Talk Of The Neighborhoods

0:00Good evening and welcome to Talk of the Neighborhoods. I'm Mary Tamer and I am guest hosting tonight while Joe Heisler is on a well-deserved vacation. We are broadcasting live from the beautiful B&N studios here in Eglistan Square and we are also being Simul Cass live on WBCA 102.9 FM. I am so happy to be joined tonight by two great guests and our first half hour I have a long-time state representative Russell Holmes. Representative Holmes was first elected in 2010 and represents the sixth Suffolk District. We are going to talk about some of the things that are happening in his district, the state budget, which is about to be released next week. And some other key issues of concern to him and his constituents. And in our second half we have Greg Maynard, the founder and executive director of the Boston Policy Institute. There is a lot going on with the Boston City budget right now and Greg has been doing a lot of writing and a lot of talking about that budget. And so we are going to do a deep dive with him on that, so please stay tuned.

1:26Back, I am so pleased to be joined tonight in our first half hour with state rep Russell Holmes. Thank you for joining us tonight. Thank you for having me. No, it's really, it's great to have you. There's so much, I know we're going to be running out of time here, but so much happening at the state house right now and would love to ask you, I had the pleasure of being there last week when you and representative China Tyler were hosting the Zetas of professional women's sorority and you talked a lot about some of the criminal justice reform that is underway. And you mentioned to me that there's a hearing happening next week about higher education opportunities for those that are serving time behind the wall. I'd love to hear more about that because as someone who works in education, I'm really curious to know what opportunities do incarcerated men and women have when they're in a prison

2:28in Massachusetts. Sure, well thank you for having me and thank you for joining me with Zeta Day last week. I think you fired up the Zetas from you. I'm glad, I'm glad. When you came in and talked about literacy and talked about the fact that we are so on the performing all across the state and the city in particular and how you have the piece of legislation that you offer, so obviously very active in and trying to focus on literacy. What we're talking about next week at the state house is an effort that toughs be you and others are saying we just still are not doing enough and so thankfully there are quite a number of men primarily because they're the ones who are typically there's so many more men in prisons than women but they have for decades been very active about getting those who incarcerated their bachelor's degrees, sometimes their master's degrees and the like. And just here recently it feels like that has began to subside meaning there's not the love or the vigor within the DOC to say yeah we want to get folks trained and so next

3:29week it will be just a tutorial essentially on all the programming that exists today and how we want to try to make that stronger but then also how do we try to find our way to open it up because I go into prisons often I'm regularly first of every month I'm at what's called the AACC there's an African-American coalition committee where we go in and we look to see and at MCI Northfolk how do we have and drive systemic change and I try to try to my best to not go in and talk to folks about their individual issues even though sometimes to become individual but it is how do we go from when I was first elected we have to cut the number of folks who are in prison in half and so that doesn't happen accidentally that comes with a lot of effort from activists DOC legislature did judicial branch with even here recently would matters and other efforts to get this prison population down to the lowest incarceration percentage in the country but one of the things that still keeps resonating is what happens when we leave like how do we find the right employment in particular

4:34is so much of a challenge and I think society as a whole has gotten a lot better about we're going to be more receptive of hiring folks who are coming out of our cultural facilities but still we have to prepare them because many times the systemic racism that has really driven why many of us are locked up led to us not being properly educated led to us not having the credentials that we need and so one of the challenges I've been fighting for has been we go and we give the guys a very small amount of money to do work that's real work like to help them HVAC there are lots of things that are needed but we give them a very small amount of money and they technically they're volunteering as they're doing all of these educational activities however we're paying them three dollars a day five dollars a day and my complaint has just simply been that sounds like slave labor to me and they hate when I say it in the ways it means hearing but we should at least pay them 15 dollars an hour we should at least get them

5:36credentialed we should at least make it so that they have a pathway through unions and all of the habits so that they're already know that they're going to go to some type of union when they come out and some of those things have just been challenges and so those are the types of conversations we want to have now just real talk like how do we get the because not everybody needs to to be at tough so be you some folks now I was talking with my the guy who assists me at my financial planning firm my business partner and he was saying he was down at one facility I can't don't want to name it but at a facility and that person is about to go and go underwater and do welding so they've been trained without a just high school diploma but they've been to a place to get the training and he's gonna make a hundred and fifty thousand dollars first right out of right out of this training and so trying to do the same it would then cost for a facility as well it's really what the goal and the conversation is going to be next week you know speaking of literacy one of the things I think that really drives me in terms of the legislation and the work that will go

