Weekly Transcript Round-Up: April 12, 2024
Boston’s fiscal future a matter for debate as the Wu admin releases FY25 Budget, plus Council news & tax increase hearing next week
If you are at today’s Boston Area Research Initiative Conference, make sure to say hello to our Executive Director Gregory Maynard!
The big news this week was the release of Boston’s $4.6 billion FY25 budget, an 8% increase over the FY24 budget. That budget will feature prominently in these round-ups for the next several months. Here is what is in this week’s Round-Up:
A note on Mayor Wu’s “false information” statement
Boston City Council held meetings on rats, job vacancies, and fair housing, while another member withdraws a docket after significant public attention
Next Week the Council talks tax increases
NOTE ON MAYOR WU’S “FALSE INFORMATION” STATEMENT
This week Mayor Michelle Wu made a widely covered remark that appeared aimed at the Boston Policy Institute’s recent report on office values - read about the statement in the Herald, the Globe, and WGBH. She made it during her speech at the FY25 budget’s public release on Wednesday morning - Mayor Wu’s speech can be seen here and these comments start at the 33:35 mark in the video:
The signs are all very encouraging, unemployment is low, way lower than the national average, housing and home values continue to go up and experience solid growth, which is the driving force behind our revenues for city services. Foot traffic downtown, commuter rail ridership, T ridership has all been steadily increasing. In this context to point to some false information that the city might be experiencing a billion dollar shortfall, that is simply not true. The way that our tax laws are structured, there is no shortfall, the City’s tax collections are the level they will be at. They have gone up steadily through every type of economic situation for decades. When one sector has their values fall, it shifts to another sector. [emphasis added]
Boston Policy Institute, Inc and Tufts University’s Center for State Policy Analysis back on February 15, 2024, which projected a $1.4 billion shortfall in commercial tax revenue due to declining office values. While this is the only research to be released that focused on the specific impact of declining office values on Boston’s budget, the impact of declining office values has been a widely reported on, studied, and discussed topic since COVID - including by Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell on 60 Minutes, NYU Professor Arpit Gupta on Bloomberg News’ Odd Lots, and Suffolk Construction’s John Fish in the Boston Globe & Washington Post. The Boston Herald talked to the report’s author Evan Horowitz, Executive Director of the Center for State Policy Analysis, and wrote the following - read the whole article here:
Evan Horowitz, executive director of The Center for State Policy Analysis, who authored the report referenced by the mayor and issued February in conjunction with the Boston Policy Institute, said there is not a fundamental difference in what he and Wu are saying, in terms of her explanation disputing the report’s findings.
Mayor Wu and her administration officials have not pointed to any specific issues with the report, and there has been no report or analysis from the City on the impact they believe the decline in office values will have. As Horowitz told the Herald, both the Wu administration and the BPI report both conclude that declining downtown office values will result in either deep budget cuts or large residential property tax increases unless another source of revenue is found.
There will be a number of opportunities for the Wu administration to lay out a more detailed analysis of Boston’s fiscal future in the coming days and weeks:
On Tuesday, April 16 at 10 AM the Government Operations Committee is hosting a hearing on the proposal from the Wu administration to raise taxes on commercial properties over the state mandated limit - check out the public notice for more details.
Ways & Means Chair Brian Worrell filed a hearing order Docket #0479 to discuss projected commercial tax revenue - a date for this hearing has not been set - read more from BPI about the hearing order.
The Council will hold dozens of budget hearings over the next several months - the schedule is not yet posted, but should be available soon.
BOSTON CITY COUNCIL TALKS RATS, JOBS, HOUSING, SEES ANOTHER DOCKET WITHDRAWN AFTER PUBLIC ATTENTION
Read the transcript for the Council’s regular meeting on Wednesday, April 10, here and find the agenda packet for that meeting here.
With the budget being released this week, the most interesting City Council story this week was budget related.
At-Large City Councilor Erin Murphy put a resolution on this week’s Council agenda - Docket #0715 - calling on Mayor Wu follow Governor Maura Healey’s lead in responding to an uncertain fiscal situation and temporarily hiring freeze for city departments through the end of the fiscal year, June 30. At Wednesday’s meeting however, Councilor Murphy withdrew the resolution - Councilor Murphy is Speaker 20 and speaks at the 3:19:42 mark of the transcript.
Council President Louijeune’s response to Councilor Murphy’s withdrawal of the docket, “we heard from a number of unions who talked about how overburdened and overworked they were and that we need to make sure that we are hiring for many positions,” points to the tension that Boston’s leaders face navigating falling office values while the City’s public sector unions demand more more hiring and higher wages.
Another budget-related comment to highlight was mentioned during the chair’s report on Docket #0418 from District 6 Councilor Ben Weber about a meeting focused on long-term vacancies in the City of Boston’s workforce. One line from Councilor Weber stood out in the current debate over potential budget cuts, when he said: “Currently, the City has approximately 600 to 800 vacancies in its city workforce of around 8,000 and is making strides to fill them,” - Boston has about 19,000 employees so here Councilor Weber is referring just to City employees, excluding the number of Boston Public School employees. As Michael Jonas of Commonwealth Beacon wrote earlier this week, significant budget cuts accompanied the City of Boston’s 2004 tax increase, which Mayor Wu has repeatedly cited as a model for her current proposal. Here is what Jonas wrote:
But that [2004 tax increase] also came with a city effort to restrain spending, including a decrease of more than 1,200 positions, or 7.5 percent of the city workforce. “There was more of a belt-tightening on the city side, preparing for a change in revenues,” said Elaine Beattie of the Boston Municipal Research Bureau, who has been at the business-funded watchdog group since the mid-1980s.
Also this week, the City Council held a hearing on Docket #0262, District 2 Councilor Ed Flynn’s ordinance to create a pest control department to be led by a “rat czar”. Councilor Flynn offered a hearing order on this topic last year that got attention when it was proposed, but for which a hearing was never held. This week there was a hearing and a timeline laid out at Wednesday’s regular meeting.
The Boston Globe’s Niki Griswold describes the hearing on Tuesday in this article. Here is where the testimony and quotes in that article can be found - read the transcript of the 4/9 meeting here:
Dion Irish, the city’s chief of operations, said the city already has a team acting as a dedicated pest control office - Irish is Speaker 6 and gives his opening statement at the 15:09 mark.
John Ulrich, assistant commissioner of the environment division of Boston’s inspectional services department, currently serves as the City’s rat czar, coordinating the pest control team - Ulrich is Speaker 8 and gives his opening statement at the 20:37 mark.
Bobby Corrigan, “urban rodentologist” with RMC Pest Management Consulting, is currently conducting a study for the City and gave an overview of his findings at Tuesday’s hearing and answered questions from councilors - Corrigan is Speaker 9 and gives his opening statement at the 23:15 mark.
At Wednesday’s meeting the Council heard a summary of Tuesday’s hearing from the committee chair, District 1 Councilor Gabriela Coletta - Councilor Coletta is Speaker 11 and gives her chair’s report at 1:40:52 mark. Councilor Coletta recommended keeping the ordinance in committee until the study from Corrigan was completed and presented to the City, pushing back any action on it until May.
Here is what happened to BPI’s other “What to Watch” dockets from this week:
Dockets #0670, #0671, #0677, and #0678 were all sent to the Ways & Means Committee
Docket #0681 was sent to the Committee on Community Preservation
Docket #0685 was all sent to the Ways & Means Committee, chaired by District 4 City Councilor Brian Worrell
Dockets #0202 and #0414 were taken together, since the two fair housing-focused dockets shared a hearing earlier this week. BPI highlighted this hearing in last week’s round-up because Fair Housing appears to be a major policy priority for current City Council President Ruthzee Louijeune, a takeaway that she reinforced on Wednesday when she spoke during the discussion on the two dockets - she is Speaker 0 and speaks at the 1:15:49 mark in the transcript. Discussion on these two dockets starts with District 9 Councilor Liz Breadon, who is Speaker 19 and starts speaking at the 1:12:10 mark in the transcript. Check out our AI-generated transcript feeds for those transcripts.
