City Council - Post-Audit: Government Accountability, Transparency, & Accessibility Committee Hearing on Docket #1446

Thank you. How are you?

And then obviously my fantastic colleagues can stay but I will have to hop off.

Good afternoon, Andrew. Good afternoon, Karishma. Thank you for organizing and thank you. I have to get everybody out of here.

Thank you for watching!

So let's just get started. So that way we can keep on task and on time. Thank you. This one is going to shout out to Central Staff.

I'm an at-large city councilor and the chair of the committee on the Boston City Council's My goodness, 2025. And it is exactly 203. In accordance with the Chapter 2 of the Acts of 2025, modifying certain requirements of the Open Meeting Law and relieving... Public bodies of the certain requirements including the requirement that public bodies conduct its meetings in a public place that is open and physically accessible to the public. The City Council will be conducting this virtual hearing virtually via Zoom. This hearing is being recorded and is also being livestreamed at boston.gov slash city-council-tv and broadcast on Xfinity Channel 8. RCN Channel 82, Biles Channel 964.

Written comments may be sent to the committee email at ccc.gata at boston.gov and will be made part of the record and available to all counselors. Public testimony will be taken at the end of this hearing. Individuals will be called in the order in which they signed up and will have approximately two minutes to testify. If you wish to sign up for public testimony and have not done so, please email our central staff liaison at karishma.chouhan at boston.gov for the Zoom link and your name will be added to the list. Today's hearing is on docket 1446 in order for a hearing to review past expenditures through quarterly updates on the FY26 operating budget. This matter was sponsored by yours truly, Boston City Councilor at large, Julia Mejia, and was referred to the committee on August the 6th.

In order of arrival, I've been not joined by any of my colleagues yet, and I don't have any letters of absence, so let's just dive in. Good afternoon, and thank you all for being here today to discuss the progress of the FY26 expenditures. At this point, we're almost halfway through the year. and in the spirit of government accountability and transparency and accessibility, we're excited to dive deep into how the dollars we've allocated back in June have been spent in real time. That said, today's hearing will be looking at expenditures through the first quarter of FY26 or by September 30, 2025. Upon reviewing some of the progress of our expenditures, we do have some questions on specific line items, but before we do that, I don't think I have any colleagues ready to go, so I am going to hand it over to our esteemed panelists. Kelling all the way from the floor eight, I believe, of City Hall, where all the money is, y'all.

Kicking it over to Ashley and her team. Ashley, you now have the floor.

Excellent. Thank you so much, Chairwoman Mejia. Thanks for having us and inviting us here today to talk about Q1 expenditures to date for FY2026. I'm Ashley Groffenberger. I am the Chief Financial Officer for the City. I'm joined by Jim Williamson, our budget director, and Scott Finn, the city auditor. I think it's great that we're here. Appreciate the council's interest and desire to talk about expenditures on a more regular basis. So thank you. for the opportunity. As you mentioned and as the purpose of this hearing is to talk through Q1, that is the First three months of the fiscal year and so we'll have a presentation today very very light and high level that just kind of explains how much we've spent to date and then talks through a couple of cost pressures that We typically see as a city and then we will continue to monitor as we move forward in the fiscal year.

I think without further ado I'll probably just turn it over to Jim to just hit some of the highlights and then we will happily answer any questions. We'll say it is a Large budget, many, many, many line items. So to the extent that we can't answer very specific questions about expenditures to date for any of those line items that we've shared with you, I'm very happy to follow up with departments and provide further explanation. So I will now turn it over to Jim.

Thank you, Ashley, and good afternoon, Councillor Mejia. As you said, it's a pleasure to to review these first quarter expenses with you and the council. I will share my screen. You guys seeing that slide?

Yes.

Okay, so we'll just start. So if this were in the first, there's the first quarter expenses as of 9.30. So we have a $4.84 billion annual operating budget for FY26. And the expenses total as of September 30, 2025, $1.3 billion, or 28%. There might seem that we're above track, but there are a lot of expenses that are expected and anticipated or intentionally happened very early in the first quarter. So just a few of the examples of things that we spend right out of the gate, which are Pensions, $468 million. That's a payment made to Boston Retirement System in order to have those dollars invested in to support pensions long term.