6:39you know once the legislation the bill becomes law is you know thinking about when we when we talk about folks even for our young people who are involved in the juvenile justice system for whatever reason that over 80 percent I think it's about 85 percent are unable to read and when we look at our incarcerated men and you're right here in Massachusetts 97 percent of of those that are individuals who are incarcerated are men that they can't read and so for those that I love the thought of being able to get a credential or a degree while incarcerated what about for those that didn't finish high school the ones who are struggling to learn how to read what kind of programming do we have for those folks and so I've learned very clearly that you learn to read between ages whatever kindergarten to age three and then the rest of your life you read to learn third grade I'm sorry third grade right so the whole point is if you don't get about a third grade then you're

7:40going to fall behind for the rest of your life and so I think the thing that's great about the literacy push that you're pushing is whatever we do for the entire population of Massachusetts should translate to what we're doing also in cost for facilities I just think everyone should just wake up and realize that we are moving and talking about many many things but many folks cannot read and as you say there are 6,500 or so men inside of our cost for facilities at the state level about 7,000 in our county prisons we need to just get to them and many of them though what I find they learn on their own they get if you're doing positive things behind cost for facilities behind the walls I find that if you're motivated they're going to be programming and the problem has been is there enough programming and the answer has just been no and so why I was saying about certifications and about degrees I think the fundamental part of all of that conversation is still we want to have everyone educated and everyone being able to read so that's just a sub plan

8:42of what I'm hoping we do there was another piece of legislation that you referenced last week that I think was a big part of criminal justice reform the free phone call so that that folks on the inside can maintain those connections they have with family and friends on the outside how has that how's that been working like how how long of a fight was it to get that pass so first can I say phone calls are not free okay because of the fact that they cost the state budget at the tune of somewhere in an able of about 20 million dollars so they are not free and sheriffs and the DOC are very concerned about the fact that those phone calls used to be how they there was a fee that was embedded inside those phone calls that they would then be able to take some of that fee and what they from their perspective give some of that back to the because the fees were high will give some of that back to do inmate beneficial work so it has worked out well even better than any of us imagine meaning we thought we were going to spend about 15 million a year now it's

9:44already at 20 and so it is a challenge but connecting families to those who are incarcerated is very very important because of the fact that as you would know these relationships need to be built because when someone has been incarcerated for quite some time and they have not connected with their families it is many times a strain and sometimes even a strain even now like sometimes the other side have been happening where in that the phone calls are not ever cost to the families and to those who incarcerated sometimes those who are not incarcerated say hey we're getting an awful lot of phone calls and so sometimes we hear that complain as well but we wanted to you ask how long had it been it's been a fight that we've been in for 10 to 15 years before we got passed but then also it was clear that we were then taking the cost and putting that on the families and so the big premise on all of this in the end was typically those who incarcerated were not well represented they were typically poor and then those families of those poor families that were

10:47still outside were still getting all of these collect phone calls and were adding and leveraging that or putting that on those families and so that was the driving force that finally folks listened and said yeah let's let's if we can come to a compromise and we're very happy we did it and how is the raise the age effort going and maybe you could explain for folks at home what that legislation is about what it would do all right so because I know there was a briefing last week was that a briefing that I witnessed I'm spending much time with you no no no so here's what's happening I want to make sure I'm clear on this okay there are two things happening there's a raised the age across the country and the Celtics and rep many crews and others in the Black and Latino caucus has been advocating for about raising the age of up to age 21 for when you can be treated as an adult so there's one raised the age okay but then there's if you look at the cost roll facilities those who incarcerated they feel like we've already won much of that fight for those who have been incarcerated because the the science says that folks have not developed

11:52brain development have not completed until their age 25 and some of it shows that they may not have this whole spontaneity or impulsiveness does not happen to you even a little bit later on in life but however science here in in this country US feels like up to age 25 and so several years ago there's a cohort of folks called MATS M-A-T-T-I-S that were the Supreme Judicial Court said hey if you're under 21 and this incident happened life without possibility of a role was placed on you we're going to now have it so that you have availability to be able to be parole and there were those 200 or so folks have been going through the process and many of them have been in jail for 15 20 30 years and they are the folks who were like I was saying in the AACC who have been great performers and so they get when I say performing meaning no tickets no fights no anything for many years and they've

12:53been being released someone in neighborhood of about two-thirds of them have been each time they've gone to to go on front of parole and so that makes it clear that you know we're thinking this impulsiveness led to horrible crimes not I'm not going to say that they were not horrible because in fact that almost every time there's a family on the other side of this protest and it should not be released but parole should be about what has this person been doing recently not by what something that happened 25 years ago long story short is raise the age with if you talk to the persons who are incarcerated they're pushing for the 25 conversation that says that we should be able to move from 21 to 25 because in fact that some of us should also have access to parole because life without possibility parole is really the gist of what we're trying to get to but then raise the age traditional the one that's the Celtics manny cruise is about how we treat those who are young and should we put them into the adult system or should we let them have

13:54diversion let them have some other alternatives other than having the alternative of going into adult prison and then when you do that you are more likely to learn adult habits which then lead to adult behaviors and so just trying to I tried my best to delineate those two because of the fact that both work in parallel but they're not the same yeah for those that have been behind the wall for a number of years and maybe went behind the wall when they were teenagers do you believe that we are doing enough so that the transition out of a carceral facility is as smooth as productive like are we doing you know absolutely not absolutely not like when you think about what happens in Europe and other countries and how they treat it really is rehabilitation for say more like what does that look like like what are they doing right that we're not doing here well one there

14:55they're more focused on programming and making sure they're getting educated making sure that they like there's some cost not that I'm saying this is how you should do it but sometimes they're so progressive that you actually they have the key to let them back into their own sale the person literally goes back into their own sale at night but I'm not saying we're going to get that far like in Germany but they are understanding that most people are going to be released and doing everything you can to make sure that they are going to be productive citizens when they come out we in our system and I was not just saying Massachusetts but in just the costful facilities around I think this country we focus more on we're going to lock you up without the key and then about a year or two before you come out we're going to start to really do that prep to try to prepare you and I believe the day you get locked in to a sale is the day we should start working on the day you're going to come out and not waiting until the absolute end and then trying to make oh check every box do you have all the programming now some folks on their own start on day one and say whoa

15:56I need to be ready when I come out and that's a person that's maturing but most most do not and so we just need to do a much better on day one and so like very close to here is a place called Kasa Esperanza had a great relationship with them and there was a young man who used to come in who unfortunately had to move to Atlanta but he came with me on every first Saturday when we would go in I still go in today ACC and he was that was their mantra we want to start this relationship long in advance of your relate state so that if you're going to arrive and come back to Kasa Esperanza Esperanza or other places that you are prepared and so some of the simple things we've been doing though is we've been trying our best as a state to prepare them with some of the things they need so one of the challenges is hey do I have an idea or draft as license they won't have a draft as license because many of them have been locked up for a long long time but do you have an ID because you need an ID to basically do anything so we've been trying to do what I

16:57call create a packet give them an ID give them their birth certificate and give them their social security card so and and have it so that you go in the deals the RMB goes into the DOC six months out takes a new picture for you so you have an ID with a picture and you're able to go out immediately and do the things that you need to do yeah that becomes a challenge when someone may have been born in New York or didn't have an ID before they went into a cost for facility but we're doing our best and I try my best to get the DOC to report regularly how many folks are leaving with those three threes those three things I a social security card ID and birth certificate because it makes the life a lot easier so we're trying to do things to make the lives easier but we can do a lot more okay shall we transition to Blue Hill Avenue and what's been going on with that project so you said this has been going on since what year was this first discussed about making a bit of a transformation on Blue Hill Avenue so well before my

17:59before 2009 so 2009 but so year before you were elected but well before even 2009 this fight has been going on for decades even before and what is the fight for those that don't know about it so the fight is when the community was very different when it was Jewish and white that was the thought all the thing that happened was you had a trolley running up and down Blue Hill Avenue and so as you know white flight happened and everyone moved out to the suburbs not everyone but not everyone but but you know what I mean many people moved out to the suburbs you know the people I'm talking about and that neighborhood became a neighborhood that many folks who immigrants black and all of us moved into the neighborhood like my family and so then the drive became hey how do we get the folks who were just moved to the suburbs back into the city and so you remove the trolleys and now you create these very big roads to get cars into the city well the fight has been well you remove public transit from a trolley or in particular obviously we were very disappointed to see the

19:03orange line move as well but you remove the orange line you remove trolleys and you put those in JP and those neighborhoods get very wealthy at this point from just their housing appreciation but then now you're trying to still get these cars through our neighborhoods and so now the question has been for generations how do we bring back public transit and so that is the fight in particular that happened in 2009 when I got engaged where it became president Obama said the devolved Patrick black president to black governor let's put them under the middle of the black neighborhood and so I said as a community member voting to say yes we should do that there was a group of us it literally was five five that said no we shouldn't because it was a 28 bus it gets very difficult once you get to Grove Hall so this new iteration is just from Matter Pan Sweathe Grove Hall but it's just a continuation from my perspective there was a group of folks who in 2009 said yes there's a group of folks in 2009 said no and we've kind of been in that same situation for quite some time so what's the status of the project now status of the project now it is fully funded

