Cambridge is on track to be the second city in Massachusetts with a billion-dollar budget, after City Manager Yi-An Huang submitted his office’s proposed budget for Fiscal Year 2027 at Monday’s City Council meeting. The next fiscal year begins July 1.
The proposed budget of $1.03 billion, if approved, would be the first time Cambridge crack $1 billion in a fiscal year. Boston is currently the only city in the state with a budget above $1 billion.
Cambridge faces revenue concerns and last year asked city departments to cut costs by 2.1 percent. The proposed budget nonetheless preserves key city services.
Overall, