City Council - Ways & Means Committee Hearing on Dockets #1829-1838

And that's the chat. We have everyone in charge.

So we're going to end on

So, when your graphics will take a while to complete, you can get started.

We have the bus director, we have the director of the relations with DPS and we have chief operating officer for DPS.

And then we're waiting on the Chief of Security Services.

The other panelists that came in were from the country too.

We're probably waiting for someone from the unions to come out of this process as well.

Good morning, everyone.

Thank you.

The District 6 City Councilor. and the Chair of the Boston City Council on Ways and Means. Today's October 6th, 2026. The exact time is 10.03 a.m., in accordance with Chapter 2 of the Acts of 2025 Modifying Certain Requirements of the Open Meeting Law and relieving public bodies of certain requirements, including the requirements that public bodies conduct their meetings in a public place that's open and physically accessible to the public. The City Council will be conducting this hearing virtually via Zoom This hearing is being recorded. It's also being livestreamed at boston.gov slash city-council-tv and broadcast on Xfinity Channel 8. RCN Channel 82 and Fios Channel 964. Written comments may be sent to the committee email at ccc.wm boston.gov and will be made a part of the record and available to all counselors

Public testimony will be taken at the end of this hearing. Individuals to be called on the order in which they signed up and we'll have two minutes to testify If you wish to sign up for public testimony and have not done so, please email our Central Staff Liaison Karishma Chauhan at k-a-r-i-s-h-m-a dot c-h o u h a n at boston.gov for the zoom link and your name will be added to the list This hearing is about funding the new contract increases for several groups of Boston public school employees. The unions represent school police officers and superior officers Planning and Engineering Professionals, Plan Administrators and School Storekeepers and Delivery Workers. The City is asked to move approximately $517,000

from the collective bargaining reserves so the district can cover the raises and salary increases agreed to in the contract for fiscal year 27. There's 10 dockets, I'll now read those into the record Just give me a second here. Okay, docket number 1829. Message in order to reduce the fiscal year 27 appropriation for the reserve for collective bargaining by $268,887 to provide funding for the Boston Public Schools for the fiscal year 27 increases contained within the collective bargaining agreement between the Boston School Committee and the Boston Police Patrolmen's Association. Docket Number 1830 Message in order for supplemental appropriation order for the Boston Public Schools Department for fiscal year 27, in the amount of $286,887.

to cover the fiscal year 27 cost items contained within the collective bargaining agreement between the Boston School Committee and the Boston Police Patrolmen's Association. The terms of the contract are September 1st, 2026 through August 31st,2027. The major provisions of the Contract include a base wage increase of 2% in October of 24, 25 and 26. and a flat dollar amount increase of $250, $900, and $800 to be added to annual salaries in January 2025, 2026, and 2027 respectively. Docket number 1831, message in order to reduce the fiscal year 27 appropriation for the reserve for collective bargaining by $111,802.

to provide funding for the Boston's public schools for the fiscal year 27 increases contained within the collective bargaining agreement between the Boston School Committee and the Boston school Police Superior Officers Federation. Docket number 1832. Message and order for the supplemental appropriation for the Boston Public Schools Department for fiscal year 27 in the amount of $111,802 to cover the fiscal year 27 cost items contained within the collective bargaining agreement between the Boston School Committee and the Boston Police Superior Officers Federation. The terms in the contract are July 1st, 2024 through June 30th, 2027. The major provisions of the contract include a base wage increase of 2% In October of 2024, 2025 and 2026 and a flat dollar amount increase of $250, $900 and $800 to be added to annual salaries in January 2025, 2026 and 2027 respectively.

Docket number 1833, message in order to reduce the fiscal year 27 appropriation for the reserve for collective bargaining by $85,000 $879 to provide funding for the Boston Public Schools for fiscal year 27 increases contained within the Collective Bargaining Agreement between the Boston School Committee and SEIU Local 888 Professional Employees Chapter, Department of Planning & Engineering. Docket number 1834, message and order for the supplemental appropriation order for Boston Public Schools Department for fiscal year 27 in the amount of $85,879. to cover the FY27 cost items contained within the collective bargaining agreement between the Boston School Committee and FCIU Local 888 Professional Employees Chapter, Department of Planning & Engineering.

