FY26 BUDGET SEASON: Preview of 5/27-5/30 Hearings & Meetings
Final wk of FY26 budget hearings; Bosses of recently fired City Hall staffer both testifying & presiding at Council; Collecting Division face hearing amid concerns about over-assessed office values
This is the final week of scheduled FY26 budget hearings before the Boston City Council. Today’s hearings - Neighborhood Services and the Treasury’s Collecting Division - are two of the most anticipated.
First up is the Office of Neighborhood Services, which until recently was where one of the two employees involved in the on-going arrest & firing scandal worked - here is the announcement he was hired by ONS. At this hearing there are three people to watch:
Community Engagement Cabinet Chief Brianna Millor, a long-time Wu who oversees ONS, was involved in her own scandal 18 months ago over charges from a subordinate about creating a “toxic workplace” and sending a “sexually explicit message,” will likely prompt questions from the Council about how the Wu administration addressed those earlier issues.
Freshman District 5 Councilor Enrique Pepen was the Executive Director of the Office of Neighborhood Services from January 2022 to June 2023, meaning that he worked for Millor and oversaw that employee. If steps were taken to address HR issues in Millor’s Cabinet, he will be able to point to those in his question time.
Freshman Councilor-at-Large Henry Santana was the Director of the Office of Civic Organizing, an office in ONS, from February 2022 to April 2023, meaning that he also worked for Millor.
Second, the hearing for the Collecting Division will likely focus on whether City Hall anticipates the drop in office values seen in last year’s property assessments continuing this year. Outside of high office vacancy rates and office buildings selling for fractions of their pre-COVID value are new concerns - first reported in the Boston Business Journal & then again in the Banker & Tradesman - that Boston is systemically over-assessing commercial property values. This practice occured in the past and it did not end well for Boston. In 1979 MA’s Supreme Judicial Court found that Boston was engaging in “disproportionate assessment,” and ordered the City to pay $100M back to commercial landlords. The opinion in the Trager decision hits similar notes to the recent debate over Mayor Wu’s tax shift proposal, with the SJC writing:
We are not persuaded by what the taxpayer calls "the city's doomsday argument." The assessors argue that the decision we now reach will result in huge total abatements, a massive rise in the "effective tax rate" and an unbearable increase in the average residential tax bill, leading to a sudden reduction in property values, an increase in mortgage foreclosures and other adverse effects. In other contexts the city has made more optimistic forecasts, and it seems clear to us that the adverse consequences will be far less than the assessors claim.
There are just 3 budget hearings with specific City Hall departments, each of which BPI previews below:
Tuesday, May 27, 10 AM - Office Of Neighborhood Services (ONS), SPARK Boston;
Tuesday, May 27, 2 PM - Treasury Department (Collecting Division), Participatory Budgeting (PB); and
Wednesday, May 28, 10 AM - Age Strong and Veterans Services - this hearing was cancelled last week and re-schedule for this week.
In addition to those three hearings, there is also a budget testimony event, and two working sessions. Here are those meetings:
Wednesday, May 28, 6 PM - Public Testimony - check out the public notice;
Thursday, May 29, 10 AM - FY26 Budget Working Session - check out the public notice; and
Friday, May 29, 10 AM - FY26 Budget Working Session - check out the public notice.
With the scheduled hearings over after this week, the question is: what happens next? The answer is that by law the Council has until the 2nd Wednesday in June - which is June 11 this year - to act on the budget. So between now and then, the Council will come up with its set of changes to the Mayor’s budget.
As a reminder, in the last three years - 2022, 2023, and 2024 - the Council has tried to change less than 1% of the budget. Mayor Wu has been able to prevent even these small changes to her budget through a combination of the Council not being able to muster enough votes to override Mayor Wu’s vetoes of Council budget changes, and Mayor Wu’s legal arguments that the Council went beyond its legal powers to make budget changes.
The next 2 weeks will show if that trend continues.
MONDAY, MAY 27, 10 AM, IANNELLA CHAMBER
The listed topic for this hearing is “Office Of Neighborhood Services (ONS), SPARK Boston.” Check out more from the public notice for this hearing.
WHERE TO FIND IN THE FY26 BUDGET BOOK?
Community Engagement Cabinet/Office of Neighborhood Services - p. 369-381
ONS Administration - p. 378
Neighborhood Services - p. 379
Office of Civic Organizing - p. 380
311 - p. 381
SPARK Boston - No mention
BUDGET NUMBERS IN FY25 vs FY26?
