Boston Mayor Michelle Wu on Wednesday revealed her first operating budget, a nearly $4 billion spending proposal that would use the entire remaining amount of the city's one-time federal pandemic relief money.
A major portion of the remaining $349.5 million in relief funds would go toward affordable housing for the upcoming fiscal year. Wu's budget would also invest pandemic relief money in her climate- and economic opportunity–focused initiatives. The budget also includes spending on arts and culture, childcare and behavioral health — and a small cut to the police budget.
The budget represents a year-over-year increase of 5.7 percent, or $216 million, Wu said in a preview missive to the city councilors. Nearly all of that increase — $206 million — would go toward affordable housing efforts like strategic acquisitions, financial assistance to first-generation homebuyers, and the creation of deeply affordable housing on city-owned land.
"As we continue to emerge from the pandemic, this budget points the way towards an equitable recovery and charts the course for our brightest future," said Wu.
The second-largest portion of federal pandemic relief money would be allotted for "economic opportunity and inclusion," investing in things like the city's Main Streets business districts, and the expansion of tuition community college and workforce programs.
Other portions of it would go toward arts and culture, early education and childcare, support for behavioral health and substance use disorder, and expanded language access supports.
The budget also proposes a 1 percent cut to the Boston Police Department budget, taking the total from about $400 million last fiscal year to about $396 million — a line item that represents a potential point of contention in the city's yearslong debate over the future of policing.
As a candidate for mayor, Wu campaigned on the idea that the bulk of police budget savings would come through a renegotiation of the city's longstanding contracts with its various police unions. That concept has yet to be tested as her administration continues its search for a new police commissioner.
Wu, who was sworn into office last November, will be the first mayor to undergo a budget process with the Boston City Council now empowered to make line amendments that do not increase the original budget's total.
"I'm proud that the first budget of out administration comes in the first year of a new balance of budgetary power with the City Council," Wu said in the letter.
Wu's spending plan does not include the separate $1.3 billion Boston Public Schools budget. That budget was approved by the Boston School Committee in a 6-1 vote last month, but it still needs the City Council's approval, as does Wu's newly proposed operating budget.
