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Pittsfield accepts $1.915 million MEMA grant to fund emergency power upgrades at Berkshire Medical Center
Summary
The City of Pittsfield voted unanimously to accept a $1,915,089.30 Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency grant to fund emergency power upgrades at Berkshire Medical Center; the hospital will provide a required 10% match and administer the project.
Pittsfield City Council on March 25 approved acceptance of a $1,915,089.30 grant from the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency to fund emergency power upgrades at Berkshire Medical Center.
The vote authorizes the city to receive MEMA funds that FEMA directed to municipalities for emergency energy resiliency projects and obligates the hospital to provide a 10% match to the total project cost.
City staff and hospital officials said the work will strengthen the hospital’s ability to operate during extended power outages. Jim McGrath, the city’s park and open-space program manager in the Office of Community Development, told the council the grant is a “pass-through” award available only to municipalities and that Berkshire Medical Center identified vulnerabilities to its emergency power systems during the city’s hazard mitigation planning.
“This is an important project for not only Berkshire Medical Center, but for our larger community as we look at climactic vulnerabilities,” McGrath said. He added the city will handle grant reporting through existing federal grant systems and that the hospital’s facilities team will administer the construction and implementation.
When a councilor asked whether the work is for everyday power support or only for outages, McGrath responded, “This is emergency power generation. We were gonna lose normal operating power. Yes.” Joe LaRoche, vice president of facilities for Berkshire Health Systems, was present at the meeting and will lead project implementation at the hospital.
The council approved the order by unanimous voice vote.
Background: the council packet describes the award as a MEMA allocation of FEMA funding directed to municipalities to support critical facility resilience; the transcript records a required 10% local match, which Berkshire Medical Center has committed to provide. The city’s stated administrative role is grant reporting and drawdown; construction and operations will be managed by the hospital’s facilities staff.
Council action on the grant is intended to close a previously identified gap in the city’s hazard mitigation plan and to reduce risk to hospital operations in the event of prolonged power outages.
