry.org through December.

“We work very intentionally to engage with the community to get the word out about TechFoundry, and there are a lot of different strategies that we use to do that,” she noted, including social media, referrals from community organizations, and partnering with schools to make students aware that Tech Foundry can be a career-development option for them.

“I think it’s a really good option for people because the training is excellent,” she added. “It’s really an intensive training with a great track record of people accessing employment in the tech sector after they graduate, and it’s at no cost.”

Canavan, who has a deep background in nonprofit management and was also president of a staffing agency, United Personnel, said it’s gratifying to see people come through the Tech Foundry program and improve their lives, and she’s hoping for similar impact from Tech Hub.

“I was eager to return to the nonprofit world after selling my business a couple of years ago and felt very fortunate when this job was open at Tech Foundry. I think it’s a great opportunity for me to use my background in recruiting and staffing and also leverage the workforce and economic-development work that I was doing in that role in the nonprofit world, in partnership with residents and community partners and employers,” she told BusinessWest.

“I love this job because it’s pragmatic and solutions-focused,” she added. “There’s tons of opportunity right now, so how do we work together to help residents of Western Mass. access those opportunities? It’s exciting.”

Construction Firms Acclimate to a Changing Landscape

By Contributor
Construction Special Coverage

Building Momentum

By Emily Thurlow

With the federal COVID-19 public-health declaration coming to an end this past May, the once-global pandemic may seem all but a distant memory. For many businesses, however, its impact certainly hasn’t vanished from sight.

Challenges in obtaining materials and equipment continue to vex general contractors in the construction industry in Western Mass. and across the nation. This extended period of uncertainty — in both duration and scope — has left many feeling uncertain about the future beyond 2023, but there are positive signs, too.

Rising building costs and higher interest rates have been of particular concern to Kevin Perrier, president and CEO of Five Star Building Corp. After work in the Easthampton company’s largest sector — aviation — was essentially grounded for the past two years, Perrier says he was expecting business to be on the slower side.

But to his pleasant surprise, he was wrong. Quite wrong.

“We really saw the aviation sector rebound this year. It makes up for essentially two years of no growth and no construction,” he said. “Honestly, this was one of our busiest years I can remember.”

And Five Star isn’t alone. In fact, despite ongoing resource constraints, construction firms like Laplante Construction Inc. in East Longmeadow and Sweitzer Construction LLC in Monson are reporting an increase in the volume of their work, while Fontaine Bros. Inc. in Springfield calls 2023 the firm’s best-ever year for revenue.

“We really saw the aviation sector rebound this year. It makes up for essentially two years of no growth and no construction. Honestly, this was one of our busiest years I can remember.”

“This year has been good. It’s been steady,” said David Fontaine Jr., CEO of Fontaine Bros. “I think our efforts to work really hard to deliver our projects on time and on budget have really strengthened our relationships with our clients because they’ve seen that we’re still getting things done, successfully, no matter how difficult the climate is.”

Reflecting back on those unprecedented times, BusinessWest spoke with several companies in the region who shared how they have been constantly rolling with the punches by being as strategic as possible when planning out projects and seeking alternatives in design, materials, or vendors when applicable, and, above all, maintaining the safety of everyone involved.

 

Gaining Altitude

Within two weeks of the national shutdowns to stop the spread of COVID-19 in March 2020, Perrier estimates that Five Star lost “millions upon millions of dollars worth of work.” Initially, projects were put on a temporary hold, but shortly thereafter, the majority of those projects were canceled, he said.

Laplante Construction recently completed this new home build in East Longmeadow.

Laplante Construction recently completed this new home build in East Longmeadow.

This year, the company, which has been working up and down the East Coast in the aviation sector for the past 13 years, has more than made up for that lost time working with clients like Delta Air Lines and HMSHost International, a U.S. highway and airport food and beverage service company that is a subsidiary of the Italian company Autogrill SpA.

Some of the projects Five Star has completed include the new Gachi Sushi House in Terminal C at Boston Logan International Airport, as well as a Hudson store, offering food, beverages, and travel amenities, in the Terminal B/C connector, and a Hudson Nonstop at Charleston International Airport in South Carolina.

More recent projects underway at Logan include a new hangar roof for Delta Air Lines, some infrastructure work in the lower levels of the airport, and building the new Fox & Flight Restaurant in Terminal A for travel retailer and restaurateur Paradies Lagardère. Perrier said the new restaurant is slated to be the largest restaurant at the airport.

“I think our efforts to work really hard to deliver our projects on time and on budget have really strengthened our relationships with our clients because they’ve seen that we’re still getting things done, successfully, no matter how difficult the climate is.”

“At any given time, we usually have six to 12 projects going in the aviation sector, primarily at Logan,” he said. “The new Terminal E expansion at Logan kept us very busy; it generated quite a bit of work for us to the point that we were actually turning down bids out there. We just kind of reached our capacity for the summer because it was such a push all at once.”

Combined with several mixed-use projects, Five Star had its hands full, he added.

Meanwhile, Laplante Construction and Fontaine Bros. also share glowing reports for their work in the residential and commercial sectors, respectively.

Since expanding his business three years ago to Cape Cod, specializing in mid- to high-end home building and remodeling, Bill Laplante, president of Laplante Construction, says he hasn’t seen any kind of slowdown as a result of increased interest rates. Approximately 80% of the company’s business involves residential projects.

“So the Cape market has been very, very good. There’s an awful lot of work out there,” he said. “I just think there are fewer people out there that are relying on mortgages and are self-financing, or they’re paying cash for work to be done out there.”

For Fontaine Bros., projects that have been publicly funded have remained more consistent than privately funded or developer-driven projects.

Recently, the company completed the three-story DeBerry-Swan Elementary School project on Union Street in Springfield, which opened in the fall. Fontaine is also currently working on school-building projects in Westfield, Worcester, Tyngsboro, Walpole, Fitchburg, and East Brookfield, as well as the UMass Amherst campus.

Pat Sweitzer, operations manager of Sweitzer Construction, also described 2023 as an especially good year. She said that she and her husband, Craig Sweitzer, who co-own and operate the company, attribute this year’s successes to their employees and partners.

Sweitzer Construction has developed an expertise in dental-office construction

Sweitzer Construction has developed an expertise in dental-office construction, including this project for Alliance Dental Care in East Longmeadow.

Pat also offered praise to her sons, Brian and Michael Sweitzer, as both have taken on leadership roles as the firm is in the process of transitioning into a second-generation company.

On the smaller end of projects, the company repaired some buildings at Smith College’s campus and built a new dental office at 265 Benton Dr. in East Longmeadow. One of the larger projects on the company’s docket this year was the conversion of a 19th-century mill building in Northampton into Cambium Analytica’s safety-compliance lab for cannabis products. The new sterile testing lab, which hasn’t opened yet, is located at 320 Riverside Dr., at the site of the former Northampton Cutlery Co.

“Taking a former very old factory building and turning it into a sterile testing lab … the outcome is just remarkable,” Sweitzer said.

Mark Sullivan, president and executive project manager for D.A. Sullivan & Sons Inc., called 2023 the Northampton company’s “first normal year” in several years, adding that things started to stabilize, in a post-COVID sense, during the second half of 2022, and that momentum has carried through 2023.

 

Strength Amid Challenges

While supply-chain issues have dramatically improved across the board since the middle of the pandemic, almost every contractor BusinessWest spoke to has highlighted challenges with electrical components and equipment like meter sockets, switch gears, generators, and transformers. The demand for transformers has been exacerbated by the lack of available domestic manufacturers to meet the increased need.

“Some of those electrical items still have ridiculously long lead times,” Laplante said. “We built a house — literally finished the house a year and a half ago — and there was supposed to be a ground-mounted transformer for the electric service to the house, and they didn’t have them.”

While waiting for the transformer to come in, he said the electric company has supplied the customer with temporary power. “That transformer has been on back order for a year and a half, and we probably won’t see it for another year. When it comes in, we’ll swap it out.”

For the most part, customers have remained understanding, he added. Other materials that continue to be difficult to source in a timely manner include mechanical equipment, like rooftop units for healing and cooling equipment.

“It seems like anything that has a manufacturing process that has a lot of little pieces and parts that are coming from all over continues to be difficult,” Fontaine said. “And for things like, say, a chiller or a piece of switchgear, they won’t start the manufacturing process until they have every little piece or part of what they need at the facility where they put it together.”

Highlighting a similar concern, Sweitzer said her company has made efforts to order products ahead of time. On Nov. 28, a groundbreaking ceremony was held for one of its projects, Embr Springfield, a $2 million dispensary on Boston Road. At nearly the same time, Sweitzer Construction was ordering the rooftop heating and cooling unit.

“We’re just digging the foundation now, and we already ordered the rooftop unit because it will take that long for it to come in,” she said. “The long lead times are a challenge.”

Sullivan noted that, because lead times for electrical components and mechanical equipment are still driving the overall work schedule for D.A. Sullivan & Sons, the firm’s focus has been on pre-construction services and identifying items they feel may trip up their plans.

Another niche facing long lead times is luxury appliance brands like Wolf and Sub-Zero, according to Laplante. Under current lead times, both brands are averaging roughly 12 months to arrive once ordered. Similar to the transformer problem, Laplante said both manufacturers are providing small, temporary refrigerators until the one that was ordered arrives.

“A lot of the appliance companies and the manufacturers are doing the best they can to provide a temporary fix until the final product is delivered,” he said.

 

View to the Future

As the end of the year beckons, many of the companies BusinessWest spoke to are feeling cautiously optimistic about 2024.

Sweitzer has a number of projects on the books, including a few with new partnerships with other contractors like Kleeberg Sheet Metal Inc. in Ludlow.

Sullivan said his firm is wrapping up some municipal work and starting some new projects at libraries, fire stations, and safety complexes, and even has a few projects at local universities and colleges in the queue for next year.

“Next year and beyond, we have the biggest backlog we’ve had in over 10 years,” he said.

Meanwhile, Fontaine Bros. has secured a healthy amount of public-education work for next year and is positioning itself to be ready for other projects on the horizon.

“I think, generally speaking, the industry is always changing. It’s always exciting,” Fontaine said. “It’s been a challenging couple of years, for sure, but it’s something new and exciting to wake up to every day, and we’re thankful that we’ve continued to be able to be successful through it. So hopefully, 2024 and on will get easier, but whatever happens, we’ll be ready to tackle it.”

Though the residential trend of smaller luxury homes looks to continue, Laplante said there are also a number of very large-scale luxury home builds on the books.

“We’ve seen people downsize and go from a large, two-story home to a high-end, smaller ranch with very, very nice amenities on one-floor living, but interestingly enough, we also have some very large homes in the pipeline for next year,” he said. “This is particularly interesting because, generally speaking, over the last five years, there’s been a trend to reduce the overall size of the homes that are being built to single-story living.”

As for Five Star, Perrier says the new year still holds a lot of question marks for him as the aviation sector tends to be a little more unpredictable. Though there are infrastructure and retail build-out projects on the books, higher fuel costs and tightening budgets can often bump jobs at the last second, he explained.

“What tomorrow brings, I don’t know. I guess I’m still going in with the same hesitation I had for 2023,” he said. “Hopefully, I’ll be pleasantly surprised again.”

Monson Celebrates Its Rural Character

By
Craig and Pat Sweitzer
Community Spotlight Special Coverage

Community Spotlight

Craig and Pat Sweitzer

Craig and Pat Sweitzer at the recently unveiled mural in the center of Monson.
Staff Photo

“Sophisticated rural.”

That’s how Craig Sweitzer, who has lived and worked in Monson for more than 40 years now — and served on the town’s Planning Board for most of that stretch — chose to describe this community of almost 9,000 people on the eastern edge of Hampden County.

By that, he meant that this town is certainly small and rural, but, as he put it, “you don’t have to leave town to eat.”

Indeed, the community’s downtown boasts several restaurants and, at last count, three coffee shops, said Sweitzer, who, with his wife, Pat, owns and operates Sweitzer Construction, a design-build firm that specializes in medical facilities (especially dental offices) and, more recently, cannabis operations of all kinds.

Indeed, the arrival of the cannabis industry has brought work across all aspects of that sector, Sweitzer said, from dispensaries to production facilities; from testing labs to an armored-car operation in Belchertown created to handle the large amounts of cash generated by these businesses.

“After you get your feet wet in something, you master it, and it leads to more work in that area,” he said, adding that the same is true of dental offices (his firm has now built more than 200 of them), and it is now true with cannabis facilities. “And when you do design/build, you offer the whole package — the architecture, the financing, the site selection … and we’ve done the same thing with cannabis.”

The Sweitzers made Monson their home and the base for their business back in the ’80s, and they’ve watched it grow and evolve. A little.

“Monson still has its rural quality — we still don’t have a traffic light,” Craig said, adding that the town has not changed much over the past four decades, and for those who live there, this is mostly a good thing; sophisticated rural is an attractive quality, one that many are seeking, especially post-pandemic.

Indeed, the town has seen a slight rise in population in the wake of COVID and the manner in which it prompted some living in large population centers to seek more rural areas in which to both live and work.

“Post-COVID, flexible work and hybrid models became very attractive, and so did communities like Monson, because obviously it costs much less to buy a house out here then it does in the Boston area,” said Dan Moriarty, president and CEO of Monson Savings Bank, who grew up in town and thus admitted to some bias, adding that, if the proposed east-west rail project becomes reality, Mosnon and communities like it will become even more attractive to those looking to work in Boston but not necessarily live there.

“There’s still that sense of small-town feel and community here in Monson, and that’s very attractive to many people,” he went on. “It’s a nice place to live, and I get the best of both worlds because I work there as well.”

He said Monson is close enough from Springfield and Worcester to be an attractive landing spot for those working in those metropolitan areas. Meanwhile, it has its own economy in a way, with those aforementioned restaurants and coffee shops, a supermarket, several service businesses, and some ventures that accentuate its rural personality while also making it a destination.

That list includes Silver Bell Farms, a multifaceted enterprise that features everything from Christmas-tree sales (although not this year as the farm builds up inventory for the future) to many different kinds of events, to a new lighting display called Silver Bell Nights.

“There’s still that sense of small-town feel and community here in Monson, and that’s very attractive to many people.”

Michael Moore, who runs the operation with his wife, Laura, said Silver Bell Nights is an intriguing addition to a portfolio of events and attractions that brings more than 50,000 people to the farm each year, with activities running year-round and especially in the fall and then around the holidays.

“This is something we’re really excited about — it’s a dazzling outdoor lighting display,” he told BusinessWest, adding that the lights were turned on amid considerable fanfare on Nov. 18, and the show will go on until the new year. “We’re looking forward to many new visitors discovering the farm and all that we have here.”

For this the latest installment of its Community Spotlight series, BusinessWest visited Monson to get a feel for what sophisticated rural is all about.

 

The Nature of Things

Craig Sweitzer said that, during his long period of service on the Planning Board, the largest housing project to come before that body has been a subdivision of no more than 12 homes.

“Monson is quite hilly, and we have a lot of land that’s tricky to build on,” he said, adding that this topography helps explain why, unlike some of its neighbors, and especially Belchertown, it has not seen large-scale residential development.

What it has seen is slow but continuous growth, one or two homes at a time, on existing roads.

Michael Moore says Silver Bell Nights is an exciting new addition

Michael Moore says Silver Bell Nights is an exciting new addition to what has become a year-round destination.
Staff Photo

“Although there are no massive subdivisions, there’s always a steady flow of new lots being created from existing road frontage,” Sweitzer explained, adding that any growth has been incremental and not (like Belchertown) explosive.

What the new residents encounter, and what those already living there thoroughly enjoy, is a town that’s both isolated and accessible at the same time, one with a small yet thriving downtown, a lively arts community, some intriguing new businesses, and nature.