The terms of the contract are September 1st, 2026 through October 31st,2027. The major provision for that contract include a base wage increase of 2% in September of 26 and a flat dollar amount of $800 added to annual salaries in January of 20, 2027. Docket number 1835, message in order to reduce the FY27 appropriation for the reserve for collective bargaining by $40,365. to provide funding for the Boston Public Schools for the FY27 increases contained within the collective bargaining agreement between the Boston School Committee and Boston School Department Plant Administrators Association. Docket number 1836, message and order for a supplemental appropriation order for the Boston Public Schools Department for FY27 in the amount of $40,300.

$65 to cover the FY27 cost items contained within the collective bargaining agreement between the Boston School Committee and the Boston school department plant administrators association. The terms of the contract are September 1st, 2026 through October 31st,2027. The major provisions of the Contract include a base wage increase of 2% in September of 20, 2026 on a flat dollar amount of $800 to be added to annual salaries in January of 2027. Docket number 1837, message in order to reduce the FY27 appropriation for the reserve for collective bargaining by $10,320 to provide funding for the Boston Public Schools for the FY27 increases contained within the collective bargaining agreement between the Boston School Committee and AFL-CIO Council 39,

Local 2814, storekeepers and stores delivery menu. And finally, docket number 1838. Message and order for supplemental appropriation order for the Boston Public Schools Department for FY27 in the amount of $10,000 $320 to cover the FY27 cost items contained within the collective bargaining agreement between the Boston School Committee, and AFL-CIO, Council 93, Local 2014 Storekeepers & Stores Deliverymen's Union. The terms of the contract are September 1st, 2026 through August 31st,2027. The major provisions of the Contract include a base wage increase of 2%, in September of 2026, and a flat dollar amount of $800 to be added to annual salaries in January of 2027

These matters were sponsored by the Mayor Michelle Wu and referred to the committee on September 30th, 2026. We'll be discussing the contracts related Plant Administrators Association, Planning and Engineering, and Storekeepers First. I don't know if that's what the script says. Today I'm joined by my colleagues in order of arrival, Councilor Murphy, Councillor Flynn, and then Councilor Fitzgerald. We're joined by a panel with, we've got budget director Jim Williamson Director for the Office of Labor Relations for Boston Public Schools, Jeremiah Hassam. We've got Chief Executive Director for The Office of Safety Services for Boston public schools Israel Rall, sorry Izzy Marrero and Chief Operating Officer for the Boston Public Schools Brian Ford.

Brian has a hard stop at 11.30, so if people have questions for Brian please ask those up front, and if I have a call done on you and you still have questions for Brian before he leaves let me know and I can call my colleagues out of order. Let's see here. So I'm going to I'm going to pass this off to our panelists. You have the floor, Director Williamson, I'll start with you

Thank you so much, Chair Weber and other members of the Boston City Council. As you said my name is Jim Williamson I'm the budget director here for the city of Boston myself and my colleagues from the Boston Public Schools We appreciate this opportunity to provide information about these union contracts and their implications for the city's budget. I'm here to address the 10 appropriation orders before you and the impact of the budget, and to make a formal request of the committee to report it out and have it approved at the next City Council meeting. I'm joined by Jeremiah Hassan from BPS's Office of Labor to answer questions about the contract and other operational staff, Izzy Mejera Ryan Ford to ask about operational activities for those staff, cover everybody's unions.

As you remember the FY27 budget finalized in June included a 2020 $22 million collective parking reserve and aggregate. The City Council has approved two previous CBAs in this fiscal year for $3.3 million, and the total for these five BPS unions In the 10 appropriation orders, it was $517,000. So with that I will... I don't know if Jeremiah or others want to say anything before we start the hearing?

Thanks Jim and Chair Weber and Councilors, thank you for having us today. Just to provide a little bit of context for these first three contracts that we're focusing on they are very straightforward one-year agreements following what we've seen of the consistent wage pattern for BPS collective bargaining agreements and City of Austin collective bargaining agreement to my knowledge on the city side. So it's 2% increase, general wage increases plus the $800 in that is spread evenly across the employees' paychecks and will be added to their base wages moving forward. So again, really straightforward. My time to thank the bargaining teams for these unions that were able to work collaboratively with us to get agreements done in a fairly quick and efficient manner.

