The Boston City Council is eying more than $12 million in amendments to the mayor’s budget as it heads into a Wednesday vote, changes that would cut more than $3 million from the police department and millions more from other city services.
The Council wrapped up its last relatively brief working session Tuesday afternoon, after three marathon sessions on Thursday, Friday and Monday, whittling down individual amendments submitted by 13 councilors that collectively would have cut more than $18 million from the police budget.
By the end of the final session, the Council reached consensus on roughly $12.6 million in changes to the mayor’s $4.6 billion budget for fiscal year 2025. Of its priorities, the Council was still approximately $650,000 short of funding available for its version of the budget.
Since the body does not have the authority to increase the mayor’s budget, only amend or reduce it, Council Vice President Brian Worrell, chair of the Ways and Means Committee, will be tweaking some of the amendments to eliminate that surplus amount in the amended spending plan he will submit for a vote Wednesday.
The Council was lobbied by business and policy groups to cut from the mayor’s overall spending plan — rather than approve a home rule petition filed by Mayor Michelle Wu that would tax businesses at a higher rate to avoid what her administration says would be a significant increase in residential taxes — but appears to have chosen not to go that route.
Instead, councilors agreed upon a number of amendments that would transfer funding from high-budget departments like police, fire, public works and transportation, to others that focus on affordable housing, social services interventions related to violence, and quality of life improvements, according to a draft document that was reviewed and amended during the final working session.
Collectively, the changes would cut more than $3 million from the police department, roughly $534,000 from the fire department, nearly $1 million from the Boston Centers for Youth and Families, $650,000 from the transportation department, $600,000 from public works, $250,000 from the snow and winter management fund, and $200,000 from the library department.
The draft document also shows a $2.5 million reduction from execution of courts which would cut the city’s $5 million budget for settling lawsuits in half. Council discussions may have put that cut as high as $4 million, however, the Herald has learned.
The potential for police cuts have drawn the most criticism thus far, with Larry Calderone, president of the Boston Police Patrolmen’s Association, the city’s largest police union, calling the idea “absurdly irresponsible.”
The Council should be looking to increase the police budget at a time when the department needs to hire more officers, not decrease it by any amount, Calderone previously told the Herald — adding on a WBZ radio program Monday night that the councilors’ tendency to take from police to fund other departments was like “robbing Peter to pay Paul.”
The mayor vetoed a $31 million cut to the police budget approved by the Council last year, and rejected a vote to slash $13.3 million from BPD in 2022. She also rejected millions of dollars in cuts last year to basic city services like public works, transportation, veterans and the library departments, some of which are on the table this week.
The Council chose to direct more funding toward housing investments that center around low-income vouchers, right-to-counsel initiatives for tenants facing eviction, and down payment assistance.
Other investments were focused on career and college readiness, such as English as a second language classes for parents, workforce language training programs and nonprofits that do that work, youth jobs and homework help, and City Council staff salaries.
Councilors also focused on public safety investments, directing roughly $1 million to the short-staffed Boston Police Crime Lab which is dealing with a backlog of sexual assault test kits.
Undisclosed funding was focused on housing crisis case coordinators, burial services for homicide victims, “holistic” support for communities impacted by violence, a fire relief fund, violence intervention and prevention support and other social worker and counseling initiatives.
The final bucket dealt with quality of life investments that center around clean water, public art, trash containerization to mitigate rodent infestation, increased overtime for inspectional services inspectors that deal with pest control, equity studies, free bikes for income-eligible youth, and infant maternal health programs.
Worrell previously told the Herald that the Council’s goal in exercising its amendment authority — granted by a November 2021 ballot initiative — in this year’s budget process was to “increase the investments and services that our city provides to our residents.”