“There’s a lot here … it’s a quiet, vibrant town with its own personality,” said Pat Sweitzer as she walked with BusinessWest on Main Street. “There’s a lot to like here.”

All of this is captured in, and manifested in, a mural adorning the wall of Adams Hometown Market on Main Street. The byproduct of a project led by local artists Melissa Stratton-Pandina and Shara Osgood and unveiled in September, the mural is titled “Past, Present and Future.” It depicts town landmarks; some of its history, including its granite quarries and involvement in the Civil War; and rural nature — there’s an image of a mountain lion that has become part of town lore, said the Sweitzers, who believe they’ve seen the cat.

The mural, created with large amounts of feedback from the community, effectively tells the story of a town that celebrates its past — including the recent past and a still-ongoing recovery from the June 2011 tornado that roared through Main Street — as well as its present.

And there is much to celebrate, including a high quality of life; a stable, still-evolving downtown; a vibrant arts community thanks to the ongoing efforts of the Monson Arts Council; annual gatherings such as Summerfest and a popular food-truck festival; and what both Moriarty and the Sweitzers called an entrepreneurial spirit that has yielded a number of intriguing new business ventures in recent years.

Dan Moriarty says the broad goal in Monson is to attract new business

Dan Moriarty says the broad goal in Monson is to attract new business while maintaining the community’s rural look, feel, and personality.
Staff Photo

Overall, the business community is quite diverse, said Moriarty, and includes many ventures in the broad realm of tourism and hospitality. These include the restaurants and coffee shops downtown; small bakeries and specialty food producers, such as Cookies by Ray and Happy Hen Farmstand, which sells everything from eggs (hence the name) to a variety of baked goods; and agriculture-related businesses such as Echo Hill Orchards and Winery, Bryson’s Maple Syrup, and Silver Bell Farms, a relatively recent addition that continues to evolve.

Indeed, what started as a Christmas-tree farm roughly a decade ago has become a site for events and activities year-round, said Moore, listing everything from private events such as birthday parties to an Easter egg hunt, Christmas in July, a fall corn maze, barrel-train rides, tractor-pulled wagon rides, and even interactive theater productions.

There are plenty of holiday-season happenings and programs as well, including Santa story time, wreath decorating, and a farm store that sells everything from Christmas ornaments to cider donuts.

The big addition this year is Silver Bell Nights, the holiday light experience that features a number of different displays throughout the property.

Monson at a glance

Year Incorporated: 1775
Population: 8,865
Area: 44.8 square miles
County: Hampden
Residential Tax Rate: $15.86
Commercial Tax Rate: $15.86
Median Household Income: $52,030
Median Family Income: $58,607
Type of Government: Select Board, Open Town Meeting
Latest information available

Moore said the initiative represents a sizable investment, but one that will make Silver Bell more of a holiday destination — and tradition — for area residents, and a vehicle for continued growth at the farm.

Moriarity said Monson’s challenge moving forward — and it’s the same challenge facing many smaller towns — is to promote growth of the business community while maintaining the rural quality that makes it so attractive.

“Like most small towns, we try to be open-minded,” he told BusinessWest. “I’m very passionate and hopeful for continual pro-business decisions in town, where we can bring in some small-business opportunities for people, because I think that, for the town to be viable, we must be open to new business opportunities, while at the same protecting the open space and beautiful landscape the town has.”

 

Getting a Feel for It

Getting back to that mural, it tells a story — and it is quite a story.

A story of a community that is continually looking for ways to build on an already-attractive landscape and create more reasons for people to want to live and work there.

That’s the big picture in Monson — figuratively, but also quite literally.

Elms College CE Programs Offer Degrees of Progress

By
Kimberly Quinonez
Professional Development

Professional Development

Kimberly Quinonez

After getting some help rising out of poverty, Kimberly Quinonez is now in the business of helping others.

Kimberly Quinonez says she’s always had a passion for helping people, and a desire to make doing so a career.

But for most of her life, she was the one needing help.

A native of South Carolina, she grew up in a life of poverty, addiction, homelessness, and a sixth-grade education, and was desperate for a way out — and up — from all that.

After getting clean and moving to Western Mass., she completed her high-school equivalency at Springfield Technical Community College (STCC) at age 43 and enrolled in the school’s two-year associate-degree program in social work. And while still earning that high-school equivalency, she told BusinessWest, she met Wally Soufane, social work specialist at Elms College, who became a mentor and essentially put her on a path to the bachelor’s degree-completion program offered at the school.

Completing that program, and the associate degree before that, were stern challenges, she said, noting that there were several times when she wanted to quit because the combination of life and school seemed like too much. But she persevered, with help (there’s that word again) from Soufane and others who helped provide her with the will to carry on.

“I kept on and kept on; I had some discouraging moments, but I just couldn’t give up because this was something that I really wanted for myself,” she said. “And I really like helping people.”

This past May, she completed that program and was among the speakers at Elms’ commencement ceremonies, her story riveting those in attendance. Today, she’s employed at the Hampden County Sheriff’s Department as a care coordinator and counselor, while also working toward a master’s degree in social work at Springfield College.

“If we accept a student, our job is to support them. If they’re going to do the work, we need to support them as best we can and help them be successful, and we do that; our retention rates, over 80%, are very good, and our graduation rates, in the mid-60s, are very good.”

Her story touches on many elements of the bachelor’s degree-completion programs at Elms, said Walter Breau, executive dean of the college’s Kirley School of Continuing Education — everything from its ability to help non-traditional students set and achieve goals to the way its administrators and instructors work with students to help them overcome challenges and complete their degrees.

“If we accept a student, our job is to support them,” he went on. “If they’re going to do the work, we need to support them as best we can and help them be successful, and we do that; our retention rates, over 80%, are very good, and our graduation rates, in the mid-60s, are very good.”

Social work is one of the more popular programs at the Kirley School, said Breau, adding that others, many of them offered online, include computer information technology and security (CITS), computer science, healthcare management, speech-language pathology assistant, management and marketing, psychology, and RN-BSN.

Overall, there are now roughly 200 individuals enrolled in continuing-education (CE) programs at Elms, roughly 20% of the undergraduate population, said Breau, a veteran administrator at the college who recently took the helm at the Kirley School, noting that the goal is to grow enrollment to 300 and beyond.

Walter Breau says the Kirley School is focused

Walter Breau says the Kirley School is focused on not only enrolling people in degree programs, but seeing them through to the finish line.
Staff Photo

And there is certainly some momentum with regard to enrollment, as the region’s community colleges, bolstered by the MassReconnect Program, which provides free tuition to those over age 25, are seeing their first real rise in enrollment since well before the pandemic.

For this issue, BusinessWest continues its series spotlighting professional-development programs across the region with a visit to the Kirley School and an examination of how it can change lives, like Quinonez’s, in a profound way.

 

Grade Expectations

This past May, Elms’ School of Continuing Education was officially renamed the Sister Kathleen Kirley ’66 School of Continuing Education, following a donation to the school in her honor.

And the new name is quite fitting, said Breau, noting that Sr. Kathleen, a member of the Sisters of St. Joseph, now retired from the school, was director of Continuing Education at Elms from 1977 to 1990 and served as the dean of Continuing Education and Graduate Studies from 1990 to 1998.

“If you look at the mission of the Sisters of St. Joseph, their goal is to serve the community,” he noted. “And at some point, instead of just having the traditional programs where you come to campus Monday through Friday, they understood that there was a population of individuals we could serve in a different way.”

That was the genesis of continuing education at Elms, he said, adding that, for more than a half-century now, the school has continued to serve non-traditional students with a variety of programs aimed at helping individuals not only earn degrees, but forge careers in growing fields.

These include collaborations with the region’s community colleges, whereby students can earn bachelor’s degrees on the community-college campuses. Indeed, there are social work programs at Asnuntuck Community College, Berkshire Community College, Greenfield Community College, and Springfield Technical Community College, said Breau, noting that many who earn their bachelor’s degrees at those locations, and on the Elms campus as well, go on to earn a master’s degree and become a licensed clinical social worker in the Bay State.

“If you’re a computer science major at STCC and you’re looking to earn your bachelor’s, we make sure there’s no loss of credits. You finish at STCC in May, and you start with us in August in the computer science bachelor’s program. It’s just another sign to students that we’ve deliberately thought about how to make you successful.”

“We have many of our students at STCC, Asnuntuck, and here on campus go forward and get their MSW,” he said, adding that there is “more than enough demand” for individuals who have those credentials.

Other popular programs include RN-BSN and speech-language pathology assistant, he said, adding that there is growing demand in both fields, and especially nursing.

Elms has articulation agreements, more than 50 in all, with the area community colleges, Breau explained, noting that these partnerships help create what he called “seamless pathways” as individuals take the credits they earned while completing an associate degree and apply them toward a bachelor’s degree at Elms.

“If you’re a computer science major at STCC and you’re looking to earn your bachelor’s, we make sure there’s no loss of credits,” he noted. “You finish at STCC in May, and you start with us in August in the computer science bachelor’s program. It’s just another sign to students that we’ve deliberately thought about how to make you successful.”

There are many such signs, he went on, adding that one point of emphasis at the Kirley School is to not simply merely get people enrolled in the various degree programs, but to see them through to completion.

And completion can be challenging, Breau said, noting that more than 75% of those enrolled in CE programs at Elms are 25 and older, which means they’re likely dealing with a number of life matters, such as work and family.

“They’re an older population who have decided, for one reason or another, that they want to fit in coursework with work, family, and other obligations,” he explained. “Our goal is first to show that it’s possible, it’s accessible, it’s affordable. People can see the end point even before they start.”

After showing it’s possible, the school then helps make it possible, with everything from flexible start dates to initiatives to help them step back in if they happen to hit pause for whatever reason, to many forms of student support, such as a 24-hour tutoring program.

Quinonez has seen these efforts to provide support up close and personal.

She said those at Elms were constantly supporting and “checking up on me” while she was in school. And they still do, months after she graduated.

“They still reach out to me today and say, ‘Kimberly, how’s it going?’” she told BusinessWest. “Elms changed me; I grew up and matured a lot — Elms College became my parents.”

 

Bottom Line

Today, Quinonez is working toward another degree at Springfield College and expects to complete that work in May. She said her time at Elms didn’t just help her find a career — instead of a job — but it instilled in her the desire to continue to reach higher and position herself to help people in more ways.

That’s what Sr. Kathleen Kirley had in mind when she laid the groundwork for today’s highly successful CE department at Elms.

The program has provided pathways to success and opened doors for people like Quinonez, who just needed a little help. And now they can help others.

How to Navigate the Holidays with Hearing Difficulties

By Contributor
Features

At a Loss

By Dr. Jennifer Sowards

 

The year-end holidays are fast-approaching, and it can be a festive time, with many people busy meal planning and shopping for the perfect gift.

However, for people with hearing loss, it may also be a stressful time, filled with gatherings where it will be difficult to understand conversations with family and friends. Hearing loss is tricky because it’s not an all-or-nothing thing: most people report they can hear, but it’s the clarity that becomes a problem. This is why many people still have untreated hearing loss. Most people don’t notice their own hearing loss because, to them, it sounds like other people are mumbling.

One of the first signs of hearing loss is difficulty understanding speech when there is background noise present — and this is what happens at holiday gatherings.

Even with hearing aids, navigating group settings can be a challenge. Here are some tips for the upcoming gatherings:

• Try to pick a spot that will be less noisy (away from fans or music).

• Try to position yourself as close as possible to the people you are trying to hear.

• Try not to be embarrassed to tell people you are having difficulty, and ask them to speak less rapidly or to move to a quieter spot with you.

• Pay attention to context clues to help you predict what comes next. For example, if you hear the word ‘weather,’ the next topic will likely pertain to cold, snow, rain, warm, etc.

• Don’t nod your head and smile if you didn’t understand what was said; ask the speaker to repeat to avoid embarrassing exchanges.

• If someone tells you a phone number or spells a name for you, repeat back what they said to make sure you heard it correctly.

• If you misunderstood part of a sentence, ask a specific question about the part you missed, rather than saying “what?” (For example, “where did you hide the gifts?” or “who is Ted bringing to dinner?”)

• Try to keep a positive attitude. There are some situations where it is hard to hear even for people with normal hearing.

Communication partners can also support their friends and family with hearing loss during the holidays:

• Enunciate words and face the person you are speaking with.

• Make sure you have the person’s attention if you want to tell them something important.

• Help manage background noise. Lower the volume or turn off background music or television, put down rugs in areas with hard floors (echoes in a room can exacerbate the noise), and make sure the room is well-lit to allow for clear visual cues.

• It’s OK to be frustrated, but try not to take it out on the person with hearing loss. Gentle reminders about their dependence on you might actually be helpful motivation to address any untreated hearing issues.

• Hearing aids aren’t hearing cures; even those with treated loss or normal hearing can still struggle at noisy events.

At Florence Hearing Health Care, our recommendation is for anyone noticing any hearing difficulties to have a comprehensive hearing evaluation with an audiologist to establish a baseline. The first thing we do is check to make sure there is no wax blocking the ears. We also make sure there are no infections or eardrum problems that could be treated by a physician. From this evaluation, the audiologist will be able to tell you exactly what your hearing ability is and if treatment is recommended.

Sometimes, holiday gatherings provide the inspiration for this first step in diagnosing and treating hearing loss.

 

Jennifer Sowards, Au.D. is an audiologist and founder of Florence Hearing Health Care.

PDC Inc. Continues to Broaden Its Scope of Work

By Contributor
PDC owners Nick Shaink (left) and Ron Perry
Building Trades

Beyond Four Walls

By Emily Thurlow

The Newman Catholic Center

The Newman Catholic Center at UMass Amherst is among PDC’s notable recent projects.

One of Nick Shaink’s earliest memories with Professional Drywall Construction Inc. was working as a laborer for the buildout of the Target store at the Holyoke Mall. As a teenager, he worked with the Springfield-based commercial drywall contractor on weekends and on summer breaks.

Now, more than two decades later, the firm is undertaking larger-scale projects, like a 900-room dormitory at the University of Connecticut, and Shaink is co-owner and vice president of PDC Inc.

While the company’s name reflects its origins in drywall, PDC offers services in structural metal framing, finish carpentry, acoustical ceilings, wood framing, plastering, toilet partitions, and more. Most recently, the company landed a job that solely involves installing metal panels on the exterior of a building.

“We’re starting to get work that’s not our traditional scope of work — it’s our expanded scope of work,” co-owner and President Ron Perry said.

Founded in 1994 by John Kendzierski, PDC has been affiliated with the local carpenters’ and laborers’ unions since 1997.

Over the course of Shaink’s career with PDC, he’s held nearly every job — from carpenter and general superintendent to vice president of Operations. A native of Connecticut, he had aspirations of running his own business and eventually relocated to Hampshire County.

Perry, who has been with the company for eight years, was previously a construction manager for two decades. In that prior capacity, he often hired PDC for construction projects, which is how he met Shaink. Over time, Perry learned that they shared similar ambitions. After Shaink approached Perry about going into business together, the pair purchased the company in 2018.

“I’ve always wanted to own a business; that’s always been a dream of mine,” Perry said. “So when this opportunity came up, it was something that I couldn’t pass up.”

Since then, the business has expanded its footprint into Connecticut, opening an office in Norwalk in 2018, and into New York, with an office in Malta in 2021. The multiple locations support each other, Perry said.

While PDC’s Springfield headquarters is handling some of the larger projects, such as the interior framing, insulation, and drywall for UConn’s hockey arena, its Malta location is currently working on a Starbucks at Rivers Casino & Resort Schenectady. For now, the decision remains to take the growth pattern a little slower at the company’s newest office.

“I’ve always wanted to own a business; that’s always been a dream of mine. So when this opportunity came up, it was something that I couldn’t pass up.”

“We want to make sure that we build the right team. We want to make sure that we have the right manpower, instead of taking the giant job out in New York where we could potentially fail,” Perry said. “We’re starting a little slower and trying to grow responsibly there.”

 

Piecing It Together

Over the years, PDC has built a name for itself in renovation and new, large-scale construction projects for retail, medical, and educational organizations in Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Connecticut. The company also has a bonding capacity of up to $100 million.

Notable structures that PDC has had a hand in include the Bone & Joint Institute at Hartford Hospital, Baystate Medical Center’s Hospital of the Future expansion, Taconic High School in Pittsfield, and Wahconah Regional High School in Dalton.

PDC owners Nick Shaink (left) and Ron Perry

PDC owners Nick Shaink (left) and Ron Perry say they want to keep growing the company gradually and smartly.

The company has also worked on more than 30 projects at UMass Amherst in the last 15 years, Shaink said, from its striking design of Isenberg School of Management to the UMass Design Building and the Newman Catholic Center.

At the campus’s Old Chapel, the company installed pre-fabricated, structural cold-formed metal framing, sheathing, and roof blocking on the building’s exterior, and installed framing walls and drywall on the interior. Workers also installed soffits, which is the underside of part of an architectural structure like an arch.

Work also included the installation of wood stairs, acoustical ceiling tiles, and acoustical plaster systems.

“Our goal is to try to do as many of the things we’re good at under one contract. It gives us more control over costs. It gives us more flexibility … it gives us more work on that job, as contracts are a little bigger,” Perry said. “We’re able to do more work with less — that’s why we want our jobs to be bigger. We want to do a bigger scope of work.”

Drywall — a staple in modern homes and buildings in the U.S., also referred to as wallboard or plasterboard — is made of two paper boards with gypsum, a gray or white soft sulfate mineral, in the middle.

The prototype for the invention was patented by Augustine Sackett in 1894, according to the National Inventors Hall of Fame. However, it wasn’t widely accepted as a building material until the 1940s.

Taking the art of drywall a step further in customization, PDC uses a unique method to mill a perfect corner, called ‘origami.’ Much like the Japanese art of folding objects out of paper, PDC’s approach enables its employees to shape a piece of drywall to fit a space more efficiently at the Springfield shop beforehand. Instead of using three separate pieces of drywall to make a column, they can use one piece of drywall, fold it, and glue it together in the desired angle, then install it in one piece.

By using this method, Perry explained, the drywall is not only a durable solution, but it is also a more efficient one, as the profiles are pre-fabricated in the shop. “It makes our lives in the field less complicated. It’s efficiency in the field.”

And, as with most contractors, time and scheduling are of the utmost importance.

 

Leveraging Growth

About a decade ago, the annual drop in temperature also meant a drop in projects. But for the past five years, PDC hasn’t really slowed with the changing of the seasons, Perry said. “It doesn’t ever stop.”

In the months leading up to COVID-19, the company secured a number of jobs, which helped carry it through what were some trying times for other organizations. Despite the uncertainty, Shaink said the company’s workload never really slowed down.

Fortunately, even as businesses across all sectors, especially in the construction realm, have battled persistent workforce shortages, labor has not been much of an issue at PDC, as the company continues to fluctuate between 280 and 300 employees.

The main obstacle during the pandemic — and it’s still an issue — is supply-chain issues for materials. The variety of metal studs the company uses for projects has traditionally been available within a week or two. But in the post-pandemic world, those same metal studs are taking up to eight weeks to arrive. That delay impacts the schedule, which in turn impacts the company’s ability to forecast as accurately as it would like.

“When that lead time is eight weeks and you’re buying material that’s eight weeks away, and it comes, and it turns out you don’t have enough — that’s eight more weeks,” Perry said. “And guys standing around is what costs us the most amount of money.”

One of the hardest-to-get products has been insulation. At one point, insulation, which was typically available within a few weeks, took up to nine months to arrive. In an effort to overcome such delays, Perry said PDC purchased multiple truckloads of insulation in advance and then had to find a place to store it all, hoping the job would still come to fruition.

“It’s complicated to forecast,” he said. “It’s a risk of where to put so much money.”

As for future projects, PDC has been awarded the construction of the new Holyoke Veterans Home. The 350,000-square-foot facility will include a chapel, outdoor gardens, and a pavilion for physical and occupational therapy, as well as outdoor events.

PDC will be tackling the interior and exterior framing, installation of medical headwall systems, drywall installation, and finishing. Once completed, the $483 million project will house 234 long-term-care beds for the medically vulnerable veteran population. Work is slated to begin in the fall of 2024.

In the meantime, both Shaink and Perry still have their sights set on growth, and they’re not getting hung up on a particular volume of work, but rather focusing on sustainability.

“We want to grow the business to be as big as we can and as profitable as we can,” Perry said. “I’d rather do a little bit less work, and make the margins that we need to be sustainable, than to try to take on additional risk and maybe not make as much money. We’re finding that balance between growth and profit.”

River Valley Co-op Broadens Impact of Net-zero Project

By Contributor
River Valley Co-op in Easthampton
Architecture

‘A Labor of Love’

River Valley Co-op in Easthampton

River Valley Co-op in Easthampton demonstrates that on-site solar power can reach net-zero for a grocery store.

 

River Valley Co-op and Co-op Power recently announced a significant achievement: 65 families with low incomes or who are situated within Eversource’s environmental-justice neighborhoods have signed up for low-cost solar power, marking a local step toward mitigating the environmental impact of global warming while promoting community well-being.

In 2014, River Valley Co-op set a sustainability goal to generate 50% of the electricity used annually for its then-future second store through on-site green energy. Upon engaging in real-estate negotiations in 2017 for the second store, on the site of a former Oldsmobile dealership in Easthampton, the co-op simultaneously engaged Co-op Power for support with feasibility of solar power at the store.

Working with the engineering team of Solar Design Associates, a solar canopy over the rooftop and parking lot was proposed. The result was a preliminary, groundbreaking grocery-store design that could achieve River Valley Co-op’s net-zero goal, offsetting 100% of the new store’s electricity.

“The journey has been filled with challenges, but after six years of relentless effort in partnership with our solar developer, Co-op Power — a labor of love for and with our community — we successfully energized the rooftop system,” said Rochelle Prunty, general manager of River Valley Co-op, adding that “we finalized the subscription of 65 community solar shares that were essential to the project, and within a month, we anticipate energizing the solar canopy.”

The success of this project demonstrates that on-site solar electricity can reach net-zero for a grocery store. Moreover, it brings significant relief to 65 community households with low incomes or those situated within Eversource’s environmental-justice neighborhoods, collectively saving them $20,000 on their annual electric bills through the community solar aspect of this project. The economic relief to these community families, including some co-op employees, is timely as many people are struggling with especially high inflation in electric costs over the past year.

“River Valley Co-op remains committed to our mission of creating a just marketplace that nurtures the community through our community-owned retail grocery business operations,” Prunty said. “We leverage our business for addressing the pressing issues of fostering sustainable local food-system development, fighting global warming, and working for overall environmental and social justice.”

The hope, she added, is that this grocery-store solar project inspires others and drives systemic changes that support more widespread community ownership of solar- and green-energy innovations to democratize sustainable energy production. Partners on the project include Co-op Power, PV Squared, EOS Energy Systems, Sunwealth, Solar Design Associates, Wright Builders, Thomas Douglas Architects, and Berkshire Design Group.

Prunty also credited support from U.S. Rep. Richard Neal, Easthampton Mayor Nicole LaChapelle, and Eversource in making the project a reality.

“It feels great to have been able to exceed our 2014 stretch goal of 50% for site-generated solar power to net-zero,” she added. “It took years of work to get here, navigating a system that was not designed for short-term profits for corporations, but instead for net-zero, local, community-owned solar production for either individuals or businesses. But with steadfast support from Co-op Power and so many others in our community, we are about the reach the finish line.”

 

UMass Study to Explore How Automation Will Affect Truckers

By Contributor
Architecture

The Road Ahead

 

Last year, trucks moved 73% — 11.5 billion tons — of the freight in the U.S., making trucks, and truckers, crucial to the U.S. economy. With automation in trucking projected to grow 22% over the next 10 years, a team of UMass Amherst researchers has received a grant to explore how automation will affect the role of American long-haul truckers.

An interdisciplinary group of researchers led by Shannon Roberts, associate professor of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, has been awarded nearly $2 million over four years by the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Future of Work Program.

“We know that, when automation is introduced into trucks, it changes the role of a trucker,” Roberts said. “The question we are asking is, how do we examine and improve upon the future of work in long-haul trucking not by focusing on technology development, but rather by focusing on the trucker?”

Laurel Smith-Doerr, professor of Sociology and co-principal investigator on the study, noted that, “unlike other research projects on the future of work in long-haul trucking that assume driverless automation, our interdisciplinary, NSF-funded project centers the driver in the process of imagining the future of work in trucking.”

Roberts added that the role technology plays and the needs of truckers have to be carefully balanced. “Let’s focus on taking the best of both worlds to make sure they work together seamlessly. In the end, that will reap the greatest benefit.”

“Technology is good at handling consistent situations with predictable, rational people, but humans are not predictable, rational beings. Because of this, technology will not be able to react to everything that might happen on the road. It’s impossible. We will need a person in the truck.”

Automation has many benefits, like fewer crashes and better efficiency, but that doesn’t mean the human should be removed from the equation entirely, she added. “Technology is good at handling consistent situations with predictable, rational people, but humans are not predictable, rational beings. Because of this, technology will not be able to react to everything that might happen on the road. It’s impossible. We will need a person in the truck.”

At the same time, automation can’t make workers feel expendable, she said. “People take pride in what they do. We don’t want to take everything out of that job such that people are unsatisfied and unhappy. Many people get into trucking as a means to move into the middle-class lifestyle with a high-school diploma or a GED. It’s a means of betterment for a large chunk of the population.”

Roberts added that there’s a significant equity factor to consider as well. She sees how automation can also help relieve the ongoing trucker shortage by making the field more accessible to people who are underrepresented in the field — veterans, women, and minorities.

Ultimately, these questions converge on a topic she calls the human-truck symbiosis. “How do we take advantage of all the things that people are good at doing, and all the things that technology is good at doing, to make sure we have a system that works really well?”

Such a complex landscape requires an interdisciplinary team to evaluate it from all angles. Other principal investigators include Henry Renski, professor of Regional Planning; Shlomo Zilberstein, professor of Computer Science; Michael Knodler, professor of Civil Engineering; and Robin Riessman of the UMass Transportation Center as senior personnel.

Some of the methods the team plans to use to collect the information include ride-alongs with truckers, participatory design with truckers, and workforce-development analysis.

“We’re working with this workforce — that is, truckers,” Roberts said. “One of the things that will make this project successful is our stakeholders.”

 

Noonan Energy Builds on a 135-year Tradition of Growth and Evolution

By
Fifth-generation president Ted Noonan
Building Trades Special Coverage

It Runs Hot and Cold

Fifth-generation president Ted Noonan

Fifth-generation president Ted Noonan says the company continues to grow and diversify its products and services.

 

Going back nearly 135 years, Ted Noonan says, the company now known as Noonan Energy has been defined by ambition, innovation, entrepreneurship, diversification, and, perhaps most importantly, the willingness — and ability — to adapt to changing times.

And these qualities continue to describe Noonan today, he said, noting that the company started by his great-great-grandfather in 1890 as an ice-delivery venture continues to evolve and create new business opportunities.

Indeed, Noonan, which moved on from ice after the advent of refrigeration and morphed over more than a half-century into a leading provider of oil and HVAC services, has added two new divisions in recent years, electrical and plumbing services, that give it the ability to provide more services to existing and potential customers — and intriguing growth opportunities.

“We added these new divisions because there was so much synergy with our other services,” he explained. “We were constantly needing an outside plumber or an outside electrician to pull permits and do work, so we said, ‘since we’re hiring one all the time, why don’t we just bring one on and create a new division?’”

The plumbing division was added in 2011 with the hiring of master plumber Mark Gadourey, and the electrical unit was introduced in 2018 with the addition of master electrician Daniel Rollend, said Noonan, adding that both continue to grow, as do other aspects of the broad operation.

“We were constantly needing an outside plumber or an outside electrician to pull permits and do work, so we said, ‘since we’re hiring one all the time, why don’t we just bring one on and create a new division?’”

“We’ve had some nice growth in both of those divisions over the past five to 10 years, and on the service and installation side as well,” he told BusinessWest, noting that the company installs everything from oil tanks and oil burners to air-conditioning systems, heat pumps, and mini-splits, while also undertaking home-energy audits and creating comfort plans. “We have a whole host of … everything.”

As fifth-generation owner, Ted Noonan continues many traditions, if they can be called that, of the owners who came before him. Being entrepreneurial is one of them. Growing up in the business and learning all aspects of it first-hand is another — Noonan recalled riding with the delivery men in his youth and unwinding hose. And filling in, especially in a pinch, is yet another.

“I still drive today when we get really busy in the winter,” he said. “I enjoy it … I always say that it’s therapy for me; I get out of the office, I shut my phone off — or try to — and make deliveries. I’ve pretty much done every territory we handle, so if we get a couple of call-outs in the winter, I’ll step in.”

Mostly, though, he is involved in short-term and long-term planning, creating additional opportunities, and exploring new avenues for growth and expansion. He noted that a trend toward consolidation within the industry, one that has fueled the dramatic growth of this company over the past 50 years, continues, especially as the Baby Boomer owners of smaller oil-delivery and HVAC service companies move into retirement.

Ted Noonan (right) and his father, Ed

Ted Noonan (right) and his father, Ed, have continued traditions of innovation laid down by T.F. Noonan back in 1890.

“We’re still looking at acquisition opportunities and expansion opportunities, while also keeping an eye on what might create great synergy from a diversification standpoint,” he noted, adding that, at present, the company is focused on “shoring up” those new divisions and growing those aspects of the business.

For this issue and its focus on the building trades, BusinessWest takes an in-depth look at Noonan Energy, exploring its rich history, the continuing of a tradition of entrepreneurship, and the question of what might come next.

 

Freeze Frame

Flashing back more than a century to company lore that he is well-versed in and relates often, Noonan marveled at how the venture known as T.F. Ice Dealer (named for his great-great-grandfather, Timothy F. Noonan) cut huge blocks of ice from Lake Massasoit (Watershops Pond) in Springfield and, using sawdust as an insulator, kept it relatively cold all through the year for delivery to customers in the Greater Springfield area.

And he continues to be awed by the insulating properties of sawdust.

“We’re still looking at acquisition opportunities and expansion opportunities, while also keeping an eye on what might create great synergy from a diversification standpoint.”

“We have a small barn at our house, and we have sawdust for the horses,” he noted. “You’ll go two months after cold weather, and if we’re digging in the sawdust, we find snowballs. And that always brings me back to how this company started.”

While some things haven’t changed — like sawdust’s ability to keep ice cold — the Noonan company certainly has. Its history is told through a huge photo display in the lobby of the company’s offices on Robbins Road, in the shadow of a 2-million-gallon oil tank. That lobby is also home to an oil-delivery truck circa the 1930s — it was rescued several years ago, refurbished, and painted with the Noonan colors (green and white) to resemble trucks the company had on the road 80 or so years ago.

Providing a quick history lesson, Noonan said the company, while it has remained in the same family, has changed names a few times and added new products and services on a consistent basis.

The first name change came in 1911, when T.F. decided to put ‘Massosoit Lake Ice Company’ over the door and on the side of the horse-drawn wagons. He would sell the company to his son, Edward J. Noonan, in 1923. The entrepreneurial second-generation owner would add kerosene and home heating oil to the products delivered by the company, additions that would prompt a name change to Massasoit Lake Ice and Fuel Co.