20:06okay from the federal government from the fed state and city and so now is real yep and so there was a contingency that says all we've had a number of 2,100 so folks will sign up a tiction and I'd say great having those 2,100 folks are people who are just driving to my neighborhood I'm still asking my contention is I want my neighborhood to become a neighborhood you drive too and not just a neighborhood you drive through and I just think that it can't just be a road design and used primarily by car drivers I need to have it so that the folks who are the least amongst us from wealth have reliable transit so I've met with Secretary General Manager Eng he's going to be coming out to the neighborhood with some of us to just talk through the 40,000 people who use this roadway the 20,000 who get on and off at the places that we're trying to improve it and to see if we can have a conversation about facts not feelings and I'm hoping we can do that over the next month or so. Good luck with that. Yes and we only have a few minutes left but I use

21:09serve on ways and means which is a very important committee especially at this time of year because the budget is about to come out the state budget next week. Well how did the process go and how are what's the outlook how are things looking for? So the brief as I can do it I know we're running out of time is the governor came to our first meeting and said hey we're doing much better we're not going to make it so that we're going to raise our budget this year by three four five percent because easily that could have happened if you just looked at inflation healthcare costs transportation just all through she said we're going to raise it by one percent and for me that was an alarm bell like why and how is that even possible because I don't know a single person in government who says I'm okay with just a two and a half three percent raise so I know already how do you keep it under two and a half prop two and a half I do keep it under prop two and a half type numbers already and the answer was as we went across this state I hosted one of the meetings that matter paying library for the ways it means hearing and all across

22:12the government the the push has been we're not going to eliminate we're just going to try our best to cap and one of the things married at the concern me was one of those caps in particular was adult dental care with mass health if you have adult dental care with mass health we have a Republican governor who added that back and here it is now we're going to try to cap it at a thousand dollars a year just not enough and we're going to be in this fight all the way along wow and for those that don't know I mean with dental care I think a lot of people don't realize if you if people don't have access to dental care it can lead to all every other thing that's right yeah yeah that mouth is it's really everything else right so okay and so those are the types of things just the cuts and then and the caps is really what's going to be much of the conversation because and I'm hearing how difficult going to be at the city level it's equally going to be difficult at the state level and I'm hoping no one votes to and in the end of this year to lower our income tax from five percent to four percent I'll come back to you later okay I can't

23:14handle five billion dollar cut in this common one I'm not sure if anyone yeah that's going to be in speaker mariano mentioned that this morning yeah all right last question fun question it looks like spring has arrived over 50 degrees today yes what's your favorite thing about spring and Boston okay so my favorite thing about any time in Boston summer spring summer fall is golf oh Franklin park are you a Franklin park park I played Franklin park I played George right but it's rest assured my wife and I are getting ready for school vacation week and we are already starting to lay out where we're going to drive to to get some golf that's wonderful yeah well thank you so much for making the time I know you're extremely busy thank you for having a CU glad I could jump over whenever you ask thank you and we will be right back with Greg Maynard from the Boston Policy Institute so please stay with us

24:20good evening Boston we're excited you know this is the start of the second year for us here celebrating america 250th we've already done a lot to honor this anniversary we've relived the Boston Tea Party we've seen Paul Revere off for his midnight ride we've reenacted battles of Lexington and conquered with crowds drawn literally from not just around this country but around the world we're a city that fills the streets when our teams bring home a banner this doesn't happen in many other cities where every single year one of their teams steps up and gives a special hat to each and every one of our Boston Policy students we're 40,000 red socks hats going out across the district today you are the scholars you're the leaders who represent the very best of our cities schools so huge congratulations for reaching this incredibly special milestone in your life

25:21it's a very very surreal I sort of envy you guys getting out of class script but it's I'm definitely the one and I'm proud to be a proud of the public schools and to be a product of public services that work our kids deserve these facilities not just to be open but to be beautiful to be operable to be here for the generations to come and so those investments are important I am so happy to be here I want to thank everyone who is involved in making this happen everything that this building will have and has now therapeutic pool a sensory garden rooftop classroom like can I go here it's amazing we're leaving no stone unturned when it comes to building preserving and reimagining housing all over our city thinking about how for more families can be accommodated increasing housing affordability increasing access to city services

