Weekly Transcript Round-Up: May 3, 2024

BPDA reform action in Budget Hearings and on Beacon Hill, BPS doesn’t have answers to audit questions, plus more takeaways from budget hearing

The second week of Boston’s budget hearings are in the books. This week in the WTR:

• The system’s CFO was asked why auditing recommendations were never followed. 

• Councilors heard about BPS’ plans for Inclusion and English language learning, which has been in the news since eight of BPS’ English Language Learning Task Force resigned in November over the plan the district is now implementing. 

• On Beacon Hill the home rule petition to make changes to the Boston Planning & Development Agency hit a committee deadline, while in budget hearings one of the major parts of the BPDA reform agenda, the Planning Advisory Council, got an important mention.

• DC-based Tax Policy Center puts out report supporting BPI’s conclusions in ‘Fiscal Fallout of Boston’s Empty Offices’ report

BREADON QUESTIONS BPS ABOUT 2019 AUDIT RECOMMENDATIONS

At Tuesday morning’s hearing District 9 City Councilor Liz Breadon focused on BPS internal auditing, calling the process “sloppy” and citing numerous outside reports and state audits that showed shortcomings in BPS. Check out the sharpest part of the exchange here:

In the transcript Councilor Breadon’s questions start at the 1:19:51 mark and she is Speaker 4. Deputy Superintendent of Operations Dr. Samuel DePina is Speaker 1 and Interim Chief Financial Officer David Bloom is Speaker 2.

The particular focus of Councilor Breadon’s was this March 2019 report from the ‘Internal Audit Task Force’ which was created to address BPS’ chronic issues with payroll, graduation rates, and grant reporting requirements. The recommendations of that Task Force were unanimously approved by the Boston School Committee back in March 2019, but based on the answers from BPS staff today, the current leadership of BPS is not using that report as a guide.

Councilor Breadon ended her time with this: “We should be the best urban school district in the country, and we can’t get our act together.” 

INCLUSION AND ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNING GO BEFORE COUNCIL, 6 MONTHS AFTER ELL TASK FORCE RESIGNATIONS

The state of English language learning in Boston Public Schools has been a major issue in the 2023-24 school year, with major plans from BPS leadership, and significant push back to those plans. BPS leadership is moving to “Inclusion” something that the BPS officials who testified on Monday afternoon spoke about at length - the presentation starts at the 5:34 mark in the transcript and goes until the 24:33 mark, and features BPS Superintendent Mary Skipper is Speaker 1, Chief of Specialized Services Kay Seale is Speaker 3, Chief Multicultural & Multilingual Education Joelle Gamere is Speaker 6, and Interim CFO David Bloom is Speaker 2.

The push back has come in a variety of forms, with the biggest example coming this past November when eight members of BPS’ English Learners Task Force resigned over disagreements with the district’s new plan for moving English language learners into general education classrooms - the very inclusion model that BPS leaders spoke about. Read more about the resignation from GBH and read a letter written by two of the task force members who resigned that was published by the Globe. The Boston Teachers Union is also pushing back on BPS’ inclusion plan. BTU has serious concerns about the district’s current inclusion plan based on their social media posting about the hearings and the public testimony that Boston Teachers’ Union Political Director Johnny McGinnis gave at Monday’s hearing - he is Speaker 21 and starts at the 2:20:02 mark of the transcript.

How much of the push back from resigning ELL experts and BTU made it into Monday’s hearing? The answer is not very much. Here are the exchanges that caught BPI’s attention: 

• The only question about the English Language Learners Task Force came from At-Large Councilor Julia Meija - she is Speaker 14 and asked the question at the 1:09:55 mark - read Superintendent Skipper’s response on the transcript.

• Two former members of the ELL Task Force who resigned gave public testimony - long-time education advocate John Mudd - he is Speaker 22 and starts at the 2:33:22 mark - and researcher Rosenn Tung, who was one of the authors of that letter to Globe - is Speaker 23 and starts at the 2:38:11 mark.

• At-Large Councilor Henry Santana asked a question using his own experience as a non-English speaking student who felt supported at the Blackstone School, which was fully bi-lingual school - this exchange starts at the 33:22 mark in the transcript, Councilor Santana is Speaker 7 - and then District 5 City Councilor Enrique Pepen, whose experience was similar to Councilor Santana’s, asked a similar question - he is Speaker 10 and the question is at the 43:30 mark.

• District 3 City Councilor John FitzGerald asked a really interesting question: “why push inclusion now with the budget cuts and lack of staffing?” He is Speaker 9 and this question is asked at the 1:24:37 mark. His line of questioning gets the most into the details of how inclusion will work in the classroom, drawing on his wife’s work as a current special education teacher.