Second-generation owner Edward J. Noonan inaugurated the company name Massasoit Lake Ice and Fuel Co.

Second-generation owner Edward J. Noonan inaugurated the company name Massasoit Lake Ice and Fuel Co.

By 1939, with refrigeration chipping away at the ice business, Ed Noonan diversified by opening a gasoline station at the corner of King Street and Eastern Avenue in Springfield, one that also sold paint and wallpaper, which many of those facilities did at that time.

In 1958, Ed Noonan sold the business to two of his sons, Timothy and William, who ran a company that would take the name Noonan Oil Co. Inc., a venture that would slug its way through the oil embargo in 1973 and manage to expand sales and develop new markets. Timothy would become sole owner in 1981.

“We see a bright future … it’s going to be different, certainly, than it was five, 10, or 50 years ago, but everyone is always going to need warming and cooling, and we’ll be there to provide it.”

His son, Ed, would launch his own career in the business by acquiring Palmer Coal and Oil in 1973, while his father continued to grow Noonan Oil. (The two companies were in friendly competition for several years.) Ed Noonan doubled the size of his company with the acquisition of Leonard Oil Co. of Monson in 1978 and continued to grow with other acquisitions, including Dulude Oil Inc., Palmer Oil Co., City Oil in Springfield, Marquis-Rivers in Holyoke, and Tinco Fuel in Ludlow.

He would eventually put all those brands under one name, Noonan Energy, in 1985, and in 1985, Noonan Oil Co., still owned by Ed’s father, Tim, would become part of Noonan Energy as well. In the ensuing years, many other smaller oil-delivery and service ventures would be acquired, including Better Heat Inc., Bolduc Fuel, Royal Heating, National Heating, Canary Oil, Hampshire Oil, Hillside Oil, Davis Fuel Co., Hadley Fuel Co. … the list goes on.

Ted Noonan, Ed’s son, joined the company in 1998, became its president in 2009, and was named a member of BusinessWest’s Forty Under 40 class of 2017.

 

Hot Takes

During his tenure, one during which Tim has remained active with the business, Ted Noonan has continued his father’s tradition of aggressive acquisition of smaller fuel-oil and service businesses.

In 2011, the company acquired the assets of Whiteley Fuel Oil Co. in Chatham; in 2011, it purchased Ray Kelley & Son of Palmer; in 2013, it acquired East Springfield Oil Co; and, most recently, it added Borsari Oil of West Springfield, Chudy Oil in Three Rivers, and Westfield Fuel to the fold.

All these acquisitions give the company something very much needed in this day and age — size, said Noonan, adding that they also give it a presence in several different markets across the region.

Indeed, the Noonan footprint, or service and delivery area, now stretches to the edge of the Berkshires to the west, several of the border communities of Connecticut to the south (penetrating further into the state is difficult, Ted said), into Franklin County to the north, and into Worcester County to the east. With that acquisition of Whiteley Fuel Oil, it also serves a dozen communities on Cape Cod. Locations in the 413 are in Springfield, Westfield, Amherst, and Palmer.

Noonan Energy is known for heating and HVAC services

Noonan Energy is known for heating and HVAC services, but has become a player in electrical and plumbing work as well.

Beyond these acquisitions and the accompanying territorial expansion, the company has achieved additional growth though expansion of its product and service portfolio, said Noonan, adding that, in addition to the new plumbing and electrical divisions, the company also added a home-energy audit division under the leadership of his sister, Kara Noonan, in 2012.

He said these new divisions, and especially the plumbing and electrical units, were natural additions that came about as need became evident, especially as plumbers and electricians retire in large numbers, and as customers looking for those services continued to ask people from Noonan — who were delivering oil, servicing a boiler, or installing central air conditioning — if they knew a good plumber or electrician.

After years of offering referrals if it could, the company made the entrepreneurial decision to change its answer to those questions to ‘yes … that’s us; we can handle that.’

“It’s similar work to what we do, and it’s a niche we can fill,” Ted Noonan said, adding that the ability to give that answer puts the company in a position to offer a portfolio of services that few, if any, of its many competitors can match. Noonan said many still just deliver oil, while others will also handle installation and service of HVAC systems. Meanwhile, some handle plumbing and HVAC, but not electrical or oil delivery. But very few cover all those bases.

The new divisions enable the company to further diversify and better position it for a future where there will certainly be less dependency on fossil fuels, said Noonan, adding that the company is already making strides in that direction through steps such as the blending of biodiesel and traditional heating oil to create bioheat, continually increasing the blend so it is less carbon-intense.

“We see a bright future … it’s going to be different, certainly, than it was five, 10, or 50 years ago, but everyone is always going to need warming and cooling, and we’ll be there to provide it,” he said, adding that the ability to change with the times — and sometimes see around the corner and anticipate what’s coming next — has kept Noonan viable since Benjamin Harrison was patrolling the White House.

And these qualities will continue to serve it well into the future.

 

Hill-Engineers, Architects, Planners Marks 75 Years of Change

By
Vice President Vinny Magnano (left) and President Jeff Noble.
Architecture Special Coverage

Something to Build On

Vice President Vinny Magnano (left) and President Jeff Noble.

Vice President Vinny Magnano (left) and President Jeff Noble.

Western Mass. is home to dozens of architecture firms. And engineering firms. And land-surveying companies.

Not too many can say they’re all three.

But over its 75 years in business — it celebrates that milestone early in 2024 — Hill-Engineers, Architects, Planners Inc. has evolved into a entity that can manage all those aspects of a project. And President Jeff Noble says that broad expertise sets Hill apart in its field — or, more accurately, fields. It’s also a strong buffer against shifting economic tides.

“We’re organized in three departments — architecture, engineering, and civil surveying — and it’s seldom that you get all three of those going gangbusters all at once,” Noble explained. “Sometimes we’re very fortunate, but other times, one might wane a little bit, while the other two are going well. That diversity of services has carried us along, so we’re able to sustain the level of employment and the types of services we offer. That’s been a big benefit.”

The company’s roughly 40 employees reflect that range: architects; structural, mechanical, and electrical engineers; civil engineers, land surveyors, and survey technicians; and project managers, designers, and drafters in all three niches.

For instance, “we did a brand-new facility for Standard Uniform Services. We started with the permitting, the site development, the architecture, the engineering, and designed that whole facility for them,” Noble explained, adding that it contracted with Forish Construction on the build. “That range of services has allowed us to provide all that, though it’s not always necessary that you need all those services together.”

“A lot of architectural firms are just architectural firms, and they have to go to get an engineer for structural, mechanical, electrical, civil … that’s not part of their company. In Western Mass., very few of those have combined engineering and architecture — and certainly not land surveying besides.”

Hill-Engineers, Architects, Planners was established by William T. Hill in 1949 to provide mechanical-engineering design services to the robust paper industry of the Berkshires. It has called Dalton, a small town just east of Pittsfield, its home since its opening.

“Mr. Hill was a paper-mill engineer for Crane & Co. here in town, and he evolved from there,” Noble said of the company’s founding. “He grew little by little and did structural engineering, electrical, and mechanical engineering, strictly for the pulp and paper business.”

Vice President Vin Magnano came on board in 1975, and the company’s work and client base started to expand beyond paper into a wide range of commercial and industrial clients — still primarily engineering, but moving gradually into some design work.

“Then it just started to evolve organically to include more architectural work,” Noble added. “And we had engineering here to offer as backup for an architectural project, so it made a lot of sense.”

This Berkshire Family YMCA project

This Berkshire Family YMCA project includes a pool, court, elevated track, and fitness room.

Magnano recalled that “when I came here — I was just a kid, in my 20s — the only architecture we did was to put up a building that covered the machinery; that’s all they cared about. But we started changing after I was here a few years.”

In 1980, a group of five employees purchased the fixed assets of the founder and changed the company’s name to Hill Engineering Inc., and the company began to expand its footprint further in the fields of architecture, engineering, and surveying. In 1986, the company’s leadership contacted Noble, who had worked there before, to head up the growing architectural group. He was intrigued by Hill’s new model.

“I said, ‘yeah, that sounds like a good opportunity,’ and it turned out it was,” he told BusinessWest, adding that, as an architect, “I always appreciated having engineering in-house. A lot of architectural firms are just architectural firms, and they have to go to get an engineer for structural, mechanical, electrical, civil … that’s not part of their company. In Western Mass., very few of those have combined engineering and architecture — and certainly not land surveying besides.”

The company name was changed again in 1987 to Hill-Engineers, Architects, Planners, Inc. to better reflect these expanded areas of service.

“We still do an awful lot just like we always have: we listen to our clients and respond to their needs. They come to us with a problem to solve, and we solve the problem, and move on to the next one.”

“We just started growing the architectural side of the business, doing more commercial work and some residential, institutional, recreational … lots of different types of projects that weren’t industrial. We added staff, and the company has grown over the years.”

 

Industrial Evolution

Over the decades, Hill-Engineers, Architects, Planners has performed work for dozens of the most recognizable names in Western Mass., including General Dynamics, General Electric, Berkshire Health Systems, Union Carbide, Solutia, Kanzaki, and Smith & Wesson, as well as numerous colleges and universities; several Berkshire County municipalities; recreational, religious, and commercial entities; cultural institutions like Berkshire Museum, MASS MoCA, the Clark, and Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center; and land subdivisions throughout the region.

“When the architecture started to evolve from the paper mills, it was still industrial-based, no commercial; we hardly ever did banks or colleges or any of that,” Magnano said. “It was really driven in the industrial.”

Today, the firm boasts many long-time clients in all those sectors above, some for 40 years or more, he added.

Its acquisition of West Stockbridge Enterprises became an opportunity to get into the land-surveying and civil-engineering aspect, Noble added. “It, again, broadened our range of services that we can provide to our clients, whether it was strictly a subdivision survey or supported an architectural project. Clients say, ‘hey, I want to build something,’ and they’ve got to go through all the permitting aspects, site design, maybe find a site, do site analysis. All that started to become services we could provide for our clients.”

Meanwhile, in the engineering group, Magnano said, “we still do pretty much every discipline except fire protection; we partner with a company in Albany for all our fire-protection work.”

The Weidmann Electrical Technology facility in St. Johnsbury, Vt.

The Weidmann Electrical Technology facility in St. Johnsbury, Vt. is among the firm’s largest projects.

The firm’s radius of work is typically about 50 miles, though it has done major projects outside that, including a major expansion of Weidmann Electrical Technology’s paper mill in St. Johnsbury, Vt., one of that region’s largest employers, a little over a decade ago — about 35 years after Hill first worked on a project for Weidmann.

“They were losing their edge in the market, in the industry; Germany and other places were building new, high-tech stuff. So they spent $40 million doing a new addition on the old addition. We did everything, right from the site work,” Magnano said. “That was probably one of the most unique jobs we’ve done, and we were literally in there from day one — about four years. That was a big one.”

Over the decades, Hill has seen a number of changes, from technology to the way projects are bid. For one thing, there are fewer long-term, local relationships with clients because of consolidation, with clients being purchased by larger entities all the time. “So your companies that used to be local are now owned by a company that’s out of Springfield, Illinois or something,” Noble said. “You don’t have the same relationship, unfortunately.”

Meanwhile, codes and regulations have become more challenging, and an emphasis on energy efficiency and sustainability has impacted how projects are designed, he added. “But we still do an awful lot just like we always have: we listen to our clients and respond to their needs. They come to us with a problem to solve, and we solve the problem, and move on to the next one.”

 

Welcome Mat

One negative trend that has impacted businesses of all kinds has been recruiting and retaining talent, and Noble said Hill has been able to maintain a steady staff, but it’s not always easy, especially with engineers.

“You don’t see people applying. It used to be people would come in, knock on the door, send a résumé pretty routinely. Now we can’t even solicit them. We go out and try to get them, and no responses,” he told BusinessWest, adding that Hill’s headquarters in the Berkshires can be a problem for some. “Our location just doesn’t seem to have the attraction for younger people. They’d rather go to the cities where there’s potential for maybe more glamorous or high-profile types of work.

“Students are still enlisting in engineering and architecture schools, but they don’t tend to come back here,” he added. “They go to UMass or Boston for college, but then they won’t come back to the Berkshires to work. That’s what we see as the issue.”

Still, the firm has managed to attract employees from the Pioneer Valley and the Albany, N.Y. areas, and it has also maintained relationships with trade schools to bring young people in for co-op experiences, some of which have resulted in hires over the years.

“You don’t have to necessarily get a master’s in such-and-such; you know you can come out of trade school and go to work as a computer operator here, and we’ll put you to work,” Noble explained. “You can learn on the fly, but under the tutelage of professional engineers.”

Magnano added that “we’ve been fortunate enough to get some individuals whose roots are in Dalton, or close by, and wanted to come back to Dalton. Over the last five to 10 years, we’ve really brought in another whole generation that hopefully will keep it going.”

NUPRO plastic-fabrication factory in South Deerfield

Here, the envelope and siding go up on the NUPRO plastic-fabrication factory in South Deerfield.

Hill-Engineers, Architects, Planners has been community-minded in other ways as well, Noble said, by supporting local nonprofits, social organizations, churches, and other causes in a number of ways.

“The [Dalton] Community Recreation Association is one, whether we do our work at a reduced fee or we support them through ads in their programs, or we sponsor a basketball team or baseball team.”

The firm also supports the Pittsfield YMCA, for which it just completed a major $12 million renovation, including a pool, court, elevated track, fitness facilities, and more. Often, Hill is able to provide services to nonprofit clients at a lower cost, or in an in-kind way, he said. “It works both ways. We get good experience out of it, and the client gets the service at a more affordable level.”

The firm’s leadership and employees also sit on boards and are encouraged to volunteer in the community, Noble added.

 

Shovels Out

As part of its 75th-anniversary year, the team at Hill is planning to bury a time capsule that includes, among other artifacts, some tools of the trade in 2023, and then unearth it 25 years from now, at the company’s centennial, to see how much their industry — sorry, industries — have changed.

Things have certainly changed plenty since 1949.

“I think we’re just very proud of having carried on Mr. Hill’s legacy here for 75 years,” Noble said. “I think he’d be really happy to see where we’re at. And who knows? Maybe we’ll keep it going for another 75.”

Pittsfield and Its Downtown Seek Renewed Vibrancy

By
Al Enchill, seen here with his son, Auric
Community Spotlight

Community Spotlight

The Let It Shine! Public Art Partnership

The Let It Shine! Public Art Partnership, a collaborative effort involving several partners, has helped bring new murals, color, and more vibrancy to downtown Pittsfield.

Rebecca Brien grew up in Berkshire County and has lived in Pittsfield for more than 30 years now. She’s old enough to remember what it was like downtown on Thursday nights after employees at the sprawling General Electric transformer-manufacturing complex picked up their paychecks.

“All of the shops would stay open late,” she recalled. “And all of the employees would get their paychecks and come down to the banks directly to cash them and have dinner and do some shopping. It was definitely a bustling town.”

Brien, who now serves as managing director of Downtown Pittsfield Inc., or DPI — a membership organization consisting of property owners, businesses, residents, and nonprofit agencies — understands that it probably won’t ever be that like again on North Street, the city’s main thoroughfare, and adjacent streets.

But there is a renewed sense of vibrancy — coupled with some stern challenges — in the central business district, she said, noting there are several new and thriving businesses, many of them in the broad realms of arts, tourism, and hospitality, and new initiatives to improve the area and specific storefronts and encourage people of all ages to visit the district and stay for a while.

These include the Let it Shine! Public Art Partnership, a group of Pittsfield-based community members who have come together to organize public art and revitalization on North Street, including several new murals that have brought color to the area and changed the landscape, literally and figuratively, and the Pittsfield Glow Up! Business-improvement grant program, made possible by ARPA funding. The initiative provides grants of up to $10,000 to eligible businesses impacted by COVID to be used for physical improvements that will enhance foot traffic and create visual vibrancy in the district (more on both programs later).

