Boston Mayor Michelle Wu sent a letter to the City Council on Friday rejecting the bulk of the legislative body’s proposals for next year’s operating budget, including amendments that would have slashed spending for police and veterans services and increased the money allotted to promote citizen input in budgeting.
Earlier this week, the council approved a $4.2 billion operating budget that featured about $53 million worth of changes to Wu’s initial proposal, including a nearly $31 million reduction to the Boston Police Department’s roughly $400 million proposed budget for next year. It also included a $900,000 reduction to veterans services and increased funding for participatory budgeting, a process that is meant to more deeply engage residents in how tax dollars are spent, from Wu’s proposed $2 million to $10 million.
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“Our budget must be responsive to the needs of our constituents, fiscally responsible, and built on a foundation of effective delivery of City services that are central to our residents’ quality of life,” said Wu in her Friday letter to the council.
Wu sent the budget back to the council, which will need a two-thirds majority to override the mayor’s vetoes. With one seat on the 13-member council vacant because of Kenzie Bok’s recent departure, the council would need eight votes to override.
The council passed its budget 7 to 5 on Wednesday, meaning at least one vote from the dissenting group — Frank Baker, Gabriela “Gigi” Coletta, Michael Flaherty, Ed Flynn, and Erin Murphy — would have to flip in order for the council to override any of the vetoes. Whether that will happen remains to be seen. The council has called a special meeting for next Wednesday to tackle Wu’s budget proposal.
In her letter, Wu said the council’s proposed reductions to Boston police “are illusory, as the City is obligated to cover salary and overtime expenses incurred by the department.”
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Councilor Tania Fernandes Anderson, the chair of the ways and means committee, which oversees the body’s budget process, said Friday that none of the council’s budget amendments would have led to city employees losing their jobs. And based on her analysis, she said, Boston police could have nearly $25 million in excess funds for next year.
She added that the mayor “has her positions and I have mine and the council has ours.”
Fernandes Anderson also called for more transparency from the Wu administration, adding that if Wu settled pending contracts with public safety unions, then the council would have a better idea of how much money relevant departments would need.
“The administration does not work well with the council,” she said.
Wu’s rejection of possible reductions to Boston police, however, was welcomed by the head of the city’s largest police union.
“Undoubtedly, we’re grateful the mayor saw fit to reject the council’s misguided efforts to dramatically and disproportionately impact the BPD budget, and, by extension, the department’s ability to effectively protect and serve the people of Boston,” said Larry Calderone, the president of the Boston Police Patrolmen’s Association, in a statement.
Meanwhile, the Better Budget Alliance, a coalition of local groups that advocated for more participatory budgeting, released a statement blasting the Wu administration for rejecting an increase to the process that would have given the community more budgetary input. The group also called for the council to override the mayor’s veto.
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“It is unacceptable that Mayor Wu vetoed a higher $10 million [allotment] for participatory budgeting and used false criticisms to undo the council’s critical investments in Boston’s underfunded working class, BIPOC communities,” said the alliance.
The group continued, “The mayor has chosen to protect unused police funds and excessive overtime in the bloated BPD budget instead of funding real community investments.”
Another sticking point in the council’s budget was a decrease in the budget for veterans services. Fernandes Anderson, who said it was not her proposed amendment, apologized for the optics of the proposed cut. She added that it was from a line item that could be reimbursed by the state, meaning services would not have been affected.
Still, Fernandes Anderson, whose eldest son is a Marine, said she “personally felt horrible about that.”
“I want to extend my apology, I don’t want to send that message,” she said.
In her letter, Wu added that reductions to the personnel budget in the public works and transportation departments “would mean holding positions vacant and delaying hiring for critically needed positions in both departments to fill potholes, upgrade crosswalks, plow snow, and ensure our street infrastructure is safe.”
Other proposed reductions, she said, “would reduce critical programming and limit our ability to fund future obligations.”
“As the City’s elected officials, we have a collective responsibility to protect core City functions,” she said.
Councilor Kendra Lara, who voted in favor of the council’s amendments, said she was not surprised by Wu’s decision, because it was in line with how things unfolded last year.
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“Our job is to ensure that the budget is reflective of the needs of our constituents,” she said.
Flaherty, an at-large councilor from South Boston, said he plans to vote for Wu’s amended budget, saying it positions the city well “to absorb anticipated population growth and weather any future economic downturn.”
“Some of my colleagues pushing a socialist agenda wanted to spend recklessly, but that is no way to plan and manage a great and successful city like Boston,” he said.
Likewise, Flynn, the council president, said Wu had “demonstrated positive leadership and fiscal responsibility in ensuring critical neighborhood services and public safety were not cut.”
Earlier in the week, the Wu administration expressed concern about the scope of changes to the budget the council passed during its regular Wednesday meeting at City Hall, saying that the council’s amendments would result in net decreases to some city departments.
The council made its attempted changes under a budget process that was approved by voters in 2021, aiming to make city spending decisions more democratic by empowering councilors to represent their respective neighborhoods.
Before then, the council could only approve or deny the mayor’s overall budget proposal and could not move money between line items unless the mayor requested it. That system had long frustrated councilors.
Nowadays, the council has more power over the city’s purse strings, but under current budget protocols, the council cannot propose an operating budget that exceeds the $4.2 billion total Wu outlined earlier this year. That means if councilors want to add somewhere, they must subtract somewhere else.
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Danny McDonald can be reached at daniel.mcdonald@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @Danny__McDonald.