Weekly Transcript Round-Up: Boston's FY25 Budget Season ends with a Whimper
After approving more than 99% of Mayor Wu's $4.6 billion budget, the Council spent 12 tense hours battling over a few million dollars in the final regular meeting of June
After 10 weeks of budget hearings and debate at the Boston City Council, and with the final votes having now been cast, one thing is clear: Mayor Michelle Wu and her administration won a complete victory. Mayor Wu now stands alone among 21st century Mayors of Boston with an unprecedented third straight budget with less than $10 million in changes between the initial and final versions of the budget.
How much Mayor Wu’s run of virtually unchanged budgets are an unintended result of the budget power reforms approved by Boston’s voters in 2021 is something that BPI will examine more this summer and fall.
WHAT DOES BOSTON’S FINAL FY25 BUDGET LOOK LIKE?
The chart above is a to-scale representation, with the Mayor’s budget on the right compared to the Council’s June 5 changes to that budget in the middle column, and the successful veto overrides on June 26 in the left-most column.
This graphic includes the totals for each of the columns.
FOCUS ON COUNCIL’S ABILITY TO OVERRIDE MAYORAL VETOES
The scale of Mayor Wu’s budget victory was not the focus of this week’s budget action or press coverage - rather it was whether or not the Boston City Council could muster 9 votes to override Mayor Michelle Wu’s vetoes. The Council should have been able to easily override the vetoes and maintain its changes, because the Council’s version of the budget had been passed by a 10 to 3 vote. However, three Councilors who were part of the 10 person majority are also viewed as close allies of Mayor Wu, resulting in two weeks of speculation and public jockeying for their votes:
‘Boston City Council budget is fair; members should override Wu’s veto’ was the title of an op-ed penned by Council Ways & Means Chair Brian Worrell;
‘City Council’s police budget change was vetoed. It would have increased promotions of people of color.’ was the title of District 6 City Councilor Ben Weber’s op-ed defending changes the Council made to the Boston Police Department’s budget; and
‘Boston City Council lacks consensus for straight budget override’ reads the headline of one Boston Herald story.
Despite Mayor Wu’s vetoes affecting less than a half a percent the total FY25 budget, the stakes did not feel low in the Council chamber on Wednesday. The tension in the room is best represented by Councilor At-Large Henry Santana, one of the three Councilors who switched their votes, who gave a speech where he apologized in advance for the votes he was about to take. He begins breaking down at the 2:16:54 mark and wipes away tears at the 2:17:12 and 2:17:35 marks - he is Speaker 13 and his remarks start at the 2:11:33 mark in the transcript:
Here is the transcript of the section of Councilor Santana’s speech in the video:
Today's vote is not easy for me and I do not take it lightly. To those who may not have agreed with me with today's vote, I understand your disappointment, and I apologize for any let down this may cause. Please know that I remain committed to being a strong advocate for our youth, for our unhoused, and housing insecure residents, for immigrants, for our returning citizens, and for all residents of the city of Boston.
Councilor Santana continued wiping away tears after his speech, eventually leaving the Chamber for a period of time to collect himself. Councilor Durkan also spoke before the first vote, though she maintained her composure - she is Speaker 14 and starts her remarks at the 3:03:07 mark of the transcript. Then all three of the Councilors were the focus of speculation - Councilor At-Large Henry Santana, District 5 City Council Enrique Pepen and District 8 City Councilor Sharon Durkan - reversed their June 5 votes and voted to sustain Mayor Wu’s vetoes - that vote starts at the 3:08:47 mark in transcript.
Check out the graphics below for how individual Councilors voted:
![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_474,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F136f0589-ac09-4723-ac8e-2de718839122_1600x900.jpeg)
![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_474,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F76c60948-b768-47a6-a14f-49fdfcc3243f_1600x900.jpeg)
![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_474,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F72901d78-990d-4873-9118-925e012226ba_1600x900.jpeg)
The above vote took place after 3 PM on Wednesday afternoon, and the Council then spent the rest of the day and deep into the night debating, voting, and taking recesses. Over the course of Wednesday, the Council successfully overrode $6.2 million worth of Mayor Wu’s vetoes.
COUNCIL’S OVERRIDES FACE MORE HURDLES
On Thursday, Boston learned that while the Council might be done voting, budget season was not quite over. That was because Mayor Wu’s administration was questioning the legality of a number of the Council’s actions. Here is what the Boston Herald wrote:
The mayor’s office said the $6 million figure is not entirely accurate, however, and that it was reviewing the legality of a $3 million cut the City Council made to the “execution of courts” fund . . . The mayor’s office also noted that it was under no obligation to adhere to other overrides approved by the City Council, which, rather than transferring funds from one department to another, moved funds within the same departments. The Boston City Charter empowers the administration to make those changes, not the Council, a city spokesperson said.
Last year in 2023 Mayor Wu raised similar questions about the Council’s single successful override of one of her vetoes and was able to simply throw the override out on her own authority. As the comments above indicate, the Wu administration appears poised to do that again this year, which would mean that the $8.2 million figure that Councilors are touting they got in overrides this week may go even lower.
BPI will continue monitoring the final pieces of the FY25 Budget Season. BPI is also going to continue putting out the ‘Weekly Transcript Round-Up’ throughout the summer, with the focus on two things: how this budget seasons stacks up against previous years and how Boston evaluates and analyzes different uses for public space.
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