“There’s definitely a concern when it comes to foot traffic, so DPI has been working very hard to make sure that there are activities going on.”

“I do see that our downtown is poised to reach a new potential,” Brien said. “We’re working with MassDevelopment and its Transformative Development Initiative, a program to accelerate economic growth in focused areas, which means we have access to funding and programs that are really making a difference in our downtown.”

Jonathan Butler, president and CEO of the Pittsfield-based economic-development agency 1Berkshire, agreed.

He said Pittsfield and especially its downtown, which has been reshaping and reimagining itself since GE departed nearly 40 years ago, remains a work in progress.

Today, its economy is far more diverse than it was decades ago, when manufacturing was the anchor, he said, adding quickly that manufacturing remains a force, with General Dynamics employing nearly 2,000 people in facilities that were once part of the GE complex.

But the creative economy has also become a huge force in the community, with attractions and institutions such as Berkshire Theatre Group, Barrington Stage Company, and the Colonial Theatre, and this diversity stretches to technology, healthcare, service businesses, and other types of entrepreneurial ventures.

Al Enchill, seen here with his son, Auric

Al Enchill, seen here with his son, Auric, says he’s seen a considerable amount of change and progress in downtown Pittsfield since he first opened his busness.

That list includes Elegant Stitches, an embroidery and screen-printing shop run by Al Enchill and his son, Auric. It specializes in branded custom apparel — from T-shirts to tote bags to umbrellas — and counts a number of area banks and other businesses, colleges, government agencies (including the FBI), and even the U.S. Army in its client portfolio.

Al Enchill first opened his business on First Street in 1997, and has seen a good deal of change and progress downtown since then.

“Pittsfield is changing for the better, and it’s attracting more people,” he said. “I think this will help the businesses here.”

But as much as Pittsfield and its downtown are experiencing growth and progress, there are still considerable challenges, some of them COVID-related.

Indeed, the shift to remote work and hybrid arrangements has left fewer people working downtown, said Butler and Brien, noting that this has certainly impacted many of the hospitality-related businesses in that area. Meanwhile, that same trend has also impacted commercial real estate downtown, Butler added, noting that some businesses are now leasing less space, and others will certainly be tempted to do so.

At the same time, there is a housing crisis — the same one impacting communities across Western Mass., Butler noted, adding that there is potential to convert some of the vacant or underutilized space in the downtown area to housing, something that would address two problems at once and bring people, and vibrancy, to the city center.

For this, the latest installment of its Community Spotlight series, BusinessWest takes an in-depth look at Pittsfield and its downtown, and efforts not to recreate the past, but to create a vibrant, sustainable future.

 

Progress Report

Brien said DPI, established in 1983, acts much like a chamber of commerce would. The agency serves as a connector and liaison for businesses and property owners, residents, and city officials.

It is currently working on a number of initiatives to bring new businesses and vibrancy to the downtown area, she said. These include a collaborative effort between DPI and the Berkshire Black Economic Council on a VIBE grant that will provide funding for four new businesses to launch in the downtown, a program designed to help fill some of the empty storefronts in the district.

Meanwhile, DPI continues its work with the city and the Pittsfield Economic Revitalization Corp. to administer the Glow Up! grants. A first round of grants totaling $100,000 and involving 12 businesses was awarded in the spring, and applications for a second round of $100,000 opened earlier this month.

“Pittsfield is a commercial center, lots of people physically work in Pittsfield; they all left downtown Pittsfield during the pandemic to work at home, and now, three years later, some of them have returned, but many haven’t. So, like many other downtowns, there’s a large gap in commercial real-estate space, a lot of unfilled space.”

“The money can go toward anything from painting to new windows to new signage and additional lighting,” Brien said, adding that the program’s name explains what business owners are trying to do — glow up their operations.

Overall, there is progress downtown, but several challenges as well, especially when it comes to foot traffic — a concern for most all cities in the post-COVID area. Thus, DPI has intensified its efforts to create programming and undertake initiatives to not only bring people to the area, but extend their stay.

“There definitely have been more challenges, especially for our lunch business in the downtown, especially with the banks, insurance agencies, and organizations like that still working hybrid models,” Brien said. “There’s definitely a concern when it comes to foot traffic, so DPI has been working very hard to make sure that there are activities going on.”

These include an Artswalk on the first Friday of each month between May and December to bring visitors downtown, she noted, adding that the program has been expanded recently to include placing works by local artists in shops and restaurants, as well as music, dance, a marketplace, and activities for children in an effort to extend visitors’ stay in the central business district to include dinner and perhaps a show at one of the venues.

Along these same lines, the Let it Shine! community art project was launched. It includes eight new murals in the downtown and West Side districts.

“These are world-renowned artists — individuals from across the U.S., and local artists as well, who have installed pieces,” Brien said, adding that a digital tour guides individuals to these works and other murals installed in recent years.

“Any night of the week in our downtown, you can find activities, you can find music, shows at the local theaters — we have a great movie theater in our downtown, we have a new brewery that has programming every night of the week,” she went on. “We have great restaurants … there’s a lot to do, and we’re doing what we can to bring people out and take it all in.”

Enchill has witnessed all this out the front window of his business, and he is encouraged by what he now sees. He said that, while COVID took its toll, there are many people on the streets, some of whom will stop into his store to buy a sweatshirt because it’s colder outside than they thought it might be.

“Things are changing here — things are happening,” he said. “Downtown is making its way back.”

 

‘Fighting Its Way Back’

Butler concurred, and noted that there is a sense of momentum in Pittsfield, visible on many fronts.

These include population growth, something all Berkshires communities have been seeking, especially in the form of professionals fleeing larger municipal centers in the wake of COVID for more rural zip codes that offer quality of life and opportunities to work remotely.

Pittsfield fits that description, Butler said, adding quickly, though, that whatever surge there may have been has crested. Meanwhile, he wondered out loud how many of these new arrivals were simply living in the Berkshires and not working there — and, thus, not providing any relief for a workforce crunch that is still impacting businesses across most all sectors, but especially the tourism and hospitality industry.

“It’s absolutely a tough time workforce-wise; I don’t know if we’re off trend with the rest of Massachusetts or New England, but we’ve definitely felt pressure in the hiring market going all the way back to 2017 and 2018, pre-pandemic, and then it accelerated with the pandemic, and we’re still feeling that,” he said, using ‘we’ to mean the Berkshires in general but especially the region’s largest community, where roughly 40% of those employed in the county work.

“And it’s really every sector, from hospitality to healthcare, manufacturing, and tech; we just have a variety of sectors where they’re hiring everywhere, and it doesn’t appear that the workforce needed for our current employers is seeking employment at the volume needed in the Berkshires.”

The problem is especially acute in the tourism and hospitality sector, Butler said, where some businesses, including hotels and restaurants, have been forced to alter operations, and often hours or days of operation, because of an inability to find enough help.

As for the downtown, he said it is “fighting its way back,” a phrase he used not necessarily in reference to the loss of GE, although that’s part of it, but rather to COVID and its after-effects, with regard to both visitation and a changing workplace that has left at least Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays quieter than they were before the pandemic.

“Downtown Pittsfield was probably the heaviest pressure point in terms of pandemic-induced economic impact, and that was probably the case with most gateway cities and larger cities,” he said. “And in the case of downtown Pittsfield, I think it was a combination of things — Pittsfield is a commercial center, lots of people physically work in Pittsfield; they all left downtown Pittsfield during the pandemic to work at home, and now, three years later, some of them have returned, but many haven’t. So, like many other downtowns, there’s a large gap in commercial real-estate space, a lot of unfilled space.”

Elaborating, he said some businesses are carrying on in the same space as before the pandemic, but others have changed their footprint to accommodate a smaller on-site workforce, leaving space to be leased.

Space that might be used to help combat the ongoing housing crisis, he said.

“There’s an opportunity to convert a lot of this underutilized space that we found post-pandemic into housing,” Butler explained, adding there are a probably a dozen buildings in and around downtown Pittsfield that could be retrofitted for such use, and a $4.8 billion housing bond bill proposed late last month might help fund such transformations.

 

Seeing the Light

Brien has obviously seen a great deal of change in downtown Pittsfield from those days when GE dominated the economy and even the culture of the community.

And the pace of change continues, most recently in a positive way, with new businesses and new initiatives that make the city and its downtown a destination.

“I really feel that there’s a glimmer,” she told BusinessWest. “It’s not going to happen overnight, but every day, we do a little bit more to bring Pittsfield and our downtown back to life.”

A life that respects the past, but is more a reflection of the future.

The New Estate-tax Law (Finally)

By Contributor
Law

Families Can Save Close to $100,000 Under New Rules

By Hyman G. Darling, Esq.

 

At long last, Massachusetts has passed a law increasing the estate-tax exemption. Under the prior law, if a person died with less than $1 million, there was no estate tax due. However, if they died with more than $1 million, the $1 million exemption basically disappeared, and taxes were due on all assets back to the first dollar. This includes assets such as real estate, stocks, bonds, retirement plans, life insurance, annuities, etc.

Under the new law, the exemption has increased to $2 million, but this is a true exemption. Therefore, if a person dies with less than $2 million, there is no estate tax due. If their estate is greater than $2 million, the tax will be calculated on all assets, but basically, the first $2 million is exempt from tax.

Hyman G. Darling

This does have the effect of taxing all assets at a bit higher rate, but the exemption of $2 million basically applies to a credit. The credit is $99,600, which would have been the tax on the first $2 million. In other words, if a person dies under the new law, and if the estate was greater than $2 million, the family basically saves $99,600, which would have been the tax on the first $2 million. The law is retroactive to any individual who dies on or after Jan. 1, 2023. Therefore, if you are reading this article, you have the benefit of the increased exemption amount.

Under the new law, there is also a provision that attempts to impose an estate tax on out-of-state property, which was not the case under the old law. The new law will allocate the tax and charge only a proportionate share of the estate tax as it applies to the Massachusetts property, but the out-of-state property is included, thus increasing the total of the taxable estate. This probably will be challenged by an individual who has a significant amount of out-of-state property, which would therefore increase their estate tax in Massachusetts. However, it may be some time before the litigation on this matter makes its way through the court system.

For a married couple, they each now have an exemption of $4 million. However, they must use the exemption, or it is otherwise lost. For instance, if one spouse dies, leaving all assets to the surviving spouse, there is no tax because the unlimited marital deduction allows a spouse to receive an unlimited amount of money from the deceased spouse. If this is the case, then the person who died did not use their $2 million exemption, and the assets are then in the surviving spouse’s estate. If that surviving spouse has greater than $2 million, there will be a tax, and only the exemption will be allowable on the second to die.

Therefore, the first spouse should consider establishing a trust with up to $2 million in assets. The trust fund will be available for the surviving spouse, and that spouse may receive income and principal at the discretion of the trustee. At the death of the second spouse, the funds remaining in this trust will pass to the children or other contingent beneficiaries without any estate tax, and the surviving spouse will still have their $2 million exemption available. Thus, they have sheltered $4 million of assets to pass to beneficiaries, which is a significant change over the prior law.

An alternative would be to have $2 million of assets left outright to the children on the death of the first spouse, but then the surviving spouse will not have availability of those assets to use during their lifetime. The use of the trust is more advisable since it is flexible in allowing the surviving spouse to have access to income and principal, but not have those assets taxed in their estate.

An additional benefit of utilization of a trust is that the funds may be held in the trust for the benefit of children until they attain desired ages when they may be more mature to receive their funds for distribution. The funds may also be distributed in intervals such as one-third at age 25, one-third at age 30, and one-third at age 35, with also giving the trustee discretion to utilize funds for the children for their health, maintenance, education, support, etc.

While the increase in the exemption has finally increased, it is still not as desirable as many other states that have either no estate tax or a significantly higher exemption. The federal exemption is currently $12.92 million for each person who dies as a U.S. citizen, but this amount is proposed to be reduced in 2026 to approximately half of this amount unless Congress extends the higher exemption amount.

In any event, this is a good time to review all estate -planning documents to be sure they are up to date, including a will, a healthcare proxy, a power of attorney, and any other estate-planning documents a person may have. Of course, use of the new tax credit should be considered to reduce or eliminate the tax.

 

Hyman Darling, a shareholder at Bacon Wilson and chair of the firm’s Estate Planning and Elder Law department, is recognized as the area’s preeminent estate planner, with extensive experience with all aspects of estate planning, trusts, tax law, probate and estates, guardianships, special-needs trusts and planning, elder law, and long-term care planning, and additional specialties including adoption and real estate; (413) 781-0560.

Changes to Paid Family and Medical Leave Law Require Action

By Contributor
Law

Employers, Take Note

By Amelia J. Holstrom, Esq.

 

The Massachusetts Paid Family and Medical Leave (PFML) law is a relatively new statute that employers have to comply with in the Commonwealth. Under that law, eligible employees can take up to 26 workweeks of job-protected leave each benefit year for various reasons, including leave for their own serious health conditions or the serious health condition of their family members; leave to bond with children after birth, adoption, or placement; and leave for certain military-based reasons.

During any PFML leave, an employee is paid a portion of their regular pay as a PFML benefit. While some Massachusetts employers have a private PFML plan, the majority provide PFML to their employees through the Commonwealth’s Department of Family and Medical Leave.

Recently, two very important changes were announced regarding the PFML law. As a result of those changes, employers need to take action in the coming weeks. Here is what you need to know.

 

The Contribution Rate Is Increasing

Employees (and employers at companies with 25 or more employees) fund the PFML program through contributions deducted from their wages. For employers who provide PFML through the Commonwealth, rather than a private program, the Department of Family and Medical Leave sets the contribution rates annually, and it recently announced that contribution rates will increase in 2024.

“Recently, two very important changes were announced regarding the PFML law. As a result of those changes, employers need to take action in the coming weeks.”

Beginning on Jan. 1, 2024, the PFML contribution rate for businesses with 25 or more employees is increasing from 0.63% of wages to 0.88%. Of the 0.88%, 0.18% applies to the family-leave portion of the law and may be paid for solely by the employee. The remaining 0.7% is applicable to the medical-leave portion of the law, of which 0.28% may be paid for by the employee, with the remaining 0.42% to be paid for by the employer.

Similarly, the PFML contribution rate for businesses with fewer than 25 employees is increasing from 0.318% to 0.46%. Employers with fewer than 25 employees may require the employee to pay the full 0.46% contribution, or they can pay a portion of the contribution at their option.

Individual contributions are still capped by the federal Social Security taxable maximum. In other words, PFML contributions are not paid by the employee or employer on any income over that maximum. For 2024, that maximum is $168,600.

The increase is not surprising given statistics recently released by the Department of Family and Medical Leave in its FY 2023 Report. The report, which covered July 1, 2022 through June 30, 2023, indicates that the department approved more than 143,000 applications for PFML in FY 2023, which was a 27.39% increase in approved applications over FY 2022. With more PFML claims receiving approval, the department is paying out more in benefits, which are funded by employer and employee contributions.

 

A New Notice Is Now Required

The change in the contribution rate means that employers need to issue a new PFML notice to employees. Under the law, employers are required to give employees a written notice, which includes information on the contribution rates, among other things, at the time of hire and 30 days in advance of any contribution-rate change.

The new contribution rates will be effective Jan. 1, 2024. As a result, employers must provide notice to their employees no later than Dec. 2, 2023. The Department of Family and Medical Leave issues a model notice for employers to use each year, which will be found on the department’s website once it is released.

 

‘Topping Off’ PFML Payments

Since its inception, the PFML statute prohibited an employee from using company-provided paid time, including but not limited to vacation, personal, and sick time (collectively, PTO) and receiving PFML benefits from the Department of Family and Medical Leave at the same time.

