Weekly Transcript Round-up for 05/08/26
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Weekly Transcript Round-up for 05/08/26Moody’s and S&P warn Boston; City Hall answers 9 of 35 questions from BPI; Wu welches on promise to show texts
This week saw a lot of policy action. BPI has more on 2 important pieces:
BPI has more on both those pieces in this post, but 2 moments and 1 takeaway from this week’s budget hearing need to be highlighted. First, the Streets Cabinet finally provided the list of transportation project related state and federal grants and their status. Interim Streets Chief Nick Gove talked about this list at length at the Council’s April 22 hearing on transportation policy, but the list wasn’t actually sent to the Council until minutes before the Streets Cabinet budget hearing started on May 4 at 10 AM - check out the list and watch BPI’s testify about the list at Monday’s hearing.  Second, Planning Chief Kairos Shen told the Council he was “modifying” the Planning Advisory Council but the changes he described, including a name change, moving staff out of PAC, and changing its mission, sounded closer to abolition. PAC’s apparent abolition is surprising for two reasons. First, because the body was created by Mayor Wu via executive order in January 2023 with much fanfare. Second, because the body is supposed to play a key role in Wu’s broader effort to reform Boston’s planning & development process, with a broad mandate for change and a high-powered leader in Katharine Lusk, a former top advisor to Mayor Menino and founding Executive Director of Boston University’s Institute of Cities. Shen’s apparent abolition of PAC - plus news also made at this hearing that Planning & Zoning Division hasn’t had a director since Aimee Chambers left in January 2025 & Shen had no plans to fill the position - is the latest evidence that Wu’s planning reform efforts have stalled. Finally, the takeaway: the Boston Police Department, and Commissioner Michael Cox in particular, have no answer on the budget-breaking overspending on police overtime. Councilors asked a lot of good questions about police overtime and issues that contribute to it, from minimum staffing, to event planning, to recruitment. Cox and his phalanx of staffers struggled to answer many of those questions. What answers were provided suggested a Police Department and City Hall that is not taking overtime seriously. Cox’s performance stood out for how poor it was. He was not alone in facing strong feelings from the public and tough questions from Councilors at a budget hearing this week: Nick Gove with paused transportation projects, Dion Irish with cancelled capital projects, and Kairos Shen with little new construction. Compared to those other folks, Cox stands alone in how unwilling he was to either acknowledge the problem or even gesture toward solutions. In addition to that, there are 3 other things from this week worth watching:
 #0931 is the veterans resolution, #0932 is the social media litigation resolution.
CREDIT AGENCY REPORTS WARN BOSTON This week saw Moody’s and S&P extend Boston’s 13 year run with a AAA bond rating, but the reports from the 2 agencies were not without reservations - find both rating reports here. There was also some information that will be very interesting to City Councilors. Reviewing the 2 reports, both agencies have similar findings on the revenue challenges facing Boston - falling office values and the decline in new growth - and also see similar challenges on the spending side. This line in S&’s report titled the “Downside Scenario” succinctly captured both agencies analysis:
This means that City Hall can’t afford to have another deficit next spring, and needs to hope that S&P’s analysis that forecasts “pension cost growth that outpaces budgetary growth” won’t come to pass. One place where the agencies differed was the on-going lawsuit about assessing practices. S&P didn’t mention it, but Moody’s did. Here is what they wrote:
The phrase “negative credit event” is important: that is when something happens that leads the rating agency to downgrade the City’s credit rating. This is particularly concerning because City Hall appears to have acknowledged via email last year and again in court last week that what the plaintiff is alleging is true. That seems to bode ill for the City’s chance as the lawsuit moves forward. The S&P report also highlighted 3 City Hall-produced reports that don’t appear to have been made public. Reading the S&P report, these reports contain information that both the Council and School Committee are looking for. First, the S&P reports on p. 4: “The city’s Office of Budget Management prepares monthly variance reports to forecast departmental year-end positions using year-to-date data.” That information is very important as the Council and School Committee works to understand exactly what caused the FY26 budget deficits in City Hall and Boston Public Schools. The School Committee and BPS leadership talked about keeping closer track of BPS spending at their Wednesday night meeting: having BPS budget officials present this report is one way to do that - 2:25:54 mark in the May 6 School Committee meeting. Later on the same page, the S&P reports:
The 3 year financial model is something that hasn’t been presented to the Council. The Council is presented the 5-year Capital Budget, but the version presented to the credit rating agencies appears more detailed and specific. CITY HALL ANSWERS JUST 9 OF 35 QUESTIONS This week saw very few of BPI’s questions get answered, but there were some interesting answers at the Planning Department and Police Department hearings. There were 2 areas were the lack of questions and answers was particularly disappointing: revenue forecasts and capital planning. There were 3 hearings this week with departments that play an major role in revenue collection:
This week also saw hearings with the departments that control either manage or directly control most of the City’s capital spending:
At the Planning Department hearing, there were 2 answers to BPI questions that stood out: In response to a question from Council President Breadon, Chief Kairos Shen told the Council that he had dismantled the Planning Advisory Council, a body created Mayor Wu created via executive order in January 2023 - Breadon asked this question and Shen’s answer was one of the most interesting of the week - this starts at the 1:14:23 mark:
In response to a different question from Breadon, Shen reported that the Planning & Zoning Division, hasn’t had a director since Aimee Chamber left back in January 2025, more than a year ago, and that he wasn’t planning on actually filling the position - 1:17:50 mark. This Division administers Article 80, which oversees the largest development projects in Boston and is among the most important parts of City Hall’s entire bureaucracy. It is even more important under Mayor Wu, who is currently pursuing an Article 80 reform effort. How does that work without a director? Shen didn’t explain. Both of these answers are part of the problem identified by BPI’s Executive Director Gregory Maynard in this public testimony at the Planning Department’s hearing: the creation of a new Planning Department is only half-done, and the lack of follow-through is hurting real estate development in Boston - watch the clip on Instagram, Tik-Tok, or YouTube Shorts.  These 2 revelations are major organization questions that go to the heart of what the role of the very new Planning Department is supposed to be. It is shocking that both of these consequential changes were only revealed by Shen in response to Councilors questions, and not in the Planning Department’s initial presentation or as part of an announcement from Mayor Wu about the future of her flagship issue. Finally, the Police Department had 2 budget hearings - read the morning transcript and the afternoon transcript. There was one major takeaway: the Police Department, and Commission Cox in particular, have no answer on overtime. Councilors asked a number of good questions about the issue, but Commissioner Cox and his phalanx of staff were unable to provide responsive or detailed answers. Boston Policy Institute, Inc is working to improve the public conversation - help us by following BPI on YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
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