FY27 BUDGET SEASON: Preview of Streets & Operations Cabinets’ $271M Operating & $1.4B Capital Budgets
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FY27 BUDGET SEASON: Preview of Streets & Operations Cabinets’ $271M Operating & $1.4B Capital BudgetsPacked week features Transportation, Public Works, ISD, Public Facilities, Planning, Youth Employment, & Police
This week is seeing the Streets Cabinet, the Operations Cabinet, the Planning Department, the City’s various youth jobs programs, and the Boston Police Department all appear before the Council for their budget hearings. Here is the schedule:
The focus for today’s hearings is capital spending. That’s because the Streets & Operations Cabinets directly control more than $1.2B - or ~¼ - of the City’s FY26-31 Capital Budget, and manage much of the other $3B+. That capital spending focus is evident in the questions and news stories that both of these cabinets have faced in the last few weeks:
One thing made preparing for today’s Streets Cabinet really hard: at the April 22 Council hearing Nick Gove promised to share the City’s list of the state and federal funding for transportation projects and their status. He has not done so: BPI asked Council central staff for that list on April 23, and they still hadn’t received it on the afternoon of Friday, May 1. READ MORE ABOUT THE APRIL 22 HEARING:
In this FY27 budget hearing preview, BPI will include:
STREETS CABINET: MONDAY, 10 AM, IANNELLA CHAMBER While this hearing only lists 2 offices and 1 revolving fund, it has to cover the whole Streets Cabinet because Interim Chief Gove is still the BTD Commissioner:
WHERE DO I FIND IT IN THE FY27 BUDGET BOOK? Streets Cabinet Operating Budget is on p. 794-854. The individual departments in the Cabinet can be found on:
There is no single “Streets Cabinet Capital Budget.” Instead, 2 of the departments inside the Cabinet have their own Capital Budgets:
Bikeshare Revolving Fund is on p. 828 & 836. FY27 vs FY26 BY THE NUMBERS Streets Cabinet Operating Budget - $206,710,925 in FY27 vs $205,135,629 in FY26, a $1,575,296 or 0.8% increase Streets Cabinet External Funds - $2,310,931 in FY27 vs $5,442,253 in FY26, a ($3,131,322) or 57% decrease Here are the Operating Budgets for the individual departments:
Here are the External Funds for the individual departments:
There is no single “Streets Cabinet Capital Budget.” Instead, 2 of the departments inside the Cabinet have their own Capital Budgets:
FROM THE MAYOR’S LETTER The letter includes a sub-section titled “Snow Removal” in a larger section titled “The FY27 recommended budget builds in cost containment strategies to address key drivers of deficit in the prior fiscal year”. Here is that section:
The Streets Cabinet got 3 of 4 paragraphs in the section titled “Public Realm and Quality of Life.” The 4th paragraph was one line about works in Boston’s parks. Here are those 3 paragraphs:
WHAT BPI IS WATCHING FOR BPI has 7 questions for this hearing. 1. There are 17 projects that were in the BTD’s FY26-30 Capital Budget, but do not appear in the FY27-31 Capital Budget, plus 1 that was moved from BTD to DPW:
What happened to each of these projects? If there was state or federal funding tied to a project, can you walk through what happened to that funding? 2. Back in August 2025, the Dorchester Reporter published a deeply reported article by Seth Daniels about sidewalk bond deposits. That article reported that Boston had kept tens of millions of sidewalk bond deposits in non-interest bearing accounts: $24.5M since 2012 on, with $11.8M of that was collected between 2022 and June 2025. The reporting revealed that many contractors consider the deposits a fee due to “the lack of timely inspection and what some see as nit-picking by inspectors.” Have any changes to that program been made since that article was published? 3. In FY19 Boston collected $70.1M in total parking fine revenue, and after dropping down to $48M in FY21, revenue was $60.4M in FY25. Can the City talk about how parking fines looked different in 2018/2019 vs 2026 in terms of how fines cost, where those fines are issued, etc? Does the City expect revenue to ever return to the pre-COVID high? Budgeted vs Collected: Total Parking Fines Boston has long had difficulty accurately forecasting revenue from parking fines.  