With that, and just so we're all clear, they were agreed to by the unions, ratified by the membership. And all of these agreements have been ratified With that, if you have any questions for us happy to answer.

Okay uh thank you very much um sorry uh I see we've been joined also by Councillor Culpepper So I'd like to hand it off to my colleagues for questions. Okay, and we've joined by Councilor Worrell. I guess it's okay. Councilor Murphy, let's... Let's do five minutes, and then if you have a second round of questions we'll come back. Murphy.

Okay, Councilor

Flynn. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. chair before I begin Did we invite any of the union leadership to attend and maybe give their opinion, their side of the negotiation? These are collective bargaining. Did we give them the opportunity to be here?

I mean, I think the usual procedure is we don't invite the unions on increases in CBAs where they've been negotiated. I understand we had this discussion about the detectives union?

I'm asking about today, Mr. Chair. It's a simple question, Mr Chair.

Well, okay. The simple answer is no, not invited.

Okay. My recommendation I do like to hear from both sides especially on a union contract. I do think it's important to hear People on the other side of the contract that are negotiating in good faith, because it's negotiated in good fate between the union and VTS. That's the only reason I'm respectfully asking that question, Mr. Chairman.

It's a respectful question and so not invited. Why don't you go forward with your five minutes? Let me talk to Karishma kind of offline and see if we can... Bring anyone in? I mean, they did want us to vote on this last week. I said no, that we should have a hearing on this to allow my colleagues to answer these questions. I haven't started your time, Councilor Flins. That's okay. So let me strategize with central staff here, and then I'll come back. Why don't you start your five minutes? A capable panel here and we'll talk about this.

Well, let me go directly to anyone from the BPS team We've recently read the devastating report. The state came out, I guess it was an Inspector General Report highlighting mismanagement at BPS, certain departments. Maybe it was public facilities. Does this contract have any impact at all on the Inspector General report as it relates to Are we doing anything differently now than we were in the past based on recommendations from the OIG report and how we move forward?

When you say this contract, can you specify which contract you're referring to?

Anyone. Any contract . The officer inspector general had a report highlighting Miss management throughout BPS was wondering if any of these contracts that were about to Votan, has any impact at all on the OIG report and how we move forward operation wise? And what impact the OIG report had on on management, on operation, on functions of BPS and did it have any impact on this contract, on any of these contracts as well? Brian, I don't know if you... Some of those issues happened in and around the office that you work on, Brian. Any feedback you might have?

Good morning, councillor. I would say as it relates to the new collective bargaining agreements that this will have little to no impact on actions taken as a result of the IG's report. However, most of our actions in response to the IG's report are tightening up financial protocols at which time we're still formulating our official review and response.

In council, I'll just say as having worked this out with our unions the OIG report didn't have any impact on the negotiations of the parties.

Does it have any impact on how we move forward as a school department in making any changes to improve operation management?

In terms of the collective bargaining, I guess that's cheap to be determined maybe. But Brian if you have more on that?

I think the short answer is yes, while we cannot point a full picture of what that looks like yet as we continue to do our review assessment and respond to the findings of the IG report.

Brian, in a nutshell what happened in the OIG report?

I don't think I'm fully equipped to answer that question at this moment in time. because of the many moving pieces as we work to fully understand the impacts of that report and what did not happen while we continue to do investigative measures on our end to get down to brass tacks.

Can I make a constructive recommendation to BPS? If there is a contract that BPS enters into, With a vendor, BPS has to pay that vendor directly. They can't use another vendor Pay that other vendor will pay the person that should be getting the money. I am concerned with that, I highlighted that. I do think it's a problem and I do want to get answers to those questions before I vote on these contracts. I'm gonna vote on them, but I still need to do my due diligence as a city councilor to ensure every nickel of taxpayer money is accounted for. I know I'm a stickler and I know That might not go over well, but residents expect me to ask difficult questions that others might not ask.

Thank you Mr. Chair.