Boston Public Health Commission also gets sort of higher level expended budgetary expenses delivered their They're a quasi-governmental agency that sort of needs to have revenue upfront while some of their other external funds and operating revenues come in. and then our payment to the other post-employment benefits trust fund. So we make those similar to pensions, those dollars are being paid in order to be invested to support this long-term liability going forward. So, as Ashley had mentioned, I think we're largely on track and I think we're We're doing just fine, but there are some perennial sort of places where we face budgetary pressure. So we have our court judgments and settlements.

So it's very sort of... You know, you can't always predict when those, so there's large settlements and judgments, and then there are recurring things related to, you know, we're a big operation. Motor Vehicle accidents, people being injured on the public way or in public property, public safety overtime. So that continues to be a pressure point. Public safety is paramount to the city, you know, to maintain the city being one of the safest cities in the country. That comes with sort of being able to make sure you're staffed appropriately to address any issues as they arise. Arrive, and then there's other operational overtime. Some of it is actually related to security property management. Any role that's 24-7 sometimes comes with a requirement that the ships be filled, and that often is filled on overtime.

and BTD has some deployment issues with trying to get enforcement to address sort of constituent feedback to have more parking enforcement in the neighborhoods particularly around Sundays and then They also did a pretty heavy technology vendor change as with the beginning year for their whole parking, what they referred to as curb management contract. A lot of effort put in through the entire city, but largely in the streets cabinet and the transportation. YouthJobs. So YouthJobs is a program fulfillment responsibility. It's a critical investment. These programs require greater than anticipated sort of support sometimes.

and it's also a model that we're still, you know, even though it might be fourth or fifth year, we're sort of, it's an evolving ecosystem of having these community-based jobs. So we've found issues of staying within budget Thank you. Thank you. is often a wild card. Sometimes it's, I think the streets cabinet are you to change it from just being the snow budget name to winter management because often it's just extended cold periods or sleety wet Freezing, rain can be just as problematic to transportation and safely moving around the city as accumulating snow.

You can't measure it in inches, but those The same weather has to be addressed. So what do we do as an enterprise to react to budgetary is to continuously, you know, this forum is a perfect example of sharing and many more. the ENF staff at departments often it's with which came off a round of fall meetings with departments checking in on where they are sharing with them this this same quarters information and then There's a link on this slide, and I can share this with the staff, but there's a whole host of financial policies and procedures and controls the city operates under that that help with the management of budget.

And the city of Boston is pretty well regarded in its financial management and it stems often from are adhering to these sort of structures and policies and procedures to stay in good standing and staying within available resources. So some of the Approaches to sort of managing budget where a people organization, the biggest components of most departmental budgets are positions. So there's a regular queue of reviewing positions, when they need to be posted, When do they need to be filled? How often are they changed? So that's a regular recurring communication. There are expenditure controls. There are system-driven expenditure controls within the system that control departments putting in expenditures in excess of the budget.

And also just expenditure controls through how the budget office interacts with that, departments reviewing transfers. And then there are other sort of higher level ways to manage fixed costs similar to for like debt. So you can structure like the timing of when an issue is done. The size or the memorization of the debt. and all of those are done with sort of third party consulting and advisory services, but there are opportunities to sort of move the needle on budgets with that. And as Ashley said, it sort of was a quick and dirty presentation, but I will stop sharing now. Did that come down?

Yeah, all good, Jim. It came down.

Okay, thank you. And with that, we can open it up to any of your questions you might have.

Awesome, great. I just want to check in and just note that we have also been joined by my colleague, Councilor Fitzgerald. Councilor Fitzgerald, I'll give you the opportunity to Wayne, if you have a few opening remarks that you'd like to share.

Thank you, Chair. Appreciate it. And thank you all for being here today for this hearing. I don't really have too much to discuss, but just happy to dive into sort of further these issues. We're using the city's tax dollars and what they're being spent on. I know they're going to good use and we've certainly got some tough times coming up ahead, I think. Or uncertain times, we'll say it that way, right? So yeah, just happy to help steward this process and thank you for your leadership, Chair.

