Free Cash by Town in Western Mass: Certified Reserves and Deficits

Free cash is the state's name for the money a town closed its books with and may legally spend: the certified, unrestricted balance left after the year's revenue and the year's bills. It is the number read aloud when town meeting argues about a new roof, a stabilization transfer or whether an override is really necessary, and the Division of Local Services certifies it for every municipality every year.

Across this region's 101 towns the certified total has gone from $58M in fiscal 2003 to $297M in fiscal 2023. Towns here are, in aggregate, holding far more than they used to.

The climb is not smooth growth in every town; the big cities dominate a regional total. But the direction is real, and it is one reason override votes have become harder arguments: "spend the free cash first" lands differently when the certified figure is large.

The Thirty-Two Times It Went Negative

Certification can come back below zero, and in this region it has 32 times since 2003, across 18 towns. A certified deficit means the town closed its books short and must raise the shortfall in the next year's budget before it spends a discretionary dollar.

The largest was Springfield, certified at a deficit of $37,357,636 for fiscal 2005, in the years its finances sat under a state-appointed control board. The same city's certification for fiscal 2023 is $67,834,117, which is the region's largest swing in either direction and the clearest single example of what the figure measures: not wealth, but whether the year's books closed ahead or behind.

The repeat cases are two very different places. Blandford, a hilltown of about 1,200 people, certified five deficit years, because a town that size has no cushion: one overrun winter or one settlement is the whole balance. North Adams, a small city, also certified five, the most recent in fiscal 2021, which is a running strain rather than a bad night.

Reserves per Resident

Raw figures mostly measure size, so the table divides by population. On that basis the median town here holds about $344 per resident. The spread runs from New Ashford at $2,006 per resident, a figure a 250-person town can post from one good year, down to Bernardston at $55. Clarksburg has no certified figure for fiscal 2023 in the databank, which is an absence, not a zero.

What This Does Not Mean

Free cash is a point-in-time certification, not a savings account balance today: the fiscal 2023 figure describes the books as of that certification, and much of it may since have been appropriated at town meeting. It also is not the town's whole reserve position; stabilization funds are separate and do not appear here.

Nor is a big figure automatically virtue or a small one neglect. Persistent large balances can mean conservative budgeting or under-spending on maintenance; small ones can mean tight budgeting or trouble. The number tells you to ask the question, not the answer. It sits next to what the state sends each town and what the bills have done as one of the three figures that describe a town's finances.