Okay thank-thank you very much. Uh, I know Councilor Murphy you're up next. Councilor Louijeune had a...I was gonna call on her out of order uh just she had to leave? I don't know, Councilor Louiejean

I'm here, Councilor Weber, but feel free. Council Murphy can speak. Okay. Totally okay. Thank you.

Okay, thank you very much. Thank You, Councillor Murphy. You're up five minutes.

Thank-you all for being here and Looking forward to voting in support and advocating our BPS employees. There are many that aren't our teachers that are highlighted here. Thank you Izzy and all of the other representatives for The work you do in our schools, it's hard work. Councilor Flynn did bring up some hard questions I know that I'll be asking those. I don't know if this meeting is the place for it, but I am happy that was at least brought out because any dollar we can save if we're wasting any money especially After seeing hundreds of positions cut, knowing what that impact makes on the experience and education for our students so needing to make sure that bps who has the biggest budget in the city

That we're spending the money properly and not wasting any money at all. Looking forward to supporting and voting in favor of these contracts, but continuing that conversation is important also. So thank you. No direct questions.

Thank you, Councilor. Okay, thank you Councilor Murphy. Councilor Louijeune?

Thank you Mr. Chairman, I want to thank everyone for being here um i want to think the unions and uh the administration for coming to this agreement which is before us and looking forward to voting on it. Just have a question, in some places there are increases, in other places there decreases in the amount? Can anyone explain why there are increase and decreases?

Yes, Councilor. I believe I can do that. So the decreases are removing the money from the reserve and the positive numbers are adding it to the Boston Public Schools budget.

Okay. And what do we expect to see next year? or how long will this cover?

Well, yeah, they have different terms. But this funding arrangement is to cover fiscal year FY27 in Jeremiah's review on the end contract terms. I think that they're FY27 as well.

Yeah, some of them have slightly different dates and they end either June 30th or August 31st. Most of them are August 31 of the upcoming year. And we will start the process of negotiating our next Round of collective bargaining agreements with these groups and our other BPS unions at some point this year.

Okay, wonderful. Thank you. I'm glad to see that the parties came to the table and made an agreement. And as usual, grateful to have you all here giving us a summary of what those sessions were. Thank You. Thank

Okay, thank you Councilor Louijeune. Councilor Fitzgerald?

Thank you, Chair. Much appreciated. The only question I have really is how many members are represented in this increase? I did some homework and it looked to be about like 73 people. I think there's like 55 safety officers, and then a couple of superiors and a couple admin. Is that about right? 73 folks?

So... Councilor, I haven't added them up to be honest. It's I think Planning and Engineering right now we're at about 37 members. Plant Administrators, I think we're 16. Storekeepers were at six members currently. So those are the facilities groups. Then I think with our patrol safety service offices, we're at roughly 50 and roughly 19 superior offices, I believe.

Okay. All right, so I was just trying to do the math in my head because the dollar increases of 250, 900 and 800 slightly below 2000 going back over the past two years in the upcoming year. It's roughly a $2,000 raise over three years. Given one more year to go here and with the number of folks that we're talking about it seems to be a nominal fee overall so I'm glad folks were able to Get this contract hammered out, and it looks like... Yeah, we're good. I just wanted to make sure that math was correct in my head of roughly $200,000 over three years, which I think is a very modest increase and allowed. I don't really have any further questions, Chair. I appreciate it and look forward to Wednesday.

Thank you. Okay thank you very much. Okay I think Councillor Culpepper you're up next?

Good morning, Mr. Chair.

Yeah. So we're doing five minutes.

I'm not going to take five minutes, I know, to your surprise and everyone else's surprise. Shock. I don't need five minutes for this. You know, I think Murphy, we will talk about ORG's report. at a later time. Just glad to see that they could come to an agreement, glad that you could bring it before us as soon as possible so that we can get it approved. I want to go back to Mr. Masson real quick And I see you came to this meeting with your Sunday best. Mr. Chair, can we just put Mr. Masson on? Jeremiah?

Yes, Councilor.

Oh my goodness! I love that suit. I've got one just like it. I see you wore your Sunday's best this morning to bring your best to the council. Look, wanna approve this and hopefully we can Approve it Wednesday. I think it's been sitting and talked and discussed and negotiated, so let's get it approved on which 100%. I want to get it done. You're coming to us in grand style. And look, hopefully Wednesday we can get it done. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I reserve my four minutes and 30 seconds to the next time I need time.

