Weekley Transcript Round-Up: February 16, 2024
Press covers BPI’s Boston Budget Report; Council submits BPS & City Budget questions: wants answers on transit, congestion pricing; NEXT WEEK: Steward hearing at Council
This week featured a lot of news and action on Boston’s budget:
BPI made a lot of news with a report projecting $1 billion in lost revenue as Boston’s office values drop, and
The City Council submitted questions about the FY25 budget to BPS and the Wu Administration.
Outside the budget:
The Council also called for new hearings on transit planning & congestion pricing.
NEXT WEEK: The Council is holding a hearing on Steward Health Care as state monitors are deployed to the system’s nine MA hospitals.
COVERAGE OF BPI REPORT ON FALLING COMMERCIAL PROPERTY TAX REVENUE
The release of BPI’s ‘Fiscal Impact of Boston’s Empty Offices’ report made a lot of news yesterday. The report was produced in partnership with the Center for State Policy Analysis at Tufts University and lays out the current issues facing the commercial real estate market in Boston and its fiscal implications for the City’s budget. You can read the report here.
The report was covered by more than a dozen outlets and its release marks the start of a public conversation about how Boston deals with the new normal where hundreds of millions dollars less in tax revenue is generated by the City’s office buildings. Read some of the coverage here: Axios; Bloomberg; Commonwealth Beacon; Boston Globe; SHNS; Boston Herald; Boston Business Journal; WBUR; Politico; NBC 10; Yahoo Finance; Contrarian Boston.
COUNCIL SUBMITS BPS BUDGET QUESTIONS
Councilor Brian Worrell’s effort to increase the City Council’s involvement in the BPS budget process started in earnest on Monday morning. Councilors gathered in person to verbally submit their questions about the BPS budget and spent about an hour going around the room. Three lines of questioning stood out:
Councilors are worried about the loss of ESSER Funding - councilors talked about ESSER at least 14 times during the meeting.
Councilors want to learn more about the move away from the Weighted Student Funding (WSF) formula - Freshmen Councilors Enrique Pepen and Ben Weber wanted to learn more about what the formula was, while Councilors Ruthzee Louisjeune, Erin Murphy, and Sharon Durkan all had questions about the move away from the formula. Learn more about WSF - the BPS official who implemented the formula wrote a case study about the experience.
Councilors are still opposed to O’Bryant’s proposed move to the West Roxbury Education Complex - The Council passed a resolution opposing the move back in December, and two Councilors asked questions about the school. Councilor Liz Breadon got into the weeds in her questions, bringing up the 2016 assessment that estimated the cost of fixing the complex at $51 million - she is Speaker 4 in the transcript and starts at the 43:39 mark. Councilor Ed Flynn urged the administration to build a new school building for the O’Bryant in Roxbury or Dorchester - he is Speaker 7 in the transcript and starts at the 49:35 mark.
The questions submitted at this meeting and by email over the next several days will be answered by BPS officials at a Ways & Means Committee working session on March 14.
Read the transcript here - there is a link to the video as well.
COUNCIL TALKS BPI BUDGET REPORT AT WAYS & MEANS MEETING
The Council gathered on Thursday to repeat Monday’s exercise for a different budget: the City’s FY25 budget. Councilor Worrell said the goal was to get more information, since what the City provided which was “typically limited to brief descriptions and does not paint a full picture of departments' use of their budget.” Councilor Worrell is giving the City a long lead time to answer questions, with the Mayor releasing the administration’s budget in mid-April and Council budget hearings taking place in May and June.
Among the questions on Thursday were references to BPI’s recent report on the impact to Boston’s budget from falling office values from Councilors Liz Breadon and Ed Flynn. Both wanted to know how the City planned to handle the projected $1,000,000,000 plus decline in commercial property tax revenue over the next 5 years. Councilor Breadon is Speaker 4 and starts at the 22:37 mark and Councilor Flynn is Speaker 8 and starts at the 49:01 mark.
Read the transcript here - there is a link to the video as well.
COUNCIL’S MSBA VOTE NARROWS LIST OF BPS SCHOOLS THAT CAN CLOSE
This week the City Council took up an issue that BPI has been tracking: the submission of eight BPS schools to the Massachusetts School Building Authority’s Accelerated Repair Program. A hearing about this submission by the Ways & Means Committee earlier this week was canceled due to the snow emergency. Councilor Worrell moved to approve the submission without a hearing, citing the March 1 deadline to submit projects to the MSBA. Councilor Worrell is Speaker 8 and starts at the 37:11 mark in the transcript.
The Council unanimously approved the submission, but Councilor Mejia repeated her critique about the lack of public process in important decisions - in the transcript she is Speaker 12 and starts at the 40:58 mark:
I just wanted to rise for the record for people to know that I'm doing this, but it's not because I feel like this is the modeling of behavior that we need to do on the council, but more so because I know you've tried your best to get us to where we need to be.
As a reminder, BPS will likely close schools, with School Committee members referencing school closures at their meeting last week and BPS’ own long-term facilities plan holding open the possibility that dozens of schools will close. The MSBA submission this week is important in the school closing discussion because the schools that receive MSBA funding cannot be closed or converted to non-educational uses for a period of years after the work has been completed. These state guidelines narrow the list of which BPS schools are eligible for closure, with BPS obligated not to close dozens of schools that have received MSBA funding in recent years. You can see the list of schools that have received MSBA funding in this memo written to the School Committee for their vote on the same submission.
Read the transcript here - there is a link to the video as well.
COUNCIL WANTS ANSWERS ON STREET PLANNING
Councilor Flynn combined several issues that he and other councilors have been talking about post-COVID - street redesign, returning to in-person meetings, and micro-mobility - into a single hearing order on transportation planning. Councilor Flynn is Speaker 6 and starts at the 57:28 mark in the transcript.
Two councilors pointed to other issues not mentioned in Councilor Flynn’s hearing order that could also be discussed at the future hearing:
Councilor Coletta pointed out that Boston is at the half-way point of the ‘Go Boston 2030’ plan, which was published in 2017, and proposed looking at progress to that plan’s goals - she is Speaker 10 and starts at the 1:06:21 mark.
Councilor Breadon wanted the impact of adding large amounts of parking included in the hearing, pointing to recently approved development projects in Allston Brighton that would add 14,000 parking spaces to the neighborhood - she is Speaker 13 and starts at the 1:07:16 mark.
Read the transcript here - there is a link to the video as well.
NEXT WEEK: COUNCIL HOLDS STEWARD HEARING AS MONITORS DEPLOYED TO CARNEY HOSPITAL
Steward Heath Care, the for-profit operator of nine hospitals across MA including two in Boston, has come under intense public scrutiny as wide-spread financial problems at the company have come to light. Next week, the Boston City Council is joining that scrutiny, with the Public Health, Homelessness, and Recovery Committee holding a virtual hearing to “discuss the continuity of health care services in relation to the financial challenges faced by the Steward Health Care System.” The public is allowed to testify at this hearing - check out the notice here.
Also next week, state monitors are being deployed to all of Steward’s hospitals in MA, including Carney Hospital in Dorchester. This is part of a “bid to protect patient safety and quality,” according to the Dorchester Reporter - read the whole article here.
BPI will have a summary of the hearing in next week’s issue of Weekly Transcript Round-Up.
MORE STORIES ON WEDNESDAY’S COUNCIL MEETING
From WBUR: District 8 City Councilor Sharon Durkan wants City to consider selling its own swag. Councilor Durkan is Speaker 9 and starts at the 1:17:04 mark.
From the Boston Globe: District 7 City Councilor Tania Fernandes Anderson sponsors hearing order to consider congestion pricing. Councilor Fernandes Anderson is Speaker 4 and starts at the 1:44:57 mark.
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