Thank you, Councilor Fitzgerald. And I also just want to, again, reiterate how much you know how grateful we are as a office to really have the opportunity to dive in a little bit deeper and get ahead of things right because oftentimes we do these hearings all during the budget season but I think this allows us to Let things breathe a little bit and it gives us an opportunity to have a little bit more foresight as we prepare for the budget season and manage everybody's expectations based on what has happened and what still needs to happen. So thank you. for that update. And the data that we received reflects only the first quarter spending and yet several departments are still reporting expenditures well below 25% benchmark. For example, the Human Rights Commission, 2% has only been spent as of September the 30th, the Office of Fair Housing and Equity, 5%, Arts and Culture, 12%, Diversity,

Supplier Diversity 10%. And I just want to, you know, just to help us understand kind of You know, considering that we're almost halfway through the year, you know, the numbers here, the benchmarks are below the 25% benchmark. Can you kind of share with us the why that is? and then help us understand the understanding in these departments thus far?

I could take that one. So that's an excellent point, Councillor. So often when you see significant underspending, it happens with vacancies in certain departments We intentionally budget salary savings because there are expectations that not every position will be filled for every point in the fiscal year. It's likely those budgets in particular are sort of working through areas. There are also some seasonality, some activities that I wouldn't put that to, to those particular appropriations, but sometimes it's the timing of when certain services or certain activities happen during the fiscal year.

Thank you for that, Jim. And then I'm curious on that same note, there are some other departments that are spending far over the 25 benchmarks, specific areas such as the police overtime, which were already about 44% spent by September the 30th. Fire Department is over 50% again by September the 30th. Are those concerns for some fiscal perspective about this overspending and kind of like you know how we're grappling with that especially since those two departments you know that's part of our public safety allocations and I just want to make sure that we're you know What's happening there? And then I'm just curious for question number three regarding execution of courts. We have spent about 12 million for that line item. But we do not have a designated allocation for it, at least that I can see. Are there any projections that the spending will continue at this pace for the remaining of the fiscal year? Just curious about those two. And then I have two more questions.

So starting with public safety, particularly police, so that over time continues to be a challenge. I think some of the major issues So the tasks or areas that are being covered, so there's a lot of resources being deployed around the Massacass area, but a fair amount of things with community events, so providing sort of Appropriate public safety resources to support community events. There are the inevitable sort of protests and things like that that need to have security associated with them. With them, elections, obviously there's an elections there, this public safety support for that. With fire, as I stated, Agents that are 24-7, 365, there's a need to have staffing.

So if there's any interruptions with the available staff, whether it be from Leaves, Injuries, even Vacation and Sickness, it needs to be covered on overtime. I mean, it's obviously operational and management approaches to manage around that. One of the success stories that I think police will tell you is that, and it came through actually spending some money to help save some money. was in the occupational safety group at police additional resources to sort of manage officers through injuries to get them healthy and back ready to report to work. I think they're at a at a lower level of injured police officers and so they're available to work there you know anytime that no you have officers that are there they you don't have to backfill them on overtime

Fire is a similar story where there are sort of minimum requirements to operate their apparatus and deploy or shift. So anytime that there is a shortage, they need to backfill on overtime. There is an element of of things that are contractual or training oriented. So if a company or a house is brought in for training, training exercises that needs to be covered, those responsibilities are covered on overtime. Great. Okay. I don't know if you had a question on that or I can move on to execution of courts.

Yeah, I was going to ask a follow-up, but why don't you go move on to execution, of course, and then I'm going to reserve my follow-ups for my second round, then I'm going to kick it over to my colleague, Councilor Fitzgerald.

Okay, so execution of courts, it really is, there is a sort of a recurring as a big enterprise with lots of assets and interactions with the community. There's going to be a base level of We're a self-insured organization. That means that we sort of cover our own liability claims, except for property. We have a property insurance policy. but so the there is a recurring for as say motor vehicle accidents property damage things like that but um in terms of projection is very challenging we do We do work with the law of poverty to get sort of intelligence on what might be going on and through the court system. But I I couldn't give you a really accurate projection of where that is. We know that there was a fairly significant settlement that sort of drove up those expenditures in the first quarter.