4. Comparing the FY27 and FY26 Budget Books, the Streets Cabinet planned to spend significantly more External Funds in FY26 than actually were: the FY26 Budget Book called for $5.4M in FY26 vs the FY27 Budget Book reporting just $1.8M was spent in FY26. Most of the gap comes from “Parking Facilities”. Why did just $420k get spent out of “Parking Facilities” in FY26 when the FY26 Budget Book called for $4M in spending? 5. The City is required to upgrade handicap ramps across the City as part of a 2021 consent decree, and Universal Hub reported in August 2024 the plaintiffs complained: “In 2023, the filing charges, the city only installed or repaired 1,050 ramps, compared to the 1,500 required by the consent decree.” In her street construction announcement on April 22, Wu announced that Boston had built 1,723 ramps in 2025. Where does the the City stand right now with the consent decree? 6. Vineet Gupta, BTD’s long-time planning director, retired in March. Has a permanent replacement been hired into that position? If a permanent replacement has not been hired, who is occupying his position? 7. Some bike advocates believe that the installation of BlueBike docks has “stalled” and point to the lack of action on “20 new stations across Dorchester, JP, Mattapan, and Roxbury” that the City held community meetings on last fall - check out the City’s website. What is the status of those 20 new stations? FOLLOW-UP: What is the status of the “21 new stations across Back Bay, Hyde Park, Roslindale, and West Roxbury” also listed on the City’s “Bike Share Expansion 2024-2026” website? OPERATIONS CABINET: MONDAY, 2 PM, IANNELLA CHAMBER This hearing is the Operation Cabinet, with the 3 offices that make up that cabinet:
WHERE DO I FIND IT IN THE FY27 BUDGET BOOK? The Operations Cabinet Operating Budget is on p. 287-318. The individual departments in the Cabinet can be found on:
There is no “Operation Cabinet Capital Budget”: only the Property Management Department has a Capital Budget, on p. 1028-1034 FY27 vs FY26 BY THE NUMBERS Operations Cabinet Operating Budget - $64,631,152 in FY27 vs 63,833,831 in FY26, $797,321 or a 1.2% increase Operations Cabinet External Funds - $3,038,790 in FY27 vs $85,700 in FY26, a $2,953,090 or 3445% increase Here are the Operating Budgets for the individual departments:
Here are the External Funds for the individual departments:
There is no “Operation Cabinet Capital Budget”: only the Property Management Department has a Capital Budget - $245,840,825 in FY27-31 vs $234,850,351 in FY26-30, a $10,990,474 or 4.7% increase. That increase is misleading:
FROM THE MAYOR’S LETTER There is no mention in the Mayor’s letter. WHAT BPI IS WATCHING FOR BPI has 2 sets of questions about Mel King Academy and Jackson Mann, plus 3 other questions. How capital spending decisions are made is opaque, and a good way to shed light on it is to find out more about recent, specific capital projects. One good recent example is the Mel King Academy. There are 2 Public Facilities-specific questions about this:
The Jackson Mann site has become a major issue. There are a number of unanswered questions from the last few weeks:
There are 2 other questions to watch for: 1. Building permit fees are not only a major source of revenue for the City of Boston, they are also a leading indicator of new growth for the years to come: record high building permit fees in FY23 foreshadowed that FY24 would see record new growth. Is there a formal process involving anyone in Inspectional Services or the Operations Cabinet as part of the Finance Cabinet revenue forecasting? Budgeted vs Collected: Building Permit Fees Falling building permit fees indicate less new growth in future years  2. External Fund spending at Property Management has gone up from the low 6-figures to more than $1M/year thanks to the “Aquatics Facilities Grant” (p. 313) that was accepted by the Council back in March 2024: $1M in actual spending in FY25, then an estimated $2.1M in FY26 and $2.9M in FY27. This spending was not accounted for in the FY25 or FY26 budgets. Why was this spending not included in the FY25 and FY26 budgets?  The left-most is from FY27, middle is FY26, right-most is FY25. FOLLOW-UP: Are there other multi-million grants that the City is spending right now, but are not accounted for in the FY27 budget? 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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