An Important City Council Public Hearing
March 26, 2009
Our city faces a budget shortfall of $140 million, possibly forcing us to lay off hundreds of teachers, police officers and firefighters, as well as custodians, bus drivers, librarians, and cafeteria workers. We have a full-blown fiscal crisis in Boston.
Over the past few weeks, we have been reading in the news that the mayor is asking unions to accept a wage freeze. Most unions are either crying foul or staying silent, and we’re not hearing much else.
Unfortunately, it’s more divide and conquer politics, it’s playing the blame game; and often, the media ends up distracting us from the tough issues that we need to address.
One of my top priorities as we wrestle with our fiscal crisis is to fundamentally change the way we do business as a city. A wage freeze is temporary and will have to be repaid. But our city, in the long term, needs to be more efficient and more fiscally responsible. To do this, we will have to take a good hard look at ourselves.
This fiscal crisis presents us with an amazing opportunity to modernize the way Boston does business.
I think we need to make these changes – permanent changes that will save us money – before we discuss cuts and wage freezes and the like. Here are some ideas:
- Drastically reduce overtime spending by the Police Department and others
- Eliminate unnecessary jobs at the high end of the salary scale
- Significantly reduce School Department consulting contracts
- Modernize the Fire Department; eliminate obsolete technology
- Do something with underutilized city property
That is why on Tuesday, March 31st, as chair of the Committee on Post-Audit and Oversight, I am holding a public hearing in Codman Square to discuss these changes. It’s important to me to get your input, because it’s only through open and public process that we can bring the change we need to Boston. Hope I’ll see you there!
City Council Public Hearing
March 31st, 2009 6:00 p.m.
Codman Square Health Center
Great Hall
Corner of Norfolk and Washington Streets