I would defer to the law department on the specificity of that and how much it would grow. But we have to sort of be prepared for just based on the history of that account of certain spending levels.

Great, thank you, Jim, so much for that. I really do appreciate it. I'm gonna move on to Councilor Fitzgerald. You now have the floor.

Thank you, Madam Chair. And I apologize because I hopped on slightly after you guys had started, but I saw that slide up that talked about budgetary pressures. Could you just please kind of describe that again? Because obviously some of the line items there were... Yeah, youth jobs and operations of certain things, right? I hate to make you repeat yourself. I apologize.

Yeah, so I think it's fair. There's a lot of public entities that manage around over time. And so those are pressures. Those are things that we have to be to consider and assume that there may be pressures there. Things like execution of courts and public safety overtime and even snow removal and winter management are sort of legally authorized to exceed their budgets and but yeah but some of some of the more operational ones that we work through the approaches to how to better manage it so come up with new I know with these jobs, particularly with the grant based jobs, we're exploring different methodologies to manage those programs. Not in any way trying to

and many more. So those are just some of the things that we're keeping. Hopefully that'll come off the list, but we'll always continue to sort of deal with public safety issues. So there is no question there. If there's an event, they show up.

Yeah. So Jim, can I ask you, maybe I misread it or misinterpret it. When you say they're budgetary pressures, is it they're the... Those that list that you showed on the screen they're the pressures because of the the variable like we don't know what they were so therefore that's the pressure on the budget or is it the budget These are the things why we can't... you know lock it down because they are variable and so we don't know how much of a pressure they will be on our overall budget.

Yeah, no, they're not necessarily, they're not on the chopping block because some of them are not all that discretionary. Okay, that's a concern.

When I saw the listing, oh no, youth jobs, like that's not, I hope that's not the case. Alright, I apologize and I have a better understanding. Is there anything on that list of like, or on the list of how I originally thought of it, Thank you for joining us. Anything that we're seeing, whether it's the federal cuts or other commercial abatements and all this other stuff, and it's affecting, is there anything we know it's affecting specifically yet, I guess is the best way I can phrase it?

That's an excellent. So future budgetary pressures in sort of actually has sort of been involved in quarterbacking that through his health benefits. It's sort of, we know, you know, it's not a, It's well known through a lot of public employers or employers generally that the cost of providing medical benefits or health benefits are are super inflationary and so we know that that will continue to be and so forth. So that would be an area that we're concerned about budgetary growth and trying to figure out a way to cover those costs and still maintain city services.

and many, many more. always a consideration. I think it was talked about a little bit at the school's hearing of things that formula-driven federal grants that were sort of givens, and then the more discretionary grants may be challenging to continue to get.

Gotcha. I appreciate it. Thank you for the time, all of you, Ashley, Jim, Scott. And thank you, Chair. I have no further questions.

Thank you, Councilor Fitzgerald. Great questions. I'm going to move on to a few more questions that I have. And I think I really do like Councilor Fitzgerald's framing in terms of really trying to get ahead of things, especially with The threat of us having to really grapple with the conservative budget that we're all going to have to manage our expectations about, which is another reason why I wanted to have these quarterly reviews because As a team, my hope is that we can really start buckling down. And so this is going to just be... With so much concern about the funding cuts on the federal government, as we just discussed, are there any resiliency plans or extra flexibility built into how departments are spending the allocations this fiscal year? And just be helpful to Get a better understanding of kind of how we're getting ahead of this.

And about three weeks ago, Fenway Health announced that they would be feeding providing gender affirming health care to people under the age of 19 due to federal threats. Do we have an emergency fund that or something set up or that or how are you all thinking about the threat of vulnerable populations and How we're standing in that gap as a city? Are there any directives to specific departments to slow down spending in the event more shocks continue coming down from the federal government? and then regarding the capital budget expenditures are you able to provide any further insight and so how much has been spent on various projects and particularly White Stadium and with ongoing you know with ongoing I'm just curious kind of how we're grappling with that. I have a few more but I'll end with that.

