Council braces for budget battle
Boston City Council is heading toward a vote today on the participatorybudgeting proposal — pending potential changes to the size and compensation of the board overseeing the effort.
Government operations chair Ricardo Arroyo said he does plan on bringing the matter forward for a vote at the weekly full council meeting at noon.
This proposed ordinance would create a participatory budgeting office and board to oversee a process that Boston voters approved by referendum in 2021. Essentially, the process as a whole — to be determined in the fine details by a yetto-be-created “rulebook” — allows direct votes by residents on how to spend a setaside chunk of the budget.
One of the arguments had been around whether the ordinance can set aside a percentage of the budget — advocates want a few million dollars — but legal opinions came back that that wasn’t allowed, and Arroyo, who had been among the councilors who wanted such a thing, then agreed.
The outstanding topics almost completely involve proposed changes to the number of board seats and how those board members will be paid. Mayor Michelle Wu’s administration proposed nine members who don’t get paid but have expenses reimbursed. Several of the more activist-aligned councilors wanted the number of board members to be doubled to get a broader range of perspectives and sought for them to be paid each $1,000 a month.
It’s not quite clear what the amended version that Arroyo, as the chair, will bring to the council Wednesday, as he said he’s awaiting more data back from the city, but, “I’m not hearing a reason not to pay people for their labor … Either we’re expanding the amount of people, we’re expanding the amount of compensation” from what the city set out.
City Councilor Kenzie Bok said that the role of the board in really driving this whole process — plus an executive director and staff from the city — will be a “more active group” than the image of a staid monthly-meeting-centric entity.
“It’s going to look very obviously like work that should be compensated,” she said.
On the matter of board size, the administration — CFO Ashley Groffensberger and Intergovernmental Affairs head Clare Kelly — posited that nine is a good size to have a variety of opinions without running into logistical problems such as scheduling and getting a quorum.
City Councilor Tania Fernandes Anderson, who was proposing expanding the board to 18 and then as a compromise to 15, said that wasn’t a “rational explanation” and added about the higher amount, “We need those numbers in order to be more effective.”
She and advocates said one of the reasons the board needs to be large is because they sought language that “prioritize board members from historically underserved communities, especially formerly incarcerated people, youth (ages 16-25), working-class people of color, and first or second generation immigrants” plus it should “strive for a majority” from “communities that suffer from disproportionate rates of racial discrimination, housing instability, poverty, policing and crime, environmental pollution, educational attainment, and life expectancy.”
If the council doesn’t vote on the matter, it would go into law as written by the mayor later this week.
City Council President Ed Flynn said he’d like to see the vote taken at a later time when the city had come back with more information. Practically, that probably would have to happen by the council voting the matter down without prejudice and the city or one of the members resubmitting it.
“I just think that we’re rushing this,” Flynn said when the administration’s representatives said they had to go back and get more information about the board size and compensation.
Arroyo said he expects to hear from the city Tuesday night and the vote is “not rushed.”