11 takeaways from Mayor Wu's FY26 Letter & Budget Speech
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Earlier today Mayor Wu officially unveiled Boston’s FY26 budget, part of her legal duty to present the budget by the second Wednesday in April. While the Mayor didn’t send out an advance copy of her speech, the details of what she said this morning were already public. That is because those details were laid out in a letter Mayor Wu sent to the City Council on Monday - it is p.15 to 18 in this week’s Agenda Packet for the Council’s regular meeting - which accompanied a series of official actions for the FY26 budget.
BPI has 11 takeaways from Mayor Wu’s letter and today’s event. Most of this is new spending, but there are also some interesting stats about the budget. BPI has where to find each line in the letter, and where you can find more about the particular issue in the City’s FY26 budget.
1. “The $4.8 billion FY26 Annual Operating Budget and $4.5 billion five-year FY26-30 Capital Plan,” on p. 3 of the “Full budget document (FBD).”
Check out all the FY26 budget documents here. The “Full budget document” is the Mayor’s letter, the executive summary, and all three volumes of the budget combined into a single document. All of the page citations in this post, and through-out BPI’s budget work, will use this document.
2. “over $300 million of federal funds supporting critical city services each year,” on p. 3 of the FBD.
At today’s event Yawu Miller - check out the Flipside, his new news site - asked a question about this number. The answer from CFO Groffenberger revealed that this money is not in the budget presented today. Watch the exchange here:
Here is a transcript of Groffenberger’s answer:
That $300M includes funding that we receive from HUD. To be clear that $300M is not part of the $4.8 [billion dollar operating budget], we manage that [HUD money] externally, but still it does support many critical services in the City, including housing.
This exchange between Miller and Groffenberger is an important reminder that numbers provided by Mayor Wu and her top budget officials frequently need added context and as a result must be taken with a grain of salt:
Mayor Wu & her top budget officials dismissed concerns about the impact of falling office values on Boston’s budget last spring, before citing those same concerns as a reason to pass the City’s tax shift proposal;
Mayor Wu’s tax shift proposal failed in the State Senate after a group of business leaders who negotiated the compromise withdrew their support citing final property valuations that “materially differ from the data provided by the City in discussions in October.”
3. “The FY26 budget will see modest growth in the Streets Cabinet of $12.8 million or 6.6%, related to new, improved trash collection contracts that provide additional contracted labor and require more reliable trucks and technology,” on p. 4 of the FBD.
Outside of this line, there are only two additional details about this spending in the budget:
$12.7M of the $12.8M increase is going to the Department of Public Works (DPW) (p. 28);
In DPW’s detailed budget (p. 1054) “Waste Reduction” is seeing its non-personal budget going from $69M in FY25 to $81M in FY26 (p. 1066).
4. “The Information and Technology Cabinet's budget will grow in FY26 by $4.1 million or 7.7% as they lead efforts in partnership with the Community Engagement Cabinet and all the service delivery departments to build out a new 311 constituent relationship management technology and permitting and licensing systems, improving constituents' experience reporting issues, requesting services, and obtaining permits,” on p. 4 of the FBD.
As with the increased spending for DPW, there is no additional information on what the increased spending is for in the Department of Innovation & Technology detailed budget (p. 940). There is noticeably increased spending in Enterprise Applications (p. 947) and in Infrastructure (p. 949), but no additional detail.
5. “The FY26 budget also includes investments in the Elections Department to help implement necessary operational refonns and improvements,” on p. 5 of the FBD.
After a disastrous performance during the general election in November 2024, an investigation by Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin concluded that the Elections Department needed to go into receivership - read Galvin’s investigation and receivership order.
In the FY26 budget, the City is to moving Elections from its former home as part of the Mayor’s Office over to People Operations, and increasing the budget by 13.6%, or $879,000 (p. 34). The executive summary reports the increased spending is for, “the increased costs due to early and mail-in voting as well as needing to print ballots for municipal elections.”
What role state receivership played in the budget increase and department move are both questions BPI will be looking for in the upcoming budget hearings.
6. “The Capital Plan includes over $6 million for the implementation of key technology systems. The Plan also invests over $188 million in state of good repair needs for municipal facilities, including community centers, libraries, fire houses, police stations, and City Hall,” on p. 5 of the FBD.
These projects are found across the budget. More detail on which civic buildings this $188M was being spent on was laid out in executive summary (p. 85):
Construction will start on the “new BCYF Dorchester Community Center in Grove Hall,” with $40M in spending called for (p. 819);
A “new expanded study will begin to explore how to best advance the Jackson Mann Community Center in Allston-Brighton” is written about, but it isn’t clear how much money has been dedicated for that (p. 496);
“Improvements and repairs to the Tobin Community Center” to the tune of $3.2M (p. 195);
$12M in construction will start on the Fields Corner Branch Library (p. 853);
$500k spent on building the Chinatown Branch Library (p. 851);
the design & construction of the Egleston Branch Library has $20M dedicated to it (p. 852);
The design of the South End Branch Libraries has $30M authorized, but the budget calls for only $1M to be spent this year (p. 855);
Replacing the roof of the Brighton Library for $250k (p. 848)
7. “The Capital Plan will invest over $135 million over the next 5 years in sidewalk reconstruction, roadway resurfacing, and the construction of ADA compliant curb ramps, ensuring safe, reliable, and accessible transportation for all road users,” on p. 5 of the FBD.
