In an unprecedented move, Boston’s City Council voted Wednesday to override a portion of a mayoral budget proposal, imposing a change to an executive spending plan through unified council action.
The amendment, which will allocate $2 million more towards several council priorities — including the Office of Black Male Advancement, additional youth workers, the city housing voucher program and the Office of Returning Citizens mostly at the expense of the Boston Fire Department — represents a slight departure from the $25 million amendment the council passed earlier this month.
At the beginning of June, the Council attempted to amend Mayor Michelle Wu’s nearly $4 billion budget by proposing public safety cuts which included a $10 million reduction to the police department’s overtime budget.
The mayor vetoed that budget proposal, calling the overtime cut a “false reduction” since state law requires the payment of overtime regardless of budget line items. Wu revised her budget in compromise.
On Wednesday, the budget process came to a head in a meeting punctuated with tension and multiple confusion-laden recesses where members gathered in side conferences, scrambling to grasp the implications of their maneuvers.
Roxbury Councilor Tania Fernandes Anderson, who chairs the Ways & Means Committee, said she made the override recommendations based on information received from the city’s fire department, which acknowledged unspent funding during budget hearings in the spring. She framed the override proposal as a choice between new firefighting equipment, or additional programs for marginalized communities.
“I said, ‘okay, do we get car five, or do we get programs to save Black men’s lives?’” Fernandes Anderson said.
In her floor remarks, Allston-Brighton Councilor Liz Breadon said the council was challenged with a lack of departmental transparency that led to confusion about the fire department’s budget.
“Sometimes we’re dealing with not all the information, and when we look back at custom and practice from years gone by, the council has struggled for over 70 years to access information in departmental annual reports,” Breadon said. “I do urge that in the context of budget deliberations going forward next year, we would love to see a modernization and standardization of the process of producing an annual report.”
The council’s veto override Wednesday capped off Boston’s budget season in a year where the body exercised its newly granted power to answer a mayoral budget proposal with its own amendments and put them into effect through a two-thirds votes.
A separate proposal to fund additional youth jobs at the expense of the Boston Police Department went down on a 8-5 vote. Veto overrides need at least nine votes for passage.
The council also punted action on the city’s remaining federal pandemic relief funds totaling about $350 million due to a legal dispute regarding what the funds may be put towards.
