FY27 BUDGET SEASON: At 12 PM, BPI liveblogs Council's 7th Budget Working Session

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FY27 BUDGET SEASON: At 12 PM, BPI liveblogs Council's 7th Budget Working Session

June 10 budget vote deadline looms for this, the 2nd 'last' budget working session of FY27 budget seasons

Boston Policy Institute

Jun 8

READ IN APP

Today was supposed to feature hearings before the Ways & Means Committee at 10 AM and 2 PM, but after the Council voted last week to delay a vote on the $4.9B FY27 Operating Budget and any amendments until June 10, both of those hearings were cancelled to hold a single budget working session at 12 PM - read the public notice.

Today’s working session was originally scheduled as an in-person meeting, but was switch on Friday afternoon to be a virtual meeting.

Today’s budget working session is incredibly important for a number of reasons, but the chief one is that the Council is required by the City charter to vote on the FY27 Operating Budget at this week’s regular meeting on June 10.

That means that today’s session is the Council’s only opportunity to discuss the $4.9B Operating Budget and any budget amendments as a body before that meeting.

The focus of this working session should be on budget amendments, but where the Council is on that issue is not clear. Concerns about budget amendment appeared to drive the Council’s 10-3 vote last week to delay a decision on the FY27 Operating Budget - BPI wrote an in-depth analysis of last week’s vote.

Those concerns can be sorted into 4 buckets:

Ways & Means Chair Ben Weber has told the Council he is negotiating with the Wu administration about budget amendments and made clear those negotiations have influenced the amendment package he is offering, but he hasn’t provided many details, leaving questions about mayoral vetoes and vote thresholds unanswered;
Weber’s amendment package changed significantly since first being offered on May 29, but Councilors appeared particularly concerned about changes in both composition and presentation made between June 2 - the last budget working session - and June 3, when the package was formally offered to the Council;
District 3 Councilor John FitzGerald offered a ~$7M budget amendment package at the last budget working session on June 2 that offered more money for the body’s budget priorities by taking a different approach to budget cuts, but Weber prevented much discussion by gaveling the meeting closed; and
Councilor Murphy has claimed that 47 proposed budget amendments were completely left out of Weber’s amendment package, and she appeared ready to force a vote on those amendments at last week’s Council meeting.

BPI has been anticipating a detailed discussion on budget amendments at these working sessions for weeks, but so far that has not happened. That means today is the last chance for the Council to find consensus on a package of budget amendments.

As a reminder, the Council needs 9 votes to override a mayoral veto and Mayor Wu has vetoed 3 of the 4 amendment packages sent to her. The only package not vetoed was last year’s package, which received the Council’s unanimous support - read about last year’s budget amendment vote.

There is one other issue to watch for at today’s working session: rejecting the FY27 Operating Budget outright. Councilor Worrell has called for that to happen so that Mayor Wu can re-write it, because of his serious concerns about the City’s revenue forecasts. City Hall has reported missing some revenue forecasts in FY26 and FY27, and Worrell has demanded an explanation for why the FY27 budget lowering its forecast for “Aircraft Fuel Excise” tax revenue. He has pointed to inflation and geopolitical uncertainty driving up the cost and thus the revenue received due the tax being “highly correlated with jet fuel prices” - find the quote on p. 95 & forecast on p. 99 of the FY27 Budget Book.

For more on the first 6 working sessions, check out BPI’s past liveblogs - READ #1, #2, #3, #4, #5, and #6.

BPI will have provide live updates on today’s working session below. The comments are still open: let us know what you are watching for at today’s working session.