BOSTON — Local officials joined Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito on Tuesday in celebrating the Community Compact program she had spearheaded the last eight years.

 

The program to provide technical assistance to the state's 351 municipalities on a range of governmental procedures was instituted by Gov. Charlie Baker and Polito upon taking office in 2015. 

 

"When we came into office, we wanted to signal as to former local officials, that municipalities and communities matter. And we wanted to empower you. And we did that with our very first executive actions," said Polito at the event held at the Grand Staircase at State House.

 

"We have moved the ball forward and have helped you take your plans that might have been on a shelf and made those plans into projects and real things in your community."

 

Both Baker and Polito have served on select boards, Baker in Swampscott and Polito in Shrewsbury, and have encouraged local governments to think broadly and creatively. 

 

The Community Compact program has provided aid for economic development, capital planning, financial policies, cyber security, recycling programs, website portals and remote participation.

 

Some 1,400 grants totaling $65 million has been awarded over the past eight years to aid municipalities in technology, planning and best practices across state agencies. 

 

Tuesday's last hurrah for the outgoing administration's Community Compact awards was the announcement of 78 new awards for 150 communities through two compact programs. 

 

The Berkshires received the following funding: 

Every single city and town has participated in the program, even the non-town of Devens, said Sean Cronin, deputy commissioner of the Division of Local Services. 

 

"The best practice program, which was the first program offered back in August of 2015, it's really the flagship, I think, of the Community Compact programs," he said. "We now have 237 communities that are on at least their second Community Compact and we have 97 more on that third or fourth time back."

 

Polito, who also attended her last Local Government Advisory Commission meeting immediately before, lauded the local and state officials who had made the program a success.

 

"We just finished the Local Government Advisory Commission meeting, and it was my last one with this incredible group of local officials here at the State House. And we wanted to make sure we had the opportunity to grant these awards a person with all of you and a chance to say things," she said.

 

Also speaking were state Sen. Bruce Tarr, minority leader, and several local officials including Northfield Town Administrator Andrea Llamas, Danvers Town Manager Steve Bartha and Newton Mayor Ruthanne Fuller, currently president of the Massachusetts Municipal Association.

 

"This is really about a partnership," said MMA Executive Director Geoffrey Beckwith said. "It's a partnership that is in state government, it is a partnership between levels of government." 

 

Polito, who will be leaving office next month as the new administration takes over, said people judge how their lives are going by where they live -- not by how things work in the State House even though that can have a great impact on them. 

 

"As I come through to this moment, I feel that we have institutionalized a relationship and a system of how state and local government can work and should work that will serve as a model ... for the next administration and others coming forward ... in terms of how state and local government should work can work and have an impact."