IMPORTANT BPDA REFORM PLANK GETS BUDGET HEARING MENTION, CONNECTS TO HEARING ORDERS

While neither Planning Department or BPDA was on this week’s budget hearing agenda, there was a mention of a major piece of both BPDA reform and the larger effort of the Wu administration to change the way Boston handles planning and development. It came at Monday’s first hearing of the day, which was for the Operations Cabinet, composed of the Inspectional Services Department, Property Management, and Public Facilities Department. The mention came in this exchange between District 1 City Council Gabriella Coletta, Director of Public Facilities Kerrie Griffin, and Commissioner of Property Management Eamon Shelton - this exchange starts at the 45:33 mark in the transcript, Councilor Coletta is Speaker 9, Director Griffin is Speaker 2, and Director Shelton is Speaker 1:

Here is the part of the question BPI honed in on: 

The planning advisory council: I'm very interested to hear from you all what your interaction has been with them thus far. So this is a group of individuals led by Katherine Lusk to review exactly what the needs are, assessing either in the community or internally, what some of the capital investments need to be in our community. So for example, through playing Charlestown, we found out that we need a new ambulance bay due to the projected population growth. We need a new fire station. And so have you talked with them? Have you coordinated your capital investment proposals with them? Like, what has your interaction been? Because they were a huge part of moving the planning department from the BBDA to the city. I'm just curious to know what your interaction with them has been.

A quick background to Councilor Coletta’s question: The Planning Advisory Council was created by Mayor Michelle Wu in an executive order she signed back in January 2023. It was part of the same push in early 2023 that produced the home rule petition making changes to the BPDA’s urban renewal powers, pension rules, and corporate structure, and the failed effort to make the BPDA board adopt a reform plan. Katherine Lusk was hired as the Planning Advisory Council’s director in May 2023, and since then PAC and Lusk have received few mentions by the Wu administration and appear to have not produced any public work. 

That makes this question from Councilor Coletta extremely interesting as the Wu administration’s BPDA reform plans continue to slowly come into view. The answer to her question shed even more light on what PAC does. Here is Director Shelton answer the Councilor’s question: 

They [PAC] have pretty regular meetings where they have different departments present their capital plan and their goals. I've to at least 3 of them and heard from different departments presenting their plan. Libraries was one, for example. We talk about pain points, best practices, that sort of thing. I know most recently, we had a presentation from BTD where they talked about all of their city wide projects with the goal of trying to identify if there is a capital project where a building's being renovated and we're doing a new sidewalk to try to better coordinate those things to happen across the city. So that's been my experience. I know they are just kicking off and figuring out how they are going to proceed, but so far it's been helpful.

If PAC is now coordinating capital spending in Boston, then watch the upcoming hearings on the Boston Centers for Youth & Family, Parks & Recreation, the Planning Department and BPS’ long term facilities plan for more opportunities for the Council to explore PAC’s role in the Wu Administration’s new planning bureaucracy. 

The responsibilities laid out in the executive order and on PAC’s website also connect to three of the hearing orders that were sent to committee at Wednesday’s City Council meeting. With the budget taking up most of the Council’s bandwidth until the end of June and then a light summer schedule, if these hearing orders are taken up it will be later this year:

• Docket #0761 - Councilor Mejia offered the following: Order for a hearing to audit the City of Boston's accountability, transparency and accessibility regarding construction sites impacting small businesses. The language for this can be found on pages 129 and 130 of the agenda packet. Discussion of the docket starts at the 2:03:13 mark, with a statement from Councilor Meija, who is Speaker 4 in the transcript.

• Docket #0762 - Councilor Mejia offered the following: Order for a hearing to audit the community engagement efforts of Boston Public School's "Green New Deal" and "Long-Term Facilities Plan." The language for this can be found on pages 131 and 132 of the agenda packet. Discussion of the docket starts at the 2:21:43 mark in the transcript.

• Docket #0763 - Councilor Pepén and Durkan offered the following: Order for a hearing to discuss ways to repair and maintain private ways. The language for this can be found on page 133 of the agenda packet. Councilor Pepen is Speaker 9, Councilor Durkan is Speaker 6, and discussion of the docket starts at the 2:27:18 mark in the transcript.

BPDA HOME RULE PETITION HITS COMMITTEE DEADLINE, EXTENDED AGAIN

Joint Rule 10 day on Beacon Hill, the deadline to advance bills in committee on Beacon Hill, was more than two months ago, but for one important bill the deadline keeps being extended. This week the home rule petition that the Boston City Council passed in February 2023 to make changes to the Boston Planning & Development Agency was extended for a second time. On Joint Rule 10 day the Joint Committee on Community Development and Small Businesses decided to give itself until May 1, 2024 to make a decision on whether or not to advance the home rule petition, and this week the committee extended the deadline again to May 22, 2024. 

The hearing on this home rule petition was back in January 2024 and BPI wrote about in several posts:

• Prepare for BPDA’s Beacon Hill Hearing from January 19, 2024 - read it here

• Coverage from Beacon Hill’s BPDA Hearing from January 24, 2019 - read it here

TAX POLICY CENTER REPORT SUPPORT BPI’S CONCLUSIONS IN OFFICE VALUES REPORT

Earlier this week the Tax Policy Center, a joint venture of the Urban Institute and Brookings Institution, put out a report about the impact that declining office values were having on 47 large American cities, writing “The question facing policymakers is not if this will affect local budgets but how bad will it get.” TPC’s report, titled ‘The Future of Commercial Real Estate and City Budgets’ reaches conclusions similar to those in the report published by the Boston Policy Institute, Inc and written by Tufts University’s Center for State Policy Analysis, ‘The Fiscal Fallout of Boston’s Empty Offices.’

Check out TPC’s post about the report here, and read the full report here.

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