26:23and open space and creating economic opportunities and growth and of course preparing for climate change and improving mobility not only within the neighborhoods but citywide with our first responders frontline public health workers faith leaders and partners in every neighborhood we have made Boston the safest major city in the nation this city is made up of so many different people from so many different backgrounds what you see here is Boston we're a city that knows our strength is each other and we will defend the people we love with all that we've got when the weight of the world presses down Boston stands up three score years ago they're having Dr. Martin Luther King junior alongside the Southern Christian Leadership Conference Boston chapter gathered freedom fighters to margin solidarity from the heart of Roxbury to the Boston Common the work of peaceful protest

27:28and of democracy is in and of itself an act of courage we are doubling down as we are as one Boston this is our city and we are your window to Boston Boston City TV Boston Kids and Family TV Boston City Council TV and BNN Media thanks for staying with us we are now joined by Greg Maynard of the Boston Policy Institute Greg thank you so much for being here thank you so much for having me Mary yeah no it's a real pleasure and

28:29there's so much to talk about as always we've heard in recent weeks that and I know the mayor just released her budget $4.9 billion budget but at the same time I think first came out about the Boston Public Schools having a $53 million shortfall for this current school year and then the city I think a couple weeks ago said well they're close to a $50 million shortfall on their side for this current fiscal year as well what's going on yeah so I think we're seeing the fiscal crisis that Boston Policy Institute has been talking about for a couple of years is here I think what we're seeing in FY26 is that Boston has has a habit of using unbudgeted revenue to pay for unbudgeted spending so basically the city raises more money than it expects to in the budget and it uses that stuff to pay for overages on police over time or snow removal but in FY26 what we saw was

29:29there was a lot more of those overspending issues particular around health care we know that health care was a major driver over on the BPS side and also on the city side and so there was just too many too too many needs and not enough unbudgeted revenue that's largely because construction in the city has stalled out and so we saw that that crunch and it's not clear it's not clear if the FY27 budget addresses any of those issues that we saw create this 100 million plus dollar deficit in FY26 when the mayor released her budget the other day were you surprised I mean because we've heard about you know and I think it was just yeah it was March 25th that the school committee passed a 1.7 billion dollar budget for next year there's layoff somewhere between I think 300 and 400 positions being eliminated mostly from the teaching side even though we know that the hiring has been particularly heavy on the administrative side so I know there's a lot of

30:32questions and families that aren't happy about teachers they might be losing in their schools are you surprised given the financial outlook right now for Boston that we're not seeing any talk of layoffs or staffing cuts on the city side yeah that is something that it looked like there was going to be some layoffs there was some language in the or around the deficit particularly around the GLP one fight between the public employees committee and the mayor on those some language around minimizing layoffs and you can only minimize something that is that is happening so we thought we I thought there was there would be last there aren't one of the things that was really interesting about mayor woose speeches she spent a lot of time talking about how BPS's budget was actually going up and that this represented an investment in BPS and that just really kind of rang false when they're cutting as you said 400 mostly classroom teachers and paraprofessionals from the from the budget right these folks it's not technically layoffs because layoffs like

31:36means something different in BPS but you're seeing like 300 to 400 layoffs and on the city side you're not you're not seeing anything right the city said that they were eliminating 285 vacant positions which brings the total to almost 800 vacant positions that the city has eliminated in the last two years so you know it's just this budget has a lot of you know issues like I said and it's it's not clear that it solves those FY26 deficit issues yeah and I think one of the things that was surprising to me is we heard a lot about oh it's because of snow we did yes we had a lot of snow this year we're also Boston and so snow is not something that doesn't happen here the other part that's been cited as you've mentioned is increasing costs with healthcare coverage lots of folks are talking about the GLP's which are the the shots that I think use for diabetes but also use for weight successfully use for for weight loss now but we know what healthcare I mean these are this is information that cities have an advance is that right in terms of

32:39healthcare costs that are you we're going to increase your premiums by 15% or 20% that's not typically a last-minute secretive issue yeah that's so that's one of the big things that we haven't seen anything about is exactly what happened in the city on healthcare costs well we heard actually at the beginning of March from Boston public schools CFO David Bloom is that he started to get worried about healthcare costs last summer so the summer of 2025 and that it became clear they had real problems in September and October and that's why they froze central office hiring and spending on November 7th 2025 and so with that kind of indicate with that indicates is that this is something that the city has been aware of for some time we are seeing a big change in healthcare in this FY27 budget spending on healthcare is going up almost a hundred million dollars between BPS and city hall but even there we saw BPS add 14 million dollars more on the health insurance

