The state inspector general spent Friday visiting several Franklin County towns to talk with municipal officials about the unique problems facing their rural communities.
Jeffrey Shapiro stopped by Montague, Deerfield, Conway, Ashfield and Northfield as part of what he calls his listening tour, which he reserves for a few days per month.
“I love doing these days,” he said in a phone interview while being driven from Ashfield to Northfield. “I am energized. I feel great about the state of our commonwealth. I feel great about our cities and towns and the people that lead them.”
The Office of the Inspector General is an independent state agency that works to prevent and detect fraud, waste and abuse of public resources.
Deerfield Town Administrator Christopher Dunne said the meeting was a good opportunity to sit down with a state official who spends much of his time in Boston.
“We had a great conversation about the challenges small towns have with our state’s procurement laws and what steps the OIG could take to alleviate the burden on these communities,” he wrote in an email.
Dunne said the topics included prevailing wage, getting more local vendors on state contracts, and procurement deserts, which he described as communities that put goods, services and projects out to bid and frequently receive no responses.
Northfield Town Administrator Andrea Llamas said officials met with Shapiro for roughly an hour and thanked him for establishing a program that makes it free for small towns to send one designee to Massachusetts Certified Public Purchasing Official (MCPPO) training.
“It really helps us in small towns,” she said, as certification can cost up to a few thousand dollars. Michele Turner, the town’s treasurer/collector, will undergo the training.
Llamas said she also spoke with Shapiro about upcoming projects in Northfield such as sewer upgrades and work on public safety buildings.
Veronique Blanchard, Conway’s town administrator, said there was “quite a lot to talk about” on Friday, as small towns like Conway typically face different hurdles than larger municipalities.
“One size doesn’t fit all, necessarily,” she said. “Every town has its particular challenges.”
The Massachusetts state inspector general is the only one in the country that has municipal oversight. Shapiro was appointed by the governor in September 2022 and took office the following month. He said inspectors general can serve no more than two five-year terms. He is the fifth inspector general in state history.
Shapiro said he plans to visit western Massachusetts again.
“I love Franklin County,” he said. “I always look forward to the next time I’m going to come out.”