I'm sorry you cut out there at the end, but it's great to see you, Councilor Culpepper. Okay.

Councilor, thank you and I appreciate the compliments. You're welcome.

Okay, Councilor Worrell.

Thank you Chair and thank you to the panelists for being here. Just looking forward to supporting this contract. No questions and it is a nice suit.

Thank you, Gonzo.

Okay, I assume anyone who hasn't said anything about the suit doesn't like it so but It's good. OK, I guess just one question here we hear about... I like the suit too. OK. Well there you go. I'm sure everyone likes the suit. I just, I had a question about staffing. I don't think there's any other councillors and we can go, you know, Councillor Flynn had follow up or something but In terms of staffing for the police officers, so the BPS sort of security, are we filling all the positions? Do you have any data? Because I know just the Boston Police Department, we have sort of a now perpetual understaffing.

Anthony, you're muted if you're speaking.

Jim is muted. Can you hear me?

Oh, excuse me, Councillor. I didn't think that question was posed to me in terms of the staffing levels and the DPS Public Safety Office. I would defer to Izzy on that. I'm not acquainted with where they are other than what but the staffing level is at the time of this, So what Jeremiah spoke to, which is 50 police officers and 19 superior officers. But I don't know if that's a full compliment or a snapshot in time of where they were.

Apologies, I can add to that. For some reason my camera stopped working technology nowadays. Understand that with the last rounds of budget cuts and all that, we actually eliminated seven vacancies that I was actively hiring for. So it's really so that we're able to provide a bare minimum of services to the Boston Public Schools. Could I use more bodies? Absolutely, but right now this is just to keep the bodies that we have.

Okay.

Okay. Chair, I'm sorry, were you asking about the number of current vacancies? I know there is a posting up accepting applications for candidates but not sure how many actual vacancies we currently have.

There are four vacancies right now. I've had three officers retire and one leave to take another job within BPS, so that's why I'm hiring currently the four vacances right now

Okay. Okay, and are those superior or? No, they're all patrol force. Patrol, okay.

Well, thank you. I just want to—I mean, I guess—Councillor Flynn, did you have a follow-up question?

Yeah, thank I do want to acknowledge Izzy Marrero too for the outstanding work he has done throughout his career on community policing. Working closely with many neighborhoods across the city. Great respect to him. One question I have is, maybe it's to Jeremiah. Maybe it's Jim. The paraprofessionals that were cut from the budget mostly women of color, I believe there were about several hundred of them. What is their status? Their jobs were eliminated. What was their status Did many of them come back to BPS? Do they find new jobs? Were they supported?

Where are we with those dedicated professional workers that did an exceptional job, paraprofessionals critical to educating our children? What is the status of them?

The paraprofessionals are members of the BTU and they're part of their own collective bargaining agreement that isn't here today, but I do have some knowledge What's happening in our OHR with regards to paraprofessional hiring and I believe The office is working through the full recall list and offering positions to any paraprofessionals who may have been impacted by cuts last school year to offer them some of the vacancies We're still failing right now. I believe we're almost through the whole List that would be eligible for kind of recall, for rehire this year. But that might be a better question for our OHR staffing folks

who are working on... Yeah, I respect that Jeremiah and thank you but it's difficult to reach some of those people. That's why I take the opportunity to ask the question now I do have a responsibility to advocate for those women, mostly women of color that were let go and paraprofessionals play a critical role and educating our children. I see them, I see the every day. They help kids, they help manage the classroom, they support our students with disabilities They take children to the bathroom and help them wash, and still do an outstanding job. And I don't like to see them be terminated from their position. They don't make a lot of money and I do think we have a moral responsibility to support them.

It might not necessarily be with this union, but it's what the people that are decision-makers here at at BPS. Okay, so my second question is The memorandum of understanding between the Boston Police Department and the Boston Public School Department. What is the status of that? That's been ongoing for a while. I'm sure that's been signed, right?

Chief, that's I guess outside of my jurisdiction in terms of you're talking about between the Boston Police Department and BPS not involving any of the unions here.