33:41line item the day that the BPS budget was voted on by the school committee which indicates that the city was actually had to like redo their math over the course of just February and March for that March 25th vote and so there really needs to be a lot more information around what exactly happened with healthcare this is something the city spends a lot of money on there's a lot of paperwork around this and this is something that's you know knowable like the city should be able to tell us what happened it's also it seems to me to be the elephant in the room is that whether it's the school side or on the city side that at the same time that we see dramatic you know unenrollment in terms of the Boston public schools so enrollment spent declining for you know 15 years now staffing continues to climb as enrollment student enrollment is declining which is a huge driver not only of staffing costs but healthcare costs but same on the city side like what is the percentage in staffing that city hall has now versus four or five years ago I mean it's it's

34:46gone up quite a bit yeah so city hall staff is larger than it was when Mayor Wu took office it is the I was looking at these numbers for we came on today so the staffing for on like 1127 is expected to be about the same as it was on 1125 but that's still you know the fiscal year that's in FY FY 25 FY 25 budget went up 8% so it's not like you know FY FY 25 was not up lean year for the city of Boston and so like on the staffing stuff it really it really doesn't seem like the city is getting its arms around the issue that we have here and especially when you compare the steps you know the lack of steps being taken here in FY 27 compared to what Mayor Manino did in FY09 and FY 10 which was the last time that we saw deficits and budget growth this low like it's a really big difference in terms of the kind of steps they're taking and Mayor Wu is taking far

35:52less serious steps than Mayor Manino took can you mention what were the steps that Mayor Manino took almost 30 years ago yeah yeah 15 so Mayor Manino did two things the number one Mayor Manino laid off staff resumed Mayor Manino asked the public sector unions to defer a increases in order to to save the city money now the reason that Mayor Wu might not be doing that is because there's an act there could be the city hall is not talked about this but BPI is an expectation that what we're seeing here is not a temporary crisis like we saw in 09 and 10 what we're seeing here is the new normal for the city of Boston you have persistently high office vacancy rates you've seen new growth continue to fall and it seems like that's expected to continue for the next few years and so what that means is is that rather than having one or two years of slow growth like you did during the great recession there's an expectation that this is just how things are going to be now and so some of those like crisis actions that you might take the city you know is maybe trying to leave

36:57a couple of more like bullets in the chamber for later and this seems to be your report from 2024 seems to be a harbinger of what we are what we're seeing now can you say a little bit about how that report came about and what it actually predicted sure so BPI put out the the fiscal fallout of Boston's empty offices is the official name of the report we produced it with the Center for State Policy Analysis over at Tufts University of in Evan Horowitz heads that up and what we were seeing is that we had really high office vacancy rates everyone remembers during COVID everyone started doing work from home and there was a lot of talk about work from home seems to be continuing foot traffic in the city is way down and you know Boston is a particularly property dependent property tax dependent city it's the most property tax dependent big city in America 70% 70 plus percent of the city's budget comes from property taxes and that's risen

37:58enormously over the last 20 years right the city's budget was built on the back of the enormous office building boom that we saw from the early 2000s all the way through to COVID and so our question was if these office vacancy rates stay elevated what is going to happen to the city's budget and the conclusion that we drew was that the city would see 1.2 to 1.5 billion dollar loss and commercial property tax revenue over the next five years so that was 2020 like 2024 to 2029 and and that's what you're seeing right like these like like if we go back we go back just a couple of years the city's budgets were growing at a very steady clip if you look at like the amount of at a at a very steady clip and now what you're seeing is the city's budget is not growing that much in Boston the budget grows by exactly as much new revenue as the city can collect and so what that means is that with office values collapsing with residential values start like really really

39:00really starting to um plateau and with very little new construction that means we see budgets like FY27 where it grows very little so how worried should homeowners be I know that we've had Boston homeowners have had significant tax increases in the last couple of years and I know for seniors in particular and the neighborhood I live in we have more seniors living on their own than any other neighborhood in Boston that's West Rocksbury and so what can people expect given that this does seem to be a new normal to your point yeah so there's been some there's been a lot of talk about you know marijuana said they're not going to go for a prop two and a half override here in Boston and what's really important to understand about the city of Boston is although the city is not going to go for a prop two and a half override the reality is that Boston residential property owners are going to see their taxes go up far more every year for the next several years then they do in some of these communities that are having prop two and a half overrides because Boston is so dependent