Sure. So I will take a, I think I jotted most of that down. So in terms of kind of resiliency and flexibility within departmental budgets, as you all know, you were great partners as we were putting this budget together. and we deliberately made a lot of choices to really constrain growth as much as possible to ensure that we would have and many more. We've gone through and had made adjustments in a lot of departmental budgets to really do that belt tightening. So we're seeing that through the first quarter of the year. and just how departments are spending. In terms of an emergency fund for Fenway Health or those types of things, there's nothing specifically on the city side for anything like that. We'd have to, you know,

have further conversations about what kind of role the city could even play in that type of situation. However, I will say generally, the city maintains reserves for itself to deal with these types of issues. and many more. In terms of directives to slow down Related to my first point, we obviously did a lot of that belt tightening work early on in setting up this budget. So at this point, we're just continuing to monitor what's happening out in the economy, how our revenues are coming in, and just making sure that we are Thank you for joining us.

There were a situation where we needed to make some kind of adjustment to our expenditures. We would be able to react, but so far there's been nothing that has caused us to want to. Do any kind of expenditure directives at this point? And then I think your last question was around capital expenditures to date. I'm not sure what we provided were operating expenditures, as you know. So we'd have to go back and see what we could possibly provide on capital expenditures today, but I'm not prepared with that information today.

Thank you, Ashley. I appreciate that. So maybe the next time when we do this, we can dive a little bit deeper in regards to kind of how we're foreshadowing some of these high costs of construction, not just for White Stadium, but other projects that we have coming down the pipeline. So just something for us to monitor. And then I'm just curious if you could, There's a question regarding revenues, not necessarily expenditures, but during one of our previous hearings in this committee, we had requested a dollar amount for the asset purchases conducted by BPD. Would it be possible to send that over Following this hearing, we're still waiting to hear how the BPD, you know, when they seized Prop, you know, when they seize assets, we just want to get a better understanding of where these dollars, how much is coming in and where those dollars are going. And then I just have, lucky for you, I only have... A lot more questions.

But I'm going to get you out of here by 3.30, I promise. So get ready to write these down, Ashley. So what is the difference between indemnification and execution of courts? Why is identification a substantial line item only for police and fire? Is there anything beyond, this is my next question, is there anything beyond acts of 1992 Chapter 190, Section 17 that allows for liabilities incurred by police, fire, and execution of courts. The section reads, no official of said city or county except in the case of extreme emergency involving the health and safety of the people or their property shall expend intentional and many more. Ashley will translate what all that means in the most simplest forms.

Nor involve the city in any contract for the future payment of money in excess to such appropriations, except as provided in Section 6 of the Act. How does this city define extreme emergency involving health and safety of the people or their property? Was this section utilized to allow for expenditures of access of appropriation of public health commission during the COVID-19 pandemic? Just to help people understand the context of what this looks like. My next question is, does the auditing measure adopted budget fidelity, i.e., does it measure how true the adopted budget is the final budget for the department is that's always kind of like trying to figure that out what is the process by which internal transfers are initiated what metrics does the auditing What does auditing look like when approving or disapproving said transfers?

Does the auditing track how often they approve or disapprove a transfer? And lastly, why did the Parks and Recreation budget it Permanent employees amount decreased almost by 2 million. And those are my only questions. That's a lot, but I hope you were taking notes, and if not, I'm sure my team will, I can go back to the ones that you may have not.

Great. Okay, so I think your first question was around the difference between, was it indemnification and execution of courts?

Yes, please, if you could help us understand the difference.

Okay. Jim or Scott, do either of you have insight into that?

Sure. Indemnifications are lines in public safety agencies and they're sort of the equivalent of workers comp medical. For a lot of departments, it's sort of if an officer is injured in the line of duty, those medical expenses are often paid from the indemnification line.

And as I think we talked about previously, execution of courts is where we will pay out, you know, kind of court settlements, other types of claims, etc. So slightly different in that way. I think the other question you had, I didn't jot down the citation exactly, the chapter of the Mass General Law, but I think Your core question is how do we define extreme public safety emergencies in the city that allow for Expenditures in Excessive Appropriation. I think Jim is quite familiar with this concept, so I'll turn it to him.