Yeah, that is correct.

Yeah, the MOU's been agreed upon. Little history there was on two occasions BPD agreed to the M.O.U., signed off on it, sent it to the school committee I mean so to BPS BPS did some tweaking, sent it back to BPD. Most recently we signed off on last summer, summer of 2025. We signed off and sent it to B PD Where it's currently at, I don't believe I've gotten any no notification that they signed it on their end. I know there's a lot of concerns regarding the current and many more. Thank you. However, I will say that although the MOU has not been signed by both parties we have been very active in basically sharing information in accordance with the M.O.U., the way it is written right now

So while it hasn't been signed, we are actively working together.

Mr. Chair may I request a copy of the unsigned memorandum of understanding?

Certainly request it and we'll either get an answer why they're not producing it.

Would that be a public document, Mr. Chairman?

I'm not sure if an unsigned MOU that was being negotiated would be public, but I will certainly ask for it.

Yeah, it might be... Going on, Mr. Chair, a couple of years now for this unsigned MOU. At some point we either sign it or we don't sign it but Jim are you familiar with this issue?

Sorry, no I'm not that familiar with this situation.

I'm very familiar with it. I've been trying to get a copy of this MOU for a long period of time but Well, that's my request, Mr. Chair. Can I get the MOU before we unsign MOU, before we vote on this on Wednesday, please?

Okay, noted and we'll ask today.

That's a simple request so that's not a hard request Mr. Chair, that's due diligence and transparency.

Okay, well thank you very much Councilor Flynn. We do have public testimony. I believe we've got Greg Maynard on the line Mr. Maynard, if you can hear us? You got two minutes?

Hello, thank you so much.

Thank you. Two minutes.

Great. Hello my name is Gregory Maynard and I'm testifying on behalf of the Boston Policy Institute The contracts before the Ways and Means Committee today are important for two reasons. They have revealed new concerns about the City's fiscal crisis And second, these contracts put City Hall's claims about actions on the issues identified by the OIG to the test. So first, when these contracts were presented to the school committee back in July BPS Labor Relations Council Mike Ryan made a distressing claim saying and I quote All the parties have agreed to push any substantive changes out until next year when the district may have a better idea of what the city's financial outlook is." Ryan's testimony appears to be the first and so far only time that a city official has expressed a specific concern about Boston's fiscal condition since the FY27 budget was passed.

Ryan's testimony raises a number of important questions that have not been answered in this hearing, like why the city expects that it will be in a better position to negotiate long-term contracts in a year and how many other contracts were affected by this fiscal concern. The second reason these contracts are important is that three of the five Contracts are for unions involved in the issues flagged by the recent Office of the Inspector General report, which found widespread mismanagement and fraud at BPS. These unions are SEIU Local 888, Professional Employees Chapter, Department of Planning and Engineering. The Boston School Department Plant Administrators Association, and the AFL-CIO Council 39 Local 2814 Storekeepers & Stores Deliverymen Union. When the OIG report came out, BPS claimed that they were already aware of and in the process of addressing the issues it revealed.

saying the district has, quote, implemented a number of business reforms to streamline payment and contracting systems, removed individuals, and hired new leaders into key procurement roles and significantly reduced the use of sole source contracts." Today, we have heard something very different from the district statement back in July. Chief Operating Officer Ford says that the district is still sorting through the OIG's report and is still formulating a response. The OIG report calls for sweeping reforms that would affect all three of those unions. City Hall and BPS officials who testify today should be able to talk about how addressing the issues in the OIG Report informed this contract and how the changes already made are going to inform future contracts. The fact that none of this has been talked about is really distressing, and I think it should bother all the councilors on this hearing.

Thank you so much.

Okay, thank you. Uh okay uh let's see with that said I don't Grishma no one else for public testimony?

No Mr. Chair

Okay, well the plan is to bring this up for a vote tomorrow. We'll try to get that MOU and you know answer any other questions please counselors reach out to my office or central but with that said I just want to thank the panelists for being here, for my colleagues for attending and this hearing on docket numbers 1829 through 1838 is now adjourned. Thank you.

Thank You, Councilors. Appreciate it.

Thank you.