40:01on commercial property values so commercial property makes up only a third of all of the assessed value in the city but they pay two thirds of the taxes and so as those values fall the city is collecting the same amount of tax revenue every year it's just going to collect it from different people it's going to collect it from residential property owners from homeowners and so what that means is is that without a vote Boston residents are going to continue to see their their taxes go up much much further than people in other communities that are able to vote on their tax rate and that's because Boston is has become so dependent on those commercial property taxes yeah and I know I think it was just last week Arlington I think it was just shy of $15 million two and a half override for to prevent layoffs at the schools and yeah yeah the operational overrides and you're seeing like there's a record number of there was a record number of overrides last year there's another record number of overrides this year and a lot of them are for those operational

41:04overrides adjust to to pay the bills for the town I'm curious do you think a two and a half override ballot question would be successful in Boston I mean Boston is so even like so the larger summerville had a prop two and a half override ten years ago to build a new high school and large cities and Massachusetts do not have prop two and a half overrides like Lowell is built built a new high school without the need for a prop two and a half override so talking about this for Boston is like it's a little it's silly like it shouldn't be talked about in the fact that it's you know being discussed as a point of contention I think indicates a lot more about kind of the lack of knowledge about how Boston's budget works then it does about like Mayor Wu's fiscal management like it just shouldn't be discussed and it's it's something that's just not realistic and and just to like kind of put a finer point on it like if we voted for a

42:06prop two and a half override that would mean that people's taxes would go up on top of this move of the city's tax burden from commercial to residential that wouldn't like arrest it it would just you know it would just be you know they just their taxes would go up more so it's up like the this whole prop two and a half override in a city of the size of Boston is is really I think far fetched and is a distraction honestly from like a serious fiscal crisis okay so one recent story in the globe caught my attention and it was about residential property and the story was about I think it was a back bay mansion twenty five million dollars I think it recently sold for twenty five million the assessed value of it was significant I think it might have even been eight million dollars I mean it was significantly lower than the purchase price I think years ago there was a wider discrepancy between your assessed value versus your you know the purchase price of a home for many of us who've been here for a long time we've seen that our assessed value

43:09is actually kind of right on the nose of what these homes are worth now why wouldn't that be happening for a back bay mansion they're like what is that about so BP I actually did a short short report on this last year called on Boston's mansion markdown okay and what what's happening here is yeah thank we we try to get catchy names here so what's happening is called vertical inequity and what it means basically is if you own like a single family if you're a single family homeowner in West Roxbury there's a lot of other single family homes in West Roxbury that are probably about the same square footage on similar similar streets of very similar homes and so it's relatively easy for the assessing department to determine a value for that home when there's a lot of other comps the problem is that once you get above the you know two three million dollar range there aren't that many homes when you're talking about like a twenty five million dollar home or like penthouses and some of the new residential towers they're just they're so few of those homes being sold that there's no way to compare them to other homes and so as a result

44:13they get really under assessed just because there aren't very many and this is a problem not just here in Boston it's a problem everywhere that collects property taxes and it's a pretty persistent problem the Lincoln Land Institute up in Cambridge spends a lot of time and ink trying to figure this problem out and there are some things that the city can do but one of the consensus is that Boston has a pretty good assessing department in terms of this piece and so the city's kind of doing everything it can it's just there's not not much the city can do yeah you referenced something earlier about a significant slowdown in the production of well any kind of construction frankly but whether it's housing lab space what have you what what is going on there what is preventing at a time when all we hear about is the need for housing housing housing why why isn't it happening so Boston peaked the new growth for Boston peaked in FY 24 and like 122 million dollars in new

45:16tax revenue taken from that but that's a little misleading so FY 24 was from 2023 into 2024 but the numbers that was based on is actually from stuff that happened in 2022 so Marwu's first year in office what's happened basically is since then the city has seen a big slowdown in construction we've seen you know there was a article by Shirley Lang a couple of weeks ago talking about Revere where the Revere side of Suffolk Downs is under construction they built a couple of buildings the Boston side of Suffolk Downs hasn't seen any construction Suffolk Downs was approved through article 80 at the BPDA six years ago in September of 2020 we see Dope City down at the old Expo convention center they're selling a piece of their article 80 approved project that that project was approved in September of 2023 right so three three years ago and you're just not seeing a lot of new construction happen you know there's been some there's obviously issues around tariffs

46:19and the cost of lending has gone up but what you've also seen is the city of Boston increased its inclusionary zoning requirements from 13% to 20% the city increased it's playing with that means for people who don't know what so the sorry so inclusionary zone so their income controlled apartments that private developers are required to include in their developments if the if the development is 10 units or more if it's seven if it's seven or more seven or more okay and so if so if it's seven or more you have to include 17% are affordable and 3% but oh a higher number than seven but 3% have to be for like deeply affordable units and so now it's 20% now it's 20% it used to be it was used to be 13 like Suffolk Downs was approved under 13 and so was not based city but that increased the cost of construction at a time when other costs of construction were also increasing and so the Suffolk Downs example is a good one because Revere doesn't have inclusionary zoning and so they're not required to build those extra those extra units that are