Yeah, often, Councillor, these are the same documentation. Often Scott's team provides those, so I'd like to and many more. hundreds of years ago, and then there's a state law that allows for a snow emergency, funding to exceed its appropriation and judgments and settlements also have its own state citation for why you can exceed your budget to pay those payments.

And I think there was also a question about whether this was utilized during the COVID-19 pandemic.

We did not authorize. We probably were within our rights to probably. During the COVID pandemic, and many more. Many of the emergency response expenses related to the public health emergency were captured by that FEMA external fund grant that came to them, similar to how it came to the city for providing similar sort of public health responses.

And then I think there was a question around internal budget transfers, which I think also we can toss to Jim.

Sure, sure. So budgetary transfers are Initiated by the department in the financial system, they're routed to the analyst. The analyst reviews them. Often there are two sides to the transaction that you want to be Thank you. Thank you. Is it something that they have to do? And what are they taking the resources from? How do they have the ability to have that resource available to them? So often you're getting both sides of that. So we'll say we need our, you know, this piece of equipment or this types of supplies have grown in cost and we need to buy them.

And we have identified an ability through some other account that we're either can manage around by doing a little less of it but to do this necessary thing and it's it's routed That way and then it's approved and it's available for the department to start procuring things.

And then I think your last question, Councilor, was around the Parks Department. And I missed the exact question. I think it was around permanent employees.

Yeah, the amount decreased by almost $2 million. And just to go back to the transfers, if you could just provide a little bit more of kind of like, if there's a decision-making model around what that looks like, you know, when you are approving it or disapproving it, like... Can you just dig in a little bit deeper so that we have a better understanding? So for example, with vulnerable populations like immigrant groups and LGBTQ, you know, Trans communities under attack, and even Mexican women in healthcare. I'm just curious, how are we able to really think about those Those mechanisms of how your decision making looks like for approving and disapproving. Is it a moral thing? Is it like a fiscally responsible thing? How do we go about making that decision? I guess it'll just help. Thank you.

Thank you. Operational Expertise, we would defer to the subject matter experts in the department to say that this is like a really Something they need to do or it is the most effective way to deliver their service that they're seeking to do but the fiscal part that we're sort of paying attention to is there was also something else that you had and many more. Management. That's our that's our

We defer operational expertise to the department. In terms of parks, I'm a little puzzled. So is it like a year-over-year decrease in permanent employees in a particular fiscal year?

Yeah, for this year. The amount decreased by almost $2 million.

Okay, I'll have to look into that, Councilor. It doesn't feel right to me, but I will certainly look into that.

And then just for our time together and the sake of this exercise, Ashley, I told you I was going to get you out of here by 3.30. Doing great, right?

I never doubted you.

I got you. Wait, I see that we've been joined by at-large Councilor Santana. Before I have any follow-up questions, I'm going to go to Councilor Santana for your questions, and then I'll go back to Councilor Fitzgerald, and then I believe we'll be wrapping up. Santana you have the floor thank you for joining us.

Thank you, Councilor Mejia. I'm just here to listen. I'm sorry I'm coming in late. I'll definitely be reviewing the tape. I don't want to ask any questions. I've already been asked by you to listen for the rest of the time that we have here today. We appreciate you competing with us today. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilor Santana. Ashley, just if you don't mind, Chief, you had the screen up about the youth jobs and it was about some pressure. Can you, just because I know Councilor Santana deeply cares about youth, Can you kind of walk us through kind of what you are thinking about how we're doing in this budget, right, in terms of our expenditures and year-round jobs and summer jobs, and then also what should we anticipate and race for? Santana, I know that you were not here for that part, but I think that given your leadership in that space, that this would be a question that it might provide some insight. So can you walk us through that piece again?

