Salem Secures $180,000 in Community Compact Grants

The City of Salem has been awarded $180,000 in two separate grants through the Baker Administration’s Community Compact program. The Community Compact program supports municipalities throughout the Commonwealth by funding innovations and best practices in cities and towns. The City’s grants were made from the Compact’s Informational Technology grant program and the Best Practices grant program.

$150,000 was awarded through the program’s Information Technology grant to support the City’s ongoing digitization of municipal records. The City’s digitization project has encompassed working documents and more commonly utilized records, but this funding will enable the City to expand that multi-year effort to include more of the historical records currently housed at Salem City Hall. Eventually, the City hopes to launch an online portal where members of the public can view digitized records, both historical and more contemporary, improving access to information and documents.

“The Community Compact Cabinet continues to engage in important work to strengthen our role as a reliable partner for the Commonwealth’s cities and towns,” said Governor Baker. “Technology is a necessary but costly investment for our communities, and these grants enable them to take on critical projects that improve efficiency and help them deliver better service to the public.”

An additional Best Practices grant of $30,000 was awarded to fund a feasibility study on the future of the City’s Department of Public Works facility on Jefferson Avenue, which was constructed in 1950). The building is currently facing significant financial needs for repairs and upgrades and the study will evaluate the benefits, challenges, potential costs and timetable, financing models, and path forward for different possible approaches to the facility. Those approaches include renovating the existing building, demolishing the existing building and building a new one on the same site, or building a new facility at the City-owned parcel at 12 Swampscott Road and selling the Jefferson Avenue property to support the new construction.

“I am very grateful to the Baker Administration for making these programs available to cities and towns in Massachusetts,” said Mayor Kim Driscoll. “By leveraging these grant funds we will be able to carry out two very important projects, both of which will help us better serve the people of Salem.”