47:23going to make less money than then they are like they are on the Boston side and so as a result the you know units are built on on one side of the site and not on the other the cities also done a number of other things they increased linkage fees on offices by 50% and on lab space by 100% and what's a linkage fee the linkage fee is the city requires that developers pay a certain number of dollars per square foot of a construction project and so those that's been in place since the 80s but you know increasing that at a time when you have historically high office and lab they can see lab vacancies are higher than office vacancies you know that's going to dissuade folks from building here and then on top of that you have you know it's become easier to build in the rest of Massachusetts ADUs you know between yeah accessory dwelling units so granny flats yes mother in law apartments mother in law apartments okay so governor healy signed

48:24that into law on August 2025 and the state had or August 2024 and the state had regulations out by February 2025 and now ADUs are legal in 350 cities and towns the only community where they're not legal in is Boston Boston does not have the same rules as the rest of Massachusetts and what that means is it is far far harder to build ADUs in Boston than it is in the 350 other cities and towns around Massachusetts and you have that you have MBGA why is that Greg like let's stop there because I mean I'm I'm sure there's lots of people who would love to have you know whether you want to call it a mother in law apartment and opair apartment whatever it might or just an apartment for your kid I mean why don't we have that I mean it's not clear Boston has had a pilot program for ADUs since 2017 so this is something the city's been working on for almost a decade and there's there's some AD there's an ADU law like in in Roxbury and Mattipan there's some ADU laws but they are not as they are they are not as expansive as the rules that the state is enforcing

49:29on every other city and town in Massachusetts and the reason is that you know for whatever reason under this administration we've seen a lot of rhetoric around planning changes and zoning reform but we haven't actually seen those zoning reforms you know Cambridge and Somerville have legalized triple-deckers citywide they've both abolished parking minimums citywide Boston hasn't done those things and we heard in a hearing back in December from planning officials the city has no plans to abolish parking minimums to legalize triple-deckers to legalize ADUs there's just no appetite at city hall for these wide-ranging zoning reforms that other communities are embracing to build more housing and is this something I'm just curious is this something that really rest with the mayor or does it rest with the city council is it both I mean this rest with the mayor that like Boston is a strong mayor system like the city the city is run by the mayor of by the mayor of Boston and the city council plays some role in governing the city but like like all four of

50:32mayor woos budgets have been passed with more than 99% about 99% of the budget she proposed in April becomes law in June like this is very little change there's very very very little change like the council has the council has some influence here and there but you know on things like the on things like zoning the mayor points the ZBA and the zoning commission and the bpda board and those are and hires everyone in the planning department so like you know these are her responsibilities it's her her kind of bailiwick yeah and it's progressive policy I mean I think that's one of the things that seems puzzling is that this is progressive policy would help the population help the city yeah I mean Cambridge and Summerville are certainly like other right are not are not conservative places no hardly yeah they've they've been able to enact those those reforms yeah we're down to our last couple of minutes if you could wave your magic wand Greg what how do we how do we begin to address the budget crisis that we seem to be in right now and and could be facing for a number of

51:38years I mean I think the most important thing is that we really I think the city of Boston needs to really focus on what it's going to do around downtown Boston you're seeing you know so new mark real estate group recently put out there like Q Q4 for for 2025 office office like analysis and they said after 14 straight quarters of of the vacancy rate excuse me going up it had finally declined a little bit but like it's higher it's still higher at the end of 2025 than it was at the beginning of 2025 and so you just need a lot more effort and effort and energy and ideas around what we're doing in downtown Boston and hopefully you know the world cup is coming up there's a lot of stuff happening the summer with the 250 and the the tall ships and it's a really great opportunity to really think and pile out some ideas about what we're going to see you know we've heard a lot of stuff around you know closing closing streets and maybe having social social drinking licenses

52:41be put in place and revitalizing Quincy market but the reality is that none of that has happened right and so we've really you know much more needs to be done in in downtown Boston to get that going because the reality is that Boston's budget rests mostly on the back of commercial real estate and until you figure out what to do about that it is going to be really hard to do other things yeah all right Greg we're out of time but thank you so much for joining always a pleasure to see you thank you for joining us from home please be back next week when Joe Heiser will be returning from his vacation and we hope you have a great weekend ahead good night

53:46you