Totally. Thanks for the question and the opportunity to explain. So youth jobs, the program has expanded significantly over the last couple of years. That's been a Major priority for the administration and the council as well. And so I think between the council and the administration, there's been significant investment put into that. We kind of with that expansion I think over the last few years there's been some instances of That being a bit of a cost pressure for the city and we've been able to deal with that overage by applying other areas of savings and under budgeting in those areas to kind of make up for that. So it's just something we're monitoring and we're continuing to kind of like make sure that we're appropriating the right amount to serve the

and many more. you know I mentioned this is obviously an enormous priority area for the administration as well as the council so we will obviously If there's going to be any changes to that particular line item, it'll obviously be in close discussion with all of you. At this point, we're really just making sure that we're appropriating sufficient amounts to meet the need that we're serving and just be really thoughtful about that appropriation going forward.

Thank you, Chief. So, you're going to get back to me on the parks, right?

Yeah, I'm not seeing that. I just pulled up on, we have the budget document up online, and I'm seeing permanent employees seeing The Parks and Recreation Department, it looks like it's going up, not going down. I mean, I could project it for you if you'd like.

Yeah, if you don't mind projecting what that looks like, and I also want to acknowledge that we have been joined by Councilor Worrell. Councilor Worrell, you now have the floor, and thank you for joining us.

Good afternoon, everyone. Sorry. I'm listening in like two different places. I have it on TV and then on my computer. But thank you to the chair for hosting this hearing. Thank you for the panelists for being here. I know this is around expenditures. Are we talking also revenue or? Am I able to ask a question on revenue? CFO? Project Director?

I defer to the chairwoman. We came here today with expenditures today, but if there's a revenue question and the chair is okay, we could try and answer, but if we can't, we'll follow up.

Yeah, in terms of offering the administration some grace, you could ask the question, we can get it on the record, and then we'll note that that's something that we, in our next go-round, we will dive in a little bit deeper. So just in the spirit of just making sure that we set you up for success. Chief, if you, you know, once you hear the question, if you're prepared for it, great. And if not, you know, it's understandable.

Awesome. Thank you. Awesome. Thank you. So I know, I would just like to hear any projections around revenue. I know the city is expecting new growth of about 60 million over the next year. was just trying to get some insight on how we're doing with this projection. Are we still on track for this? And then if possible, are we able to get submitted quarterly revenue? just to see where we're at if we're over under projections.

Thank you, Councilor Worrell, for the question. So I think we can certainly look at revenue projections through the first quarter and run a report on that. They tend to be Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. you know revenue is generally on target but again that's only based on a couple months of information and it can change significantly over the period of another quarter so we can

share what we have, but with the caveat that it might not be super helpful. Unfortunately, I wish we knew more sooner. That would make my job a lot easier, but we can certainly share what we have.

Awesome. And Chair, if in six months, we'd love to revisit the town and take a look at the revenue projections.

Yes. Yes, we will.

Awesome. The year-end transfers for FY25, when is that being released or when is that being initiated? Can you just walk me through the process and then the timeline?

Yeah, so we're still working on kind of all of our year-end tasks, which involve closing the books and finishing our external audit. So we expect that that information will be available next month, towards the end of next month.

Thank you. And then I know we were talking about scheduled to sell some bonds back in May of this year. Do you just update us on Those transactions and how that process is going.

Yes, thank you. So yes, we did come to you in the spring asking for additional capacity to do a refunding. When we went into the market a few weeks later, the conditions were not particularly favorable for that type of transaction, so we did not end up pursuing a refunding We did sell regular general obligation bonds, but not refunding bonds. And so we will just, you know, we thankfully, thanks to you all, have that additional capacity so that we could And then when it comes to vacancies.

I know we removed, I believe last year, 47 long-term vacant positions, which was up from the 17 in FY25. Can you speak to where the other salary savings are found in the tax order of the budget? What departments had the most salary savings and do they align with the departments that we know have hiring recruitment issues?

Are you asking about this current fiscal year, Councilor?

Right. Yes, it's current.

I don't know, Jim, if you want to try it. I think it's a little tough three months into the year to be able to say with a lot of certainty. How those are comparing because you can have issues with seasonality and other types of issues. So I'll let Jim kind of say more, but I would expect it's a little difficult for us to make that kind of determination after only three months.