In other words, an employee who chose to use PTO during their PFML leave was not permitted to receive any payment from the state. Employees could not even supplement — frequently referred to as ‘topping off’ — their reduced-PFML benefit using PTO to receive 100% of their pay during their leave. This, however, has recently changed.

Employees who apply to the department for PFML benefits on or after Nov. 1, 2023 will be allowed to supplement their PFML benefits with accrued PTO provided by their employer at their option. This will enable an employee to receive their full pay while on PFML leave, if they choose to do to. It is important to note that employers cannot require an employee to use their company-provided paid time to top off.

Employers with private plans may need to make some changes, too. Prior to Nov. 1, 2023, employers with private plans could choose whether or not to permit employees to top off their reduced PFML benefit by utilizing company-provided PTO. There is no longer a choice. Beginning on Nov. 1, employees working for employers with private plans will also be permitted to utilized company-provided paid time off, at their option, to supplement their PFML benefit to receive their full pay while on leave.

 

What Should Employers Do Next?

Employers should review the Department of Family and Medical Leave website regularly for the new contribution-rate notices and send those out to employees no later than Dec. 2, 2023. Additionally, now that employees have the option to top off their PFML benefits with PTO offered by the employer, employers should review their PFML policies and other related documents to make any necessary changes in light of the new topping-off option.

Employers who have questions about the changes to the law or edits to their policies and related documents should work with their labor and employment counsel to address those questions.

 

Amelia Holstrom is a partner with the Springfield-based law firm Skoler, Abbott & Presser, P.C., with a practice that focuses on litigation avoidance, employment litigation, and labor law and relations; (413) 737-4753.

For Those Struggling with Addiction, There Is Hope

By Contributor
Healthcare News

A Survivor’s Story

By James Basler

 

There have been 1 million drug-overdose deaths in this country since 1999. On March 21, 2018, my brother was one of them.

I am very lucky, at age 46, to not be one of them, as I, too, have overdosed, but survived. My paper route, as I tell people about my life’s journey, has not been an easy one, with jail time for aggressive behavior while under the influence, time wasted in denial about my substance use and mental health, and letting judgment of others keep me from seeking treatment.

However, I did seek treatment, finding success with daily medication to maintain recovery, along with the behavioral-health counseling that goes with it, in my mind, like peanut butter and jelly. I now share my story with others, as many of us have lost family members and friends to drug overdose.

I tell anyone with addiction that if I can maintain recovery — despite a long history of misuse, startovers, and decisions that did not focus on what I needed to do — you can do it, too. You can find the right combination of support to start and sustain recovery.

My substance use dates to weekend drinking as a young adult, and my addiction and recovery are, you might say, a timeline for the public-health emergency that substance use and mental health have become during the last two decades.

My journey has included alcohol, the once widely prescribed pain med Oxycontin that flamed the country’s overdose crisis, heroin, Section 35 court-order treatment, stays in residential recovery programs, and hospital admissions on a voluntary basis for psychiatric treatment.

I got married; fathered three children, whom I see regularly; and learned and accepted that my addiction, the most severe form of substance use, may have started as a form of self-medication in response to mental-health issues and exposure to trauma.

“I tell anyone with addiction that if I can maintain recovery — despite a long history of misuse, startovers, and decisions that did not focus on what I needed to do — you can do it, too. You can find the right combination of support to start and sustain recovery.”

I have been clean for the last five years except for one relapse three years into my sobriety. Anyone in recovery will tell you relapse is part of recovery. Your brain misses the pleasurable feelings drug dependency produces, especially when life’s realities sideline how such dependency can ruin your life altogether.

I live in sober housing and work daily to maintain recovery, as no one ever said recovery is easy, despite its rewards. You need to stay connected to your treatment and supports, and not go it alone.

I take methadone at the MiraVista Behavioral Health Center in Holyoke, and I also do one-one-counseling for my mental health, as well as group sessions. Substance use can contribute to poor mental health, and poor mental health can contribute to substance use. Finding the right medications and getting the right providers in place for both can take time, but are what enable individuals like myself with a substance-use and mental-health diagnosis to lead fulfilling lives in our community and have healthy relationships.

I was oblivious, growing up in Middlesex County during the 1990s, to the dangers and consequences of substance use. I now understand addiction for what it is: a medical condition that needs individualized treatment, and that there is no shame in getting treatment to manage it.

I have survived to 46 thanks to a little luck, as illicit drugs laced with fentanyl, a laboratory-made opioid that is cheap and 100 times more potent than heroin, have become mainly responsible for the majority of overdose deaths at record numbers in this country; much ongoing support from family and friends; and access as well as commitment to medication-assisted recovery like that at MiraVista.

I hope that my story offers hope for recovery to anyone with substance-use and mental-health disorders. Medications can get you into recovery, and the work you do in counseling motivates and helps sustain it.

 

James Basler was born in Melrose and raised in Burlington. He is a resident of Holyoke, the father of three, and a patient of MiraVista Behavioral Health Center’s Opioid Treatment program. He is in his fifth year of successful, sustained recovery. For more information on MiraVista’s treatment and recovery programs, call (413) 701-2600, option 3, or visit www.miravistabhc.care.

Area Banquet Facilities Offer Wide Range of Food, Amenities

By Contributor
Ralph Santaniello
Holiday Party Planner

What’s on the Menu?

By Manon L. Mirabelli

Ralph Santaniello

Ralph Santaniello says the Federal fits the bill as an upscale, special-occasion restaurant and also as an affordable, sociable spot.

Monica Guarneri has seen a noticeable trend in party planning — specifically, parties outside the home.

And that’s good for business at Shortstop Bar & Grill in Westfield, where Guarneri is executive chef and co-owner alongside her parents, Nabil and Julie Hannoush.

In the 10 years that facility has been open, she explained, more people are choosing to host parties in public rather than private spaces such as homes and offices, a trend driven by the COVID-19 pandemic. To accommodate that demand, Shortstop offers a newly redecorated, 3,000-square-foot banquet room that can hold 25 to 100 people.

“A lot of people don’t want to worry about having people in their homes,” Guarneri said. “What attracts clients is the ease and comfort of having someone else do the work for them so they can enjoy the party.”

While the space is tastefully appointed, she added, those hosting parties may opt to decorate the room to their liking to create a custom experience. “We are the go-to spot for several business clients. We offer convenience, consistency, and a private atmosphere.”

The holiday season is traditionally a time when employers celebrate their employees’ contributions to a successful business year with festive gatherings, and Western Mass. has no shortage of distinctive venues of all sizes, from the Berkshires to the Pioneer Valley.

One of the most notable local venues is Springfield’s world-renowned Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, which has the capability to host events of all sizes, intimate to large-scale.

Chelsea Johnson, manager of internal events for the Hall of Fame, said most businesses begin booking their holiday parties in the summer, and those that return regularly begin planning for the following year immediately after their parties.

“We are the go-to spot for several business clients. We offer convenience, consistency, and a private atmosphere.”

“It’s definitely a unique venue,” she said. “It’s not your standard banquet hall.”

Indeed, it is not. Party planners have a wide range of options, including Center Court, which typically accommodates 500 to 800 guests; the Theater, which holds 100 to 200 people; and the Boardroom and Hall of Honor, both more intimate spaces that can accommodate 50 to 100 guests.

Johnson said the Hall of Fame is an ideal venue for holiday parties because of its proximity to major highways, plenty of free parking, and free on-site valet service, to name just a few reasons.

“We are the premier location for events of any size or type in Western Massachusetts and New England,” she added. “We have more than 80,000 square feet of flexible function space, and each year we host hundreds of local and global corporate meetings, award dinners, private socials, and internationally televised events.”

 

Go West

Party planners seeking a more intimate venue a bit farther west might find the traditional elegance of the Red Lion Inn in Stockbridge an ideal location for a quintessential New England holiday experience.

Tim Eustis, director of Sales and Catering, said the storied eatery can accommodate 65 to 120 people and can customize space to suit every party, and companies who hold holiday events at the Red Lion can expect “a warm space, good food and drinks, and excellent service.”

The Red Lion’s Hitchcock Room

The Red Lion’s Hitchcock Room is the historic inn’s most spacious banquet option.

“We’re very good at throwing parties,” he noted. “We have the Hitchcock Room, the main dining room, front and back dining rooms, and part of the lobby.”

One local business-client stalwart for the Red Lion Inn, Eustis said, is the Jane Iredale international cosmetics company, as well as U.S. Rep. Richard Neal’s annual gathering for staff and friends.

“Congressman Neal’s parties are one of our favorites to plan and be a part of,” Eustis said. “They have a great team.”

Back in the Springfield area, the Federal is a historic site in Agawam that has become synonymous with excellence in fine dining.

Owners Ralph Santanielo and Michael Presnal strive to integrate the white-linen elegance of a bygone era with a fresh and innovative, ‘new American’ cuisine. “We rely on strong Italian and French influences to inspire the contemporary culinary style of Chef Presnal in dishes such as his red beet risotto, burnt tangerine glazed cod, and white-chocolate panna cotta” Santaniello said.

One big advantage of hosting a holiday event at the Federal, he added, is that the space is “dressed up as a special-occasion restaurant, but is sociable and affordable enough for every occasion.”

For those who choose to have the Federal cater their events off-site, parties from 15 to 300 can be served from a menu of specialty items.

 

Beyond the Table

Some venues offer more than a meal experience. Not unlike the Basketball Hall of Fame, but on a smaller scale, Shortstop also offers an interactive party experience with indoor batting cages to encourage mingling and hands-on fun.

“The batting cages are a great icebreaker,” Guarnieri said. “They make it easy to make conversation and make the party more interactive.”

Shortstop provides all food and beverages in party packages and may include chef-made desserts, though guests are also welcome to bring in their own desserts.

Speaking of the Hall of Fame, that venue provides local businesses with a one-of-a-kind party facility where guests can enjoy an interactive experience shooting hoops and touring the museum.

Johnson noted that Max’s Downtown is the exclusive caterer for Hall events, ensuring that visitors will enjoy a gourmet dinner experience in addition to a fun venue.

She noted that two of the biggest local companies that utilize the spot for their holiday parties are Advanced Manufacturing in Westfield and the Sarat Ford group, which includes Enfield Ford, Ford of Northampton, and the flagship Sarat Ford Lincoln in Agawam, for a total of more than 250 guests.

Jack Sarat, president of the auto group, said 2022 was the company’s first year at the Hall of Fame, and it was a great choice enjoyed by employees and their families. “Everybody had a great time. The food was excellent, and the venue is excellent. They really did a great job. A lot of people had never been there. It was a lot of fun.”

The Sarat patriarch said the company has used quite a few banquet facilities throughout the years it has been in business, but the Hall of Fame provided one of the most memorable parties.

“Overall, we had such a great time last year. They really sold us, and there was no reason not to go back this year.”

Law Marketing, Now Essential, Continues to Evolve

By
Law Special Coverage

Getting Their Message Across

Seth Stratton wasn’t belittling what he does. He was just stating what most would consider the obvious — “business law isn’t what you would call sexy.”

Usually.

Indeed, when the state Supreme Judicial Court overturns a $3.5 million settlement awarded to a couple living next to a golf course after 651 stray golf balls hit their property, frightening their young child and forcing them to confine themselves indoors for fear of injury — which it did almost a year ago — that’s business law that tumbles into the ‘sexy’ category. (The case became front-page news in the Boston Globe and other large daily publications.)

Understanding this, and also understanding that his firm, East Longmeadow-based Fitzgerald Law, P.C., has a few golf courses in its portfolio of business clients and would like to add more, Stratton posted this item on LinkedIn:

“Interesting SJC decision worth noting in the context of golf course neighboring residential developments. In essence, the SJC overturned a $3.5 million verdict in favor of the neighboring homeowners on the basis that the jury needed to consider the reasonableness standard in connection with an easement for the ‘reasonable and efficient’ operation of a golf course. Always a good sign when courts emphasize reasonableness in trial decisions.”

He then attached a link to a Mass Lawyers Weekly article on the case.

While the post falls into the category of education, it can also be considered marketing and building brand awareness, said Stratton, adding that the item speaks to how the marketing and advertising of legal services, something first permitted 46 years ago, has certainly changed over that time, even over the past 10 years or so, and certainly since the days when the yellow pages, and especially the back page of the phone book, were at the top of the list of options for many firms and sole practitioners.

“We’re not trained for this; they didn’t teach it when I was in law school. In fact, it was the opposite — they were teaching you how to be thoughtful about what you do, while marketing is sort of shouting from the rooftops, ‘we’re greater than sliced bread.’ And they still don’t teach it now.”

“That post took me five minutes to prepare and share,” he told BusinessWest. “Twenty years ago, firms would spend hours on a client alert, color, printing, and mass mailing.”

With that, he explained how a LinkedIn post can reach a large audience quickly, efficiently, and at minimum expense, and how social media has become a larger force in an equation that has many components — and questions to be answered.

Indeed, there are many aspects to be considered with marketing, said Tim Mulhern, a partner with the Springfield-based firm Shatz, Schwartz & Fentin, noting, as others we spoke with did, that marketing isn’t something law students typically study.

Amy Royal

Amy Royal says the importance of law marketing continues to grow, as does the number of options for law firms to consider.

“We’re not trained for this; they didn’t teach it when I was in law school. In fact, it was the opposite — they were teaching you how to be thoughtful about what you do, while marketing is sort of shouting from the rooftops, ‘we’re greater than sliced bread,’” he said. “And they still don’t teach it now.”

So lawyers and firms have had to learn as they go, he said, adding that there is much to learn as the methods for getting a message across have evolved. Meanwhile, firms have to decide if they want to do it themselves — many have marketing committees comprised of lawyers — or hire a marketing director or an outside PR firm, an expensive step (one that didn’t have to be taken years ago), which many of them have taken.

And the job descriptions for these marketing directors have certainly changed as the times have.

“When I began my career in legal marketing in 1995, law firms were just starting to introduce websites as a tool to differentiate themselves from the competition,” said Jennifer Jacque, head of Marketing and Business Development for Springfield-based Bulkley Richardson. “Responsibilities of marketing professionals in law firms were limited to tasks such as writing bios and planning events. Since then, law firms have expanded their core portfolio of marketing services to include branding, public relations, advertising, social media, digital marketing, market research, communications, accolades and awards submissions, and more.”

Meanwhile, the importance of marketing and building brand awareness has grown steadily, said Raipher Pellegrino, managing partner of Springfield-based Raipher, P.C., which specializes in personal injury, medical malpractice, and related fields. He cited several reasons why.

Competition is one of them, he said, noting that firms in this market now compete against regional and national giants that open small offices in markets like this one — and they have for some time now. More recently, there is increased competition from firms from Boston and other large markets who can take advantage of shifts brought on from COVID — especially Zoom calls with clients and Zoom court hearings instead of the in-person variety of both — to take cases in this market that previously would have been prohibitive.

These same shifts bring down the cost of client representation, Pellegrino went on, making it possible for a potential client to hire a firm in a larger market that might previously have been out of their price range (more on this later).

All of this points to the importance of marketing and business development and the need for firms to stay on the cutting edge, said those we spoke with — whatever that might be.

 

Case in Point

As he talked about marketing and the many changes that have come to the profession and the legal landscape, if you will, in Western Mass., Mulhern noted that, among other things, the names of many of the firms are shorter — in some cases, much shorter.

“Years ago, if you added a new partner, you added their name to the firm,” he said, noting that some firms had six, eight, or even more names on the letterhead and sign over the door.

Shorter names are, for the most part, a function of marketing and branding, he said, adding that there are myriad other parts of this equation, from a strong web presence to involvement in the community, such as with his firm’s charitable foundation.

Indeed, as Jacque noted, marketing and business development covers areas ranging from PR to submitting nominations for the many ‘best of’ awards that lawyers can put on their résumés, the press releases for which start flooding the inboxes of media outlets each fall, when the announcements are made.

The world of law marketing changed dramatically in June 1977, when the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its decision in Bates v. State Bar of Arizona, essentially striking down prohibitions against advertising by attorneys.

Tim Mulhern

Tim Mulhern says that, while law marketing has certainly evolved, word-of-mouth referrals are still effective.

Until then, marketing was a function of signage on a building or office door, networking — everything from joining the Rotary Club to being active with the local chamber of commerce — and word-of-mouth referrals, all of which, and especially the last two, are still very important pieces of the puzzle and perhaps the most important, said those we spoke with.

Indeed, Stratton said he and other lawyers at Fitzgerald are very visible, attending a number of business functions (the recent Developers Conference in Springfield is a good example) and fundraisers for area nonprofits. Meanwhile, word of mouth has long been perhaps the most effective way to build a book of business.

“Word of mouth has always been important,” said Mulhern, who specializes in business organizations, estate planning, and real estate. “My favorite way to get a new client is to have another lawyer say, ‘Tim knows how to do this stuff.’”

But while advertising was frowned upon by many in the business for years after the 1977 ruling, the many aspects of marketing and brand building have become more accepted and increasingly important over the years, for those reasons mentioned earlier. The questions have always concerned how to market.

And the answer usually depends on what type of law one specializes in and what audiences they are trying to reach.

“Marketing of law firms comes down to messaging — and then targeting who you want to be receiving this message,” said Jacque, noting that the work of targeting takes many forms and involves different mediums.

Amy Royal, founding partner of the Springfield-based Royal Law Firm, agreed, noting that her firm, which represents and counsels businesses on all aspects of labor and employment law, focuses on that specific audience.

That’s why she never took out ads in the yellow pages — she was solicited annually but always said no — and instead focused on business publications like this one.

“We’ve also expanded over the years into the digital space — and while we don’t do advertising, we do brand awareness on social media,” she said, adding that some firms have gone to platforms ranging from Facebook to Instagram and even TikTok to get their message out with videos, articles, links to reports on recent rulings, and more. Doing so enables them to reach large audiences inexpensively.

“Now, in order to be competitive, you have to advertise in some form. But you have to figure out what works for you.”

Meanwhile, the firm’s web page has become a valuable asset, especially since the start of the pandemic, for introducing people to the firm and its lawyers, and also disseminating information through a blog, articles, and links to articles, such as the ones Royal’s attorneys write regularly for BusinessWest.

 

Weighing the Facts

Overall, Royal said law firms often need to use several vehicles, including traditional forms of media, depending, again, on the audience they want to reach and the messages they want to send.

Pellegrino, who uses billboards, television, print, and other mediums, agreed, but added that, for many lawyers, especially those who specialize in different areas, targeting specific audiences can be more challenging.

“Now, in order to be competitive, you have to advertise in some form,” he told BusinessWest. “But you have to figure out what works for you; it’s a very difficult business to advertise in. If you were selling engagement rings, you’d target the 19- to 30-year-old audience. But who gets in accidents? What type of clientele are you targeting? Personal injury is a very difficult business to advertise.”

Meanwhile, measuring return on investment from whatever forms of marketing are used is more difficult with legal services than other products or services, Pellegrino went on.

“There’s no guarantee of what you’re going to get in return,” he said, adding that, while it’s like this for all industries, it’s especially true with the law and especially personal-injury law, where the goal is to get the higher-end cases with bigger returns.

Despite these challenges, he said marketing is ever-more important because the level of competition continues to increase, with regional and national firms specializing in personal injury moving into this market — and making their presence known.

And the advent of virtual hearings and client meetings enables firms in other markets to woo clients in the 413.

“Before, the Boston lawyers didn’t want to take cases in Western Mass.,” he said. “But now they do because they can do a lot of the hearings by Zoom, so they don’t have to drive out here; it’s more cost-effective, and it’s really good for the consumer. And it means that it’s more important to advertise.”

Stratton agreed, noting that, overall, success in this industry is about forging relationships and continually strengthening those relationships. This is accomplished by staying visible and front of mind — in every way imaginable, be it by attending functions, being active in the community, writing articles to be published in BusinessWest, or, yes, sending links to articles on developments and cases like the one involving that couple living just off the golf course.

Doing so helps show that, while business law isn’t sexy — usually — it’s important, especially to those in business.

Legal advertising usually isn’t sexy, either, but it’s equally important, and while the landscape has changed dramatically since June 1977, and even over the past five years, the basic mission remains the same — to build a brand and put one’s best foot forward.

Country Bank Creates Strategies to Build Its Brand, Enter New Markets

By
Banking and Financial Services Special Coverage

Signs of Progress

Country Bank’s display at Polar Park in Worcester has given many businesses what Paul Scully calls “sign envy.”

Paul Scully didn’t want to say how much Country Bank has invested in that 60-foot-long sign that sits atop what is known as the Worcester Wall at Polar Park (that facility’s version of Fenway’s Green Monster), easily the most visible manifestation of the bank’s partnership with the WooSox.

Instead, he offered a gracious “you can ask…”

But he certainly did want to say that he considers the overall investment in this sponsorship, and especially that sign, well worth it.

Indeed, it is certainly an attention getter, at all times but especially at night — it’s one of the few illuminated signs at the home of the WooSox and the second-largest after the one for the beverage company that bought naming rights.

Scully told BusinessWest that he has talked with a number of business owners in Worcester, Springfield, and in between who are suffering from what he called “sign envy.” Meanwhile, upon introducing himself at various occasions, he said he’s been greeted with the response “that’s the bank with the big sign at Polar Park.”

So the display is doing what is was designed to do, although fully leveraging it and other aspects of the partnership with the WooSox is an ongoing learning experience in a different kind of branding exercise (more on that later). And it’s merely one of many signs of progress, growth, and expansion — figuratively but also quite literally — at the Ware-based institution.

Another would be the bank’s business center on the 17th floor of Tower Square in downtown Springfield, opened in 2022. There’s only a small sign at the office, but the facility gives the bank a much larger presence at this end of Hampden County. Meanwhile, Country is adding some new products, including a WooSox debit card, and it recently completed a comprehensive digital upgrade on both its consumer and business banking platforms.

Still another sign, this one not of the visible variety, is the bank’s resiliency during what has been a challenging year for all financial institutions amid skyrocketing interest rates and a sagging housing market, due in large part to those soaring interest rates, but other factors as well.

Overall, Scully said Country Bank remains in a growth mode and, like other institutions, understands the value of size to continued success. The bank is looking at where to bring its brand next, he said, adding that there are many opportunities within its current footprint between Springfield and Worcester and perhaps beyond.

And there are, obviously, many factors to consider when it comes to where to go, when, and in what fashion.

Indeed, the 3,000-square-foot branch with a few drive-up lanes is largely a thing of the past, he said, adding quickly that while customers, and especially the younger generations, have fewer reasons than ever to visit a branch, they still serve a purpose. Actually, several of them.

“What we continue to look at are smaller footprints that will provide several things; getting your name on a building or a storefront is a form of marketing and the ability to get our name and our brand out there,” he said, adding that the bank’s broad strategy will be to maximize both brick-and-mortar facilities and digital banking platforms — often at the same address.

The team at Country Bank’s business office

The team at Country Bank’s business office at Tower Square in Springfield, another sign of the bank’s continued growth and expansion.

As to what additional addresses might become reality in the future, he said that’s one of many questions to be answered in the years to come.

For this issue and its focus on banking and financial services, BusinessWest engaged in a wide-ranging discussion with Scully, who addressed everything from broad strokes in the bank’s business plan to the outlook for the year ahead when it comes to the economy, interest rates, and other factors; from the bank’s adjustments to a changing workforce to that big green sign in downtown Worcester.

 

Home Field Advantage

Like the famous Citgo sign outside Fenway, the Country Bank sign at Polar Park is always on, Scully said, adding that he can see it outside the apartment he has in the city.

“They do great things at the park and with the city to keep it going year-round,” he explained, noting that the bank’s visibility certainly doesn’t end when the games stop in September. “Whether it’s a Holy Cross football game or the charity walks that are constantly going on … every time the park is being used, or whether you’re in the DCU Club, a beautiful function venue at the park, that Country Bank sign is right in your face.”

And having his bank’s name in lights — big lights — is just one component of the bank’s partnership with the Red Sox’ Triple-A affiliate, Scully said, noting that it will soon be introducing a WooSox debit card — ‘the official debit card of the Worcester Red Sox.’ Meanwhile, the organizations collaborate on a ‘teacher of the month’ program, a ‘community heroes’ initiative, and other endeavors, he noted, adding that the investment in the team and its ballpark continues to pay dividends.

And the key to a successful partnership in such cases is effective leveraging of the signage and other elements of the collaboration, he said, adding that, in many respects, this remains a learning experience for the bank. And he used the DCU Center, the indoor arena in Worcester, to get his point across.

“I was with someone a few years ago, and I said something about DCU, noting that this was Digital Credit Union,” he recalled. “And she looked at me and said, ‘that’s what that stands for?’ So you need to make sure that, if you’re going to do something like this, you have to figure out what it’s going to get you.

“And you have to really work at leveraging it,” he went on. “Whenever you take a new approach to how you market your brand, you have to do the research, and you have to know when to shift gears. Clearly, it’s not just about turning on a sign; it’s about how you leverage that to be an expansion and an awareness of your brand.”

He said the bank’s marketing team spends a lot of time with the marketing personnel at the WooSox to develop strategies for how to fully leverage the partnership between the organizations.

Elaborating, he said the bank does this in various ways — through visibility from the sign, obviously, but also with the debit card, ticket giveaways, work with the WooSox Foundation, and being on the field for promotional events, such as the police-fire charity baseball game staged at the park in September.

“We were there, and we were a big sponsor of that event,” he went on, “and that allows you to reach out into various mediums of people and get your brand out there, so they get to understand what the brand is and what it stands for.”

 

Covering His Bases

Overall, the brand stands for many things, Scully said, noting that Country is a community bank that is large enough to provide the services required by its commercial clients and consumers, but small enough to deliver a personalized brand of service, qualities that have served the bank well during what has been a year of challenge for most all financial-services institutions.

Indeed, Country has enjoyed what Scully called a “decent year,” not on par with those that immediately preceded the pandemic, but solid from an earnings perspective and in most areas, including the mortgage side of the ledger and home-equity loans.

“We’re one of the most highly capitalized banks in the Commonwealth — our capital ratio is over 15%, and we’re quite profitable,” he said, adding that such stability bodes well at a time when not all banks can make such claims.

As for the mortgage business, Scully said it was definitely more vibrant than he would have expected over the past year, adding quickly that there are challenges within certain sectors of the market, especially the first-time homebuyers.

“They got the double whammy — the pricing of housing went up, and now interest rates have gone up,” he said. “There’s that segment of the population that’s looking to buy a home, but they can’t find it within their price range because their price range has been altered by the increase in interest rates.

“But we’re seeing people who have sold a home and are buying another one and trading up who don’t seem fazed by interest rates,” he went on. “Part of it is because a large percentage of the mortgages we are doing are adjustable-rate; they’re at a lower rate than a fixed rate, and I think the thought process is, ‘I’ll get an adjustable, and then, when rates come down, whether that’s in 12, 24, or 36 months, I’ll just refinance.’”

Overall, consumers continue to spend, despite the higher interest rates and historically high inflation.

“We see a younger segment seemingly unfazed by interest rates,” he told BusinessWest. “If the debit card works … they have a good time for themselves; that’s what’s happening.”

Things are slower, overall, on the commercial side of the ledger, Scully noted, adding that many business owners are fazed by higher interest rates. Meanwhile, with commercial real estate, many potential investors are waiting and seeing what’s happening with the office market, he said, adding that that the shift to remote work and hybrid schedules, seemingly permanent in the eyes of many, have brought a hesitancy to many investors.

Country Bank is one of those companies that has embraced a hybrid approach — and Scully is one of those who works remotely at least a few days a week on average.

He said these strategies have better enabled the bank to recruit and retain talent and, overall, become what he called “an employer of choice.”

“It’s really understanding evolution — an evolution of the workplace and an evolution of the economy,” he said, “and being able to adapt to it.”

 

Knowing the Score

Scully was quick to note that his office is not equipped with a crystal ball, but he said there are many signs, especially on the employment side, that the economy is still chugging along. Companies are hiring, he noted, and this trend generally yields sufficient levels of optimism among consumers.

And with interest rates, he projects they will stay pretty much where they are — a level that is considerably higher than what has been seen over the past decade, but, from a historical perspective, acceptable in most respects.

“We need some stabilization to get a sense of what real is these days,” he said. “The rates were so low for so long, but were those rates real? That’s the big question. If we step back 10 or 15 years ago, if you were getting a mortgage at 6%, that was pretty darn good.”

The other lingering question about 2024 concerns what will happen on the business and commercial real-estate sides of the ledger, he said, noting that there is a great deal of uncertainly when it comes to the future of retail — and the office.

“We’re hybrid, and we have a lot of office space,” he said. “We don’t have plans to condense it, but I’m sure there are companies that are looking at that. What will that do to the prices of things? That’s what we’ll start to see in 2024.”

As he talked about possible opportunities for expansion and bringing the Country Bank name (and green sign) to different communities, Scully acknowledged that the bank already has a rather large footprint, one that includes the state’s second- and third-largest cities and the territory between them.

There is the banking center in downtown Springfield and full-service branches in Belchertown, Brimfield, Charlton, Leicester, Ludlow, Palmer, Paxton, Ware, West Brookfield, Wilbraham, and two in Worcester, including a recently opened facility in Tatnuck Square. That footprint covers three counties — Hampden, Hampshire, and Worcester — and communities large and small.

The bank has been steadily growing its presence in Worcester, he went on, adding that it has always had a strong commercial-lending book of business, and has gradually increased its visibility and its overall presence with branch locations.

“We’re looking for opportunities throughout the Central Mass. and Western Mass. area,” he said, acknowledging that this certainly covers a considerable amount of real estate.

With the exception of that business office in Tower Square, the bank does not have a physical location west of Ludlow, he noted, adding that Country is certainly looking at opportunities to change that equation.

But the opportunity has to be right, he added quickly, noting that the bank isn’t interested in expansion for expansion’s sake.

“We continue to look at both markets, Worcester and Springfield, and say, ‘what opportunities are there in towns that are not already overbanked?’” he said. “We don’t want to be the 10th bank in the town.”

Getting back to those businesses he mentioned with ‘sign envy,’ Scully said they’re going to have to live with that condition for the foreseeable future.

“That’s their problem because we’re going to be there for a long time,” he said, using that phrase to refer to the sign, but also the bank’s presence across an ever-wider stretch of the state. This is an institution that is hitting it out of the park — in all kinds of ways.

Valley View Farm Blends History, Nature, and Hard Cider

By
Suzy Fortgang
Holiday Party Planner Special Coverage

It’s Become a Venue of Choice

Suzy Fortgang

Suzy Fortgang in the Yellow Barn at Valley View Farm.

 

Suzy Fortgang says it took four full years to acquire the horse barn on the grounds of the Berkshire Hills Music Academy in South Hadley, disassemble it, and put it back together at what is now known as Valley View Farm in Haydenville.

“We were looking for a barn, we found it, and we took it down piece by piece,” she recalled. “It was a laborious process; every piece, some of them 40 feet long, was tagged, taken apart like a LEGO, and moved … luckily, we had drawn a good diagram so we could put it back together.”

And when asked about the price tag for doing all that, she said simply, “I don’t want to think about it; I never wanted to add it up.”

But she thinks often about how that cost, and all that hard work, were certainly well worth it.

Indeed, what’s known as the ‘Yellow Barn,’ built by the son of silk magnate William Skinner for his daughter, has become the centerpiece, — figuratively, but also quite literally — of a multi-faceted operation at the farm, shaped over the past several years by Fortgang and her husband, David Nehring, and especially its thriving weddings and events business.

“It was a laborious process; every piece, some of them 40 feet long, was tagged, taken apart like a LEGO, and moved … luckily, we had drawn a good diagram so we could put it back together.”

Fortgang, a psychotherapist by trade, said the venue hosts roughly 80 weddings a year, in addition to a variety of other events, from fundraisers for nonprofits to retirement and birthday parties to a few holiday gatherings, with the obvious goal of doing more of all of the above.

The site has become an increasingly popular venue for weddings, drawing couples from an ever-wider geographic circle, but especially from across New England, New York State, and, increasingly, New York City.

Indeed, as she talked with BusinessWest, Fortgang recapped a wedding the previous weekend involving a couple from Brooklyn, with most family and friends coming from in or around Gotham.

“They don’t get to experience this much — being outdoors and being in nature and eating local food,” she said, referring to the broad experience that Valley View provides. “It’s a gift that you can give to your guests.”

Valley View

Valley View is a working farm, but also a true destination and venue for many different kinds of events.
Photo by Aleksandr Verbetsky

Indeed, those hosting these events — and those who attend them — are treated to a site that blends scenic beauty with some history, especially in the form of that barn (more on that later), hard cider (another important piece of the business plan), and some spectacular views.

“We now make a living hosting weddings and other events,” said Fortgang, adding that this component of the business started coming together just seven years ago. “And I think we’ve risen to become one of the most popular venues in New England.”

As noted earlier, this is, indeed, a multi-faceted operation. Fortgang and Nehring grow a number of crops, from apples and peaches to blueberries and a variety of vegetables. They also produce maple syrup, raise chickens and sell eggs. And several years ago, they started making hard cider and eventually opened the Muse Cider Bar, a destination unto itself that is open to the public on nights when there are no events.

“We now make a living hosting weddings and other events. And I think we’ve risen to become one of the most popular venues in New England.”

For this issue and its focus on holiday party planning, BusinessWest visited Valley View Farm and gained a full appreciation for how it has become a true destination, and in many different respects.

 

Story Material

Getting back to that barn…

It’s not just the painstakingly laborious process of taking it down and reassembling it that makes its new home and purpose so significant, although that’s a remarkable story in its own right. It’s also where it’s located.

Indeed, the farm now sits just a few hundred yards from where the original Skinner silk mill was located in Haydenville, then known as as the Unquomonk Silk Company. That mill, which was uninsured, was destroyed by the Mill River Flood of 1874, with Skinner eventually rebuilding in Holyoke in what became one of the best business comeback stories ever recorded.

“It just felt right to bring it back to Haydenville,” said Fortgang, adding that the barn had been condemned and was due to be demolished by Berkshire Hills when she and Nehring, who previously owned a small engine-repair shop in Northampton, stepped in to rescue it.

That was a few years after they had acquired the property in 2013, outbidding, by a dollar, a developer who planned to build condominiums on the site.

“We bought it with the intention of farming,” she recalled. “We wanted land … we both loved the outdoors. He wanted to farm — he grew up on a farm.”

Originally a dairy farm but also an orchard, the property had not been farmed for many years, she went on, adding that they gradually added facilities, crops, and revenue streams. The farm is now home to more than 250 fruit trees, including vintage apple trees with heirloom varieties. Maple sugaring and cider production were soon added, and while doing all that, Fortgang and Nehring conceptualized and advanced a secondary plan to convert the property into an events venue and destination.

The Yellow Barn at Valley View Farm

The Yellow Barn at Valley View Farm, carefully deconstructed and put together at the scenic property in Haydenville, has become a popular wedding venue.

“When we bought the land, it was in my mind to do all of this,” she said, gesturing with her hand to indicate everything from the main event space to a smaller barn converted into a pavilion, to the cider bar. “Because I interviewed all the farmers, I knew about how to make a living farming, and I couldn’t quite figure out how to do that without the history and the infrastructure.”

And the Yellow Barn become the focal point of that plan.

Featuring high ceilings, huge windows to let in sunlight and moonlight, and tables and chairs fashioned from boards from a secondary floor, it is open for events year-round — it’s heated and air-conditioned — and blends history and culture with today’s conveniences.

“It has all the amenities of a modern venue, but it also has the history and charm of being an old horse barn,” said Fortgang, adding that it also features some unique spaces, such as the ‘Love Nest.’ Located on the second floor of the barn, it’s a private suite, decorated with antique furniture collected by Fortgang’s parents, that is used for photos, hair and makeup, and as a “romantic getaway.”

This blend of old, new, and historical, coupled with everything else on the property, from the views to the horses grazing in the nearby pasture to the hard cider, has quickly made Valley View a destination of choice for couples looking a different kind of wedding venue.

Fortgang said that perhaps 30% of the weddings involve people from this area. The rest are from across New England and New York and well beyond, making tiny Haydenville what could be considered a destination-wedding spot.

“We’re happy to get to know more people and share this beautiful place with them. This has become a place to come and celebrate … and we know how to throw a good party.”

Indeed, wedding parties and guests will often stay a night or two in hotels in neighboring Northampton and other communities, making Valley View an economic engine of sorts.

“They all stay in Northampton, they take a bus up here, and they spend the day here,” she explained. “Sometimes it’s kids who grew up here, but now they live in other parts of the country. We have New Yorkers, we have a lot of Brooklyn couples.

“Couples these days … when they’re looking for this aesthetic, they get on the internet, and they’re considering Vermont and Maine and Rhode Island, and all of New England, really,” she went on, adding that their search now often ends in Haydenville because of word-of-mouth referrals and the venue’s strong track record for excellence.

Indeed, 2024 is essentially sold out as far as weddings are concerned, she said, while bookings for 2025 and beyond are quite solid. The venue generally does three each weekend, with the pace of business slowing in the winter months, obviously.

Beyond weddings, Valley View also hosts different kinds of private functions in its various spaces — the Yellow Barn for larger gatherings, as it can accommodate up to 200 people, and a pavilion and patio (moved from the historic Hemenway Hill Farm a few miles away) and Muse Cider Bar for smaller functions.

It has hosted wedding anniversaries, bridal and baby showers, nonprofit fundraising events, retirement parties, family reunions, and some holiday parties as well, said Fortgang, adding that the business plan calls for building this side of the operation by creating more of those word-of-mouth referrals.

“We’re happy to get to know more people and share this beautiful place with them,” she went on. “This has become a place to come and celebrate … and we know how to throw a good party.”

 

Bottom Line

During COVID, when the wedding business screeched to a halt, Fortgang and Nehring still managed to put their facilities to use, creating a cocktail bar, called the Farm Bar, in the Yellow Barn, and actually handing out drinks through the windows to visitors from across the region — many of them desperate for something to do — before eventually moving the operation outdoors.

“It became a thing,” she said, adding that the farm became such a popular gathering spot for the public, it was decided to open the Muse Cider Bar on nights when there are no events.

“We’ll have a food truck down there and serve cocktails and cider,” she told BusinessWest, adding that this is just one of the ways in which Valley View has gone from being a celebrated part of Haydenville’s past to being a huge part of the community’s present and future.

And a destination — in every sense of that term.

Strategies Evolve to Counter Troubling Opioid-overdose Trends

By
Christine Palmieri
Healthcare News Special Coverage

Stemming the Tide

Christine Palmieri

Christine Palmieri says economic tides, particularly around housing availability, have exacerbated the opioid epidemic.

When BusinessWest visited the Mental Health Assoc. (MHA) in Springfield last fall, Christine Palmieri reported what she called a “troubling” trend locally: more deaths by overdose, over the previous year or two, than she’d seen in her entire career.

She wishes she had different news to report now.

“Anecdotally, it hasn’t improved. We’ve lost a number of individuals over the course of this year to opioid overdose,” Palmieri, vice president of Recovery and Housing at MHA, said this month.

Earlier this year, the state reported a similar lack of positive news. Specifically, opioid-related overdose deaths in Massachusetts increased by 2.5% in 2022 compared to 2021, with 2,357 such confirmed and estimated deaths in 2022.

Breaking it down further, the data showed that non-Hispanic Black men saw their opioid-related overdose death rate increase 41%, from 56.4 to 79.6 per 100,000, while the rate for non-Hispanic Black women increased by 47%, from 17.4 to 25.5 per 100,000.

Some of the broader trends may track back to the isolation and loss of connection people were feeling during the pandemic, Palmieri said, but economic tides are more significant factors right now, from access to work to higher costs of food, transportation, and especially housing — key social determinants of health that hinder recovery.

“It’s a difficult environment to try to get better in now,” she told BusinessWest, noting that the state Department of Public Health (DPH) has begun investing significantly in housing programs for people experiencing substance abuse. Using funds from the state’s Opioid Recovery and Remediation Fund, DPH expects to increase low-threshold housing units — housing provided in conjunction with supportive recovery services — statewide from 394 to 761 this year.

“MHA and a lot of our colleagues have been benefactors of that funding, which helps get people off the street into a warm and safe place and on the path to recovery,” Palmieri said. “It’s hard to do the work of recovery if you don’t have a safe place to lay your head. Getting people off the streets into safe housing is critical. It’s the first step on the path to recovery.”

“It hasn’t improved. We’ve lost a number of individuals over the course of this year to opioid overdose.”

Among MHA’s transitional and permanent housing programs are three residences in its GRIT program, for individuals with co-occurring substance-abuse and mental-health diagnoses, which require no time limit on a stay as long as a resident is benefiting and engaging in the program.

“Housing is the biggest barrier for us in the mental-health world,” she added. “The thing that keeps people in programs longer than anything else is the lack of affordable housing. We don’t discharge people into homelessness; we help them land somewhere — sober houses, transitional houses, re-housing programs.

“That’s why funding from the state is so crucial. It allows us to subsidize housing costs for people with very low incomes who experience substance-use issues,” Palmieri added, noting that MHA also has relationships, often spanning decades, with local landlords. “When a unit becomes available, they’ll call us because they know the rent will get paid and that we’ll be there to support them with whatever they experience.”

Dr. Katie Krauskopf

Dr. Katie Krauskopf says everyone should have access to naloxone, the only intervention that can reverse an overdose.

Dr. Katie Krauskopf, medical director of Substance Use Disorder Services at MiraVista Behavioral Health Center in Holyoke, said her organization has expanded outpatient substance-abuse treatment services — both programs and operating hours — as well as broadening an effort to treat patients with co-occurring mental-health and substance-abuse issues through its inpatient psychiatric services.

“The work definitely continues,” she told BusinessWest. “We’re still seeing overdoses at high rates — and any overdose is too many. We’re also seeing an adulterated drug supply.”

And it’s not just fentanyl, she noted; the new additive on the street is a tranquilizer called xylazine, which is being detected in an increasing number of drug-overdose deaths.

“To address the opioid crisis, we need to prioritize overdose death prevention while simultaneously investing in comprehensive supports for those dealing with substance-use disorder, to ensure they have every opportunity for recovery,”  Secretary of Health and Human Services Kate Walsh said when the DPH report was released. “We have to lean into the disparities we see in impacts on Black residents and target our interventions accordingly. Challenges like housing, hunger, and accessing education, behavioral-health treatment, and transportation need to be addressed in concert with substance-use treatment in order to turn the tide of this epidemic.”

 

Instant Intervention

To save lives while an overdose is in progress, the state, its municipalities, and organizations like MiraVista and Tapestry Health have worked in concert to make naloxone, also known as Narcan, more widely accessible, in order to reverse the deadly effects of an overdose as it’s happening.

For instance, the city of Greenfield recently announced that four naloxone boxes have been installed at Energy Park, Hillside Park, and the two Greenfield City Hall public restrooms, and the boxes will be refilled weekly by Tapestry.

This effort, spearheaded by the Opioid Task Force of Franklin County and the North Quabbin, Tapestry, the North Quabbin Community Coalition, and Boston Medical Center, is part of the National Institutes of Health’s HEALing Communities Study, which began in 2019 with 16 Massachusetts communities that qualified based on opioid overdose fatality rates.

The new naloxone boxes are part of the $800,000 the local task force received to finance opioid-related fatality-reduction strategies in Greenfield, Athol, Montague, and Orange. In addition, the task force and Tapestry continue to host virtual overdose-prevention and Narcan trainings.

“The city welcomes the opportunity to be a partner with Tapestry and the Opioid Task Force in this effective, life-saving, harm-reduction effort by allowing naloxone boxes to be available in our City Hall and public parks,” Greenfield Mayor Roxann Wedegartner said.

According to the DPH, Massachusetts has already exceeded, and plans to expand upon, federal naloxone ‘saturation’ goals, providing communities with enough naloxone to prevent overdose deaths that may occur from a lack of medication access. Since 2020, DPH has distributed close to 300,000 naloxone kits to harm-reduction programs, opioid treatment providers, community health centers, hospital emergency departments, and county houses of correction, with distribution increasing about 40% each year.

In 2022, the DPH launched the Community Naloxone Purchasing Program with the aim of increasing distribution of free naloxone through organizations to the community. Meanwhile, this past spring, in response to the rise in opioid-related overdose deaths, DPH issued an advisory urging healthcare providers to increase availability of naloxone kits and train staff to administer naloxone to anyone who may need it, and retail pharmacies to continue to dispense it without a prescription as part of a statewide standing order.

“Narcan is the only intervention we have to reverse an overdose. And if you have a medication that does that, everyone should have access to it. It does save lives,” Krauskopf said.

Roxann Wedegartner

“The city welcomes the opportunity to be a partner with Tapestry and the Opioid Task Force in this effective, life-saving, harm-reduction effort by allowing naloxone boxes to be available in our City Hall and public parks.”

Meanwhile, since August 2022, DPH has increased its distribution of rapid fentanyl test strip kits at no cost to providers and community organizations. Single-use fentanyl test strips help reduce the chances of overdose by allowing people who use drugs to test their supply prior to consumption to determine if it is tainted with fentanyl.

Other recent innovations in battling substance abuse range from medical — such as Sublocade, a long-acting injectable that has helped many patients keep off opioids — to regulatory, such as a move during the pandemic to allow patients to take home medications they could not previously, Krauskopf added.

Palmieri noted that the Western Mass. region — and the organizations within it that deal with addiction — do a good job of providing a wide spectrum of residential and outpatient services, from acute detox centers to medication-assisted treatment to recovery coaching.

“It’s vitally important that the community has options to meet everyone’s needs,” she added. “No one size fits all, and there are many different pathways to recovery.”

 

A Slowing Trend?

There is also, perhaps, some good news from the DPH’s recent study, which reported that, according to preliminary data, there were 522 confirmed and estimated opioid-related overdose deaths in the first three months of 2023, a 7.7% decrease (and an estimated 44 fewer deaths) from the same time period in 2022.

“Too many Massachusetts families, particularly families of color, have been impacted by this crisis,” Gov. Healey said at the time, “and in order to effectively respond, we need to address the gaps in the system by advancing long-term solutions that include housing, jobs, mental healthcare, and more resources for our cities and towns.”

And addiction doesn’t discriminate by the size of those cities and towns. According to the DPH report, the most rural communities in Massachusetts had the highest opioid-related overdose death rate in 2022 at 36.1 deaths per 100,000 residents.

However, Springfield was among the cities and towns that experienced notable increases in opioid-related overdose deaths in 2022 compared with 2021; others high on that list included Lawrence, Leominster, Lynn, Waltham, Weymouth, and Worcester.

“We know overdose deaths are preventable,” DPH Commissioner Dr. Robert Goldstein said. “The pandemic has had a devastating impact on mental health and substance use, especially among marginalized communities. We are working to reverse these troubling trends by continuing to build on our data-driven and equity-based approaches toward responsive support and treatment.”

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