Docket #0702 is a hearing order from Councilor Worrell to improve city support for small businesses - he is Speaker 6 and starts at the 1:51:06 mark. The ideas laid out by Councilor Worrell - tying together training with grant opportunities and providing more support for existing companies trying to grow - is broadly similar to what is being pursued by the Commonwealth’s Secretary for Economic Development, Yvonne Hao, and which is laid out in more detail in this recent press release and this column from Globe business correspondent Scott Kirsner. This hearing orders was sent to the Committee on Small Business and Professional Licensure.
Docket #0703 is also a hearing order from Councilor Worrell focused on problem properties - he is Speaker 6 and starts at the 1:55:42 mark. According to Councilor Worrell this is “a chance for us to better understand the process behind being listed as a problem properly. This is particularly important as we currently only list 4 problem properties on our city website, which are all residential.” Based on comments from other speakers who followed Councilor Worrell, including Council President Louijeune and Councilors Durkan, Flynn, Breadon, Coletta, Meija, and Murphy there are more than 4 problem properties in the City.
Docket #0704 is a hearing order from District 7 Councilor Tania Fernandes Anderson which focuses on one of her top issues: home ownership - she is Speaker 21 and starts at the 2:09:27 mark. In this case the hearing order is about restrictions written into many deeds for homes built as “affordable housing” with public money. The public money requires both that home buyers make below certain income thresholds and that the homes be sold at lower costs, and as a result the deeds for these homes include restrictions which severely restrict the ability of owners to sell the property for a profit. Councilor Fernandes Anderson hinted at this issue with her mention of “generational wealth” but the next speaker on the hearing order, Councilor Worrell, was more direct: “While selling assets may seem like a viable option, we must also recognize the significance of cost saving measures.” This hearing order was sent to the Committee on Housing and Community Development. Read more about this issue in this report from the City of Boston.
Docket #0705 is a hearing order offered by Councilor Flynn to understand the transportation situation for Boston Public Schools student athletes. The hearing order was prompted by recent incidents like the Excel High School baseball team left without a bus to bring them to their season opener - read this article by the Boston Globe’s Travis Anderson for more. Sent to Committee on Education.
Docket #0706 is a hearing order offered by Councilor Weber on the City of Boston’s voucher program, which the Councilor explained in his statement on the hearing order - Speaker 3 at the 2:27:30 mark - “unlike section 8, the city of Boston's housing BHA and are funded through the operating budget,” and which Council President Louijeune added “these city vouchers are a lot more flexible than the federal vouchers,” - she is Speaker 0 and speaks at the 2:29:06 mark. This was sent to the Committee on Housing and Community Development.
Dockets #0717 and #0718 were both resolutions that focused on street safety.
#0717 is a resolution supporting a bill currently before the state legislature which according to At-Large Councilor Henry Santana would “allow using cameras mounted on buses to enforce traffic violations of other vehicles using bus lanes or bus stops,” - he is Speaker 8 and speaks at the 3:44:14 mark. #0717’s resolution was approved 12-0.
#0718 declared speeding and reckless driving a public health emergency, which prompted Councilor Coletta to raise a question about the Council’s powers - she is Speaker 11 and raises the question at the 3:53:43 mark - which sent the resolution to be heard by the Public Health, Homelessness and Recovery Committee.
NEXT WEEK: HEARING ON TAX INCREASE
Councilors will not have to wait long to experience that tension: next week the City Council’s Government Operations Committee is holding a hearing about the Wu administration’s proposed tax increase, a home rule petition that would allow the administration to raise taxes on commercial properties above the state-mandated limit. The hearing is on Tuesday, April 16 at 10 AM in the Iannella Chamber - find more details in the public notice.
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