Right, yeah, so, yeah, we do intentionally budget salary savings, particularly with large, you know, we're a fairly large employer. There is always going to be a certain subset of turnover. So we proactively budget for that. And I think the difference you're trying to get at is like when a vacancy has been higher than we anticipated or less than what we anticipated. And I think As Ashley mentioned, at this point in the year, I don't know that we have a lockdown sort of number on Thank you.

And just looking forward to Thank you, Chair.

Well, I'm so used to you handling the money, so thank you, Councilor Worrell, for being here today and asking excellent questions. Also, I have a few more little follow-ups. I promise, Ashley, I'm going to get you out of here. No worries. Okay. I'm just curious, how would the new agreement cover the periods from July 1st to 2024? through June 30th. It seems like there is a total one-year estimated cost of 6.7 that will impact the budget. These, I'm just curious.

Are you, Councilor, are you referring to the BPPA contract?

Yes, the one-year contract extension with the BP, yep, with the Boston Police Patrolmen's Union.

So we, each year when we're doing the budget, we set up a reserve for collective bargaining. So that's part of the budget that you all vote on. and we sort of as best as we can kind of anticipate the cost of these types of agreements so that when we We're able to just shift that budget from that collective bargaining reserve into the department and you all vote on those supplemental appropriations. as you're approving the contract. So it's not a net new increase to the budget. It's been kind of planned and reserved for.

Great. Thank you for that. And then I'm just curious as we start managing all of our expectations, right, because we need to do that. I want and I know this is about expenditures but like do you foresee any departments going over or do you feel like we're on track and everyone's gonna spend The allotments. How are we feeling about the direction that we're moving in? And also It would just be helpful, at least to me, right? As you all are navigating the world that we're all living in right now with so many threats to our finances, it would just be helpful.

Chief and your team just kind of just set the tone for helping us manage expectations about what the budgeting process should look like next year because I really want us to be set up for success. And I think that the best way for us to do that is like this, really having a good understanding over the next three months of where we're going, how we're going to get there, and what we need to worry about in 2026, 2027. And that's it. No more questions.

Yes. Thank you, Councilor. So kind of in the current year, I think aside from some of the Perennial cost pressures that Jim laid out, public safety overtime, settlements and judgments, the big unknown with snow and winter management. I think we feel pretty good about where things stand in terms of people staying within their budgets. But of course, if that situation If we get information, that would suggest that that's not going to be the case. If we continue on our current trajectory, we as a city have mechanisms in place to help bring that in line. But I think at this point, at least as You know, the first quarter is concerned. We feel things are generally on track. And then in terms of the upcoming year, I mean, feels sometimes like the picture is murkier than ever. We are just really getting ready for next year, if you can believe it already.

We are, you know, preparing to, you know, issue guidance and do the, you know, the same schedule that we've done in the past. And, you know, April will be here soon enough. I think we're still trying to get our arms around every piece of financial information out there. Fortunately, the city has been really well managed financially and for better or for worse we are heavily reliant on a very stable property tax base so that provides us some stability in these types of moments of Thank you. Thank you. kind of the same as they have, this sort of perpetual sense of uncertainty. So we're taking that into consideration as we get ready for this upcoming year.

Thank you, Ashley. And so I wanted to see if my colleagues had any last rounds of questions. Like I said, this hearing was really just, A quarterly deep dive. I don't expect us to have three hours worth of stuff. At least this first go-round is our first time doing this. We want to just, you know, ease into the work. But I just want to see if we have any public testimony or if any of my colleagues have any follow-up questions that they'd like to get on the record now.

No public testimony, Madam Chair.

Okay, great. I want to give a shout out to Karishma, our budget baddie up in here, always taking it, holding it down for us. So thank you. uh Karishma for all your hard work and and it's been so great to have you um here on the council helping us manage all of this so I just would like to close with some gratitude. Again, thank you to the administration, to Ashley, to Jim, to Scott, and your entire team for just showing up the way that you did today. And the next go round, as you see, some of my colleagues want us to dive into other parts of the The review process, so most likely we'll be looking at revenue and I'd love to do a deeper dive into the capital budget. So unless there Any other closing remarks? I am going to close this hearing. This hearing on Docket 1446 is adjourned. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair.