Administration announces Local Finance Commonwealth Fellowship program

Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito has announced a new partnership between the Division of Local Services and the Commonwealth’s community colleges intended to address an urgent need for municipal finance professionals.

The Local Finance Commonwealth Fellowship will give up to 30 community college students the opportunity of a paid fellowship that will provide both career preparation — via a training program managed by the DLS and supported by both the Massachusetts Collectors and Treasurers Association and the Massachusetts Municipal Auditors’ and Accountants’ Association — and a work-based learning experience via partnerships with cities and towns who will serve as host communities.

The fellowship model will enable students who are currently enrolled in finance or accounting programs to go through an extensive training program and then take those skills to a municipality, where they will continue to learn about municipal finance while also helping short-staffed city and town halls.

Polito announced the new program on Sept. 29 in Worcester at the annual Municipal Conference co-sponsored by the Division of Local Services and the Massachusetts Association of Regional Planning Agencies. She called the collaborative fellowship program “a win-win” that will help grow the pipeline of future municipal finance professionals.

Municipal finance offices are facing a workforce skills gap due to retirements, strong competitive labor markets, and the requirement of specialized knowledge, Polito said. It is critical, however, to have highly functioning municipalities across the Commonwealth, which requires strong financial management.

In 2017-2018, the Baker-Polito administration convened a task force charged with addressing the local government workforce skills gap, with the MMA participating on the task force. Polito said a continued strong partnership between the state and municipalities and the deployment of additional strategies is required to meet the tremendous demand for qualified, trained and diverse municipal employees.

For the new fellowship program to reach its potential, municipal leaders will need to help by hosting fellows in their communities.

Fellows will undertake their extensive training in June, followed by a work-based learning experience in cities and towns during the summer. Host communities will be expected to introduce fellows to each of the finance offices, thereby showing how each works as part of the core financial management team.

In some cases, fellows will have multiple host communities, which will allow them to participate in different settings and make it easier for host municipalities to fulfill the responsibility of managing the fellows and showing them how rewarding a local finance career choice can be.

The Local Finance Commonwealth Fellowship is made possible by funding from the Community Compact program, which has been consistently supported by the Legislature.

More details will be posted at www.Mass.gov/DLS as they become available. For more information, contact DLS Senior Deputy Commissioner Sean Cronin at croninse@dor.state.ma.us.

Also in an effort to address the finance skills gap in city and town halls, the MMA and Suffolk University in 2019 launched the Municipal Finance Management Seminar, which provides an overview of Massachusetts municipal finance, including the operational aspects of finance structure, systems and processes in Massachusetts cities and towns. The seminar is held three times per year over the course of five Fridays, covering nine topics in municipal finance.