Like the $12M for trash collection changes, while the letter says this money is for the “Streets Cabinet,” it is actually going to DPW. Check out all the projects that DPW is working on, many of which advance some of these goals (p. 1069-1098).
Not mentioned in the Mayor’s letter or the budget is that Boston is not choosing to do this work: it is part of a 2021 legal settlement with disability advocates.
Last summer, those plaintiffs charged Boston was not satisfying that agreement. The Universal Hub has more:
The filing says advocates were willing to cut the city a break at first, because of the effects of both the pandemic and an unusually rainy year in 2021, but that the city has since failed to step up the pace as required under the agreement, which calls for the installation and repair of 15,000 ramps over 10 years. In 2023, the filing charges, the city only installed or repaired 1,050 ramps, compared to the 1,500 required by the consent decree.
8. “Public education represents the largest operational departmental budget, with FY26 budgetary growth of $45.5 million focused on inclusive education, early childhood education, supporting multilingual learners, and providing a high quality educational experience for every student,” on p. 5 of the FBD.
BPI recently produced a report on Boston Public Schools’ performance on two different agreements that the district made with state education officials. These agreements are responsible for most of BPS’ work on “inclusive education” and “multilingual learners” undertaken under Mayor Wu’s administration. Read more about the report:
Boston Public Schools is the single largest part of Boston’s budget and the BPS section of the budget goes from p. 483 to p. 519. BPI will have more on what the recent report says about BPS’ FY26 budget.
9. “The increase does not yet include the increased costs that will come with the inclusion of the collective bargaining contract with the Boston Teachers Union that is pending ratification and approval. The cost of the union contract is included in the central collective bargaining reserve,” on p. 6 of the FBD.
The “central collective bargaining reserve” is for unsettled union contracts and in FY26 is budgeted for $102.7M (p. 39). That covers not only BPS’ contracts, but also contracts settled with unionized City department workers and workers at the Public Health Commission.
How much of the $102.7M will be spent satisfying the recent contract with the Boston Teachers Union has still not been disclosed by Mayor Wu or Superintendent Skipper.
10. “The FY26-30 Capital Plan invests almost $1.2 billion in BPS facilities, accounting for 27% of the total planned investment. Moreover, 32% of all City bonds, which finance the vast majority of the Capital Plan, are invested in BPS,” on p. 6 of the FBD.
This is an interesting statistic that stood out because it so closely mirrored one delivered by Mayor Marty Walsh in his FY21 budget:
Mayor Walsh announced a $1 billion investment to modernize Boston's public school infrastructure, and the BuildBPS plan will guide that process. Through a dedication of City capital funds and a strong working relationship with the Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA), the plan will more than double the City’s capital spending on BPS facilities from FY18 to FY27. The FY21-25 capital plan will invest $438 million in BPS projects, as part of an overall commitment to provide $730 million over the ten year life of BuildBPS.
Mayor Walsh’s plan in 2020 to spend $1B was made prior to the enormous run-up in construction costs brought on by COVID, inflation, and increased interest rates.
In 2025, just renovating Madison Park Technical Vocational High School is estimated to cost $750M, and that is just 1 of BPS’ 119 school buildings, dozens of which are expected to need substantial construction projects in coming years.
11. “The Capital Plan also invests $124 million in partnership with the Boston Housing Authority in the preservation and redevelopment of the Bunker Hill, Mildred Hailey, and Mary Ellen McCormack sites,” on p. 6 of the FBD.
Poor conditions in Boston Housing Authority (BHA) properties have an issue for Mayor Wu and her BHA Administrator, former District 8 City Councilor Kenzie Bok:
In a report released earlier this year, Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development found: “The Authority did not consistently maintain its public housing program units in accordance with HUD’s and its own requirements.”
Broken elevators in BHA properties has been an unresolved issue at a number of BHA properties since last fall: District 2 City Councilor Ed Flynn has filed a series of dockets looking for more information and a solution.
The investment described in Mayor Wu’s letter is not intended to address either of those problems.
Rather, the Bunker Hill, Mildred Hailey, and Mary Ellen McCormack sites are all places where BHA has struck deals with for-profit & non-profit developers to re-build the existing BHA housing units and add hundreds of additional units:
Bunker Hill expects to see $5M spent in FY26 and $6.1M is budgeted for FY27-30 (p. 932);
Mildred Hailey expects to see $4M spent in FY26 and $3M is budgeted for FY27-30 (p. 934);
Mary Ellen McCormack expects to see no money spent in FY26, but $20M is budgeted for FY27-30 (p. 934).
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