Communtiy Engagement Cabinet/Office of Neighborhood Services - $5,529,847 in FY25 vs $5,800,809 in FY26, a $270,962 or 4.9% increase vs FY25
ONS Administration - $1,228,552 in FY25 vs $1,145,980 in FY26, a ($82,572) or 6.7% decrease vs FY25
Neighborhood Services - $1,897,595 in FY25 vs $2,043,496 in FY26, a $145,901 or 7.7% increase vs FY25
Office of Civic Organizing - $214,687 in FY25 vs $246,832 in FY26, a $32,145 or 15% increase vs FY25
311 - $2,189,014 in FY25 vs $2,364,501 in FY26, a $175,490 or 8% increase vs FY25
SPARK Boston is not in the FY26 Budget Book.
WAS IT IN THE MAYOR’S BUDGET LETTER?
No mention.
WHAT IS BPI WATCHING FOR?
There are two important budget questions for this hearing outside of the questions about the scandal described at the top:
Where is SPARK Boston in the budget, and how does the City of Boston pay for it?
Why did the ‘ONS Administration’ budget shrink vs FY25?
The first question is particularly important, because SPARK Boston was a program funded out of the quasi-independent Boston Planning & Development Agency, and therefore should have been part of the effort to move the BPDA’s staff onto the City’s payroll.
MONDAY, MAY 27, 2 PM, IANNELLA CHAMBER
The listed topic for this hearing is “Treasury Department (Collecting Division), Participatory Budgeting (PB).” Check out more from the public notice for this hearing.
WHERE TO FIND IN THE FY26 BUDGET BOOK?
Finance Cabinet - p. 634-728
Treasury Department - p. 702-728
Collecting Division - p. 720-728
BUDGET NUMBERS IN FY25 vs FY26?
Finance Cabinet - $35,312,584 in FY25 vs $39,079,375 in FY26, a $3,766,790 or 10.6% increase vs FY25
Treasury Department - $5,867,663 in FY25 vs $6,133,721 in FY26, a $266,058 or 4.5% increase vs FY25
Collecting Division - $3,369,049 in FY25 vs $3,497,254 in FY26, a $128,205 or 3.8% increase
WAS IT IN THE MAYOR’S BUDGET LETTER?
No mention.
WHAT IS BPI WATCHING FOR?
Here is the mission statement for the Collecting Division from the budget book:
The Collecting Division collects property taxes and all other monies due to the City while serving taxpayers in a professional and courteous manner. The Division strives to achieve the highest property collection rate possible and pursues all collection remedies allowed under statute.
While the impact of historically high office vacancy rates on Boston’s budget has impacted how much money Collecting brings in from office towers, it is a different department - Assessing - that determines how much actual property tax is collected. Despite this difference, BPI expects that the fall in the share of property tax revenue paid by commercial landlords and the corresponding rise in the share paid by residential property owners will be a major focus of this hearing.
Outside of office values, BPI has another question about an issue that has been in the news: the collapse of Barbara Lynch’s restaurant empire. Back in November NBC10 and other outleters reported:
Renowned Boston chef Barbara Lynch and her restaurants owe more than $1.6 million in unpaid taxes, the city said in a civil lawsuit filed Wednesday.
No. 9 Park owed more than $500,000 going all the way back to 2011. So the question is: how did all these restaurants manage to avoid paying so much tax for so long, and is there a broader issue of non-payment of “personal property taxes, which are assessed on equipment, fixtures, and other business material” in Boston?
BPI is also interested in how the office vacancy rate has been, and now the expected slowdown in international tourism is anticipated to, impact sources of revenue like taxes collected on meals and hotel & AirBNB stays. For example, in this year’s budget revenue is expected to go from $36,000,000 in FY25 to $42,00,000 in FY26, a $6.8M or 18.8% increase.
WEDNESDAY, MAY 28, 10 AM, GROVE HALL SENIOR CENTER
The listed topic for this hearing is “Age Strong and Veterans Services.” Check out more from the public notice for this hearing.
WHERE TO FIND IN THE FY26 BUDGET BOOK?
Age Strong - p. 792-804
Veterans Services - p. 828-832
BUDGET NUMBERS IN FY25 vs FY26?
Age Strong - $8,084,972 in FY25 vs $8,251,479 in FY26, a $166,508 or 2% increase vs FY25
Veterans Services - $4,847,129 in FY25 vs $4,897,213 in FY26, a $50,083 or 1% increase vs FY25
WAS IT IN THE MAYOR’S BUDGET LETTER?
This is the only mention of either department:
The Age Strong Commission, with strong support from the Mayor and City Council, will leverage their Council on Aging state external funds and operating budget to target reducing social isolation for older adults through increased programming across several neighborhoods. These resources will augment state earmarked funding for senior programming in West Roxbury, increasing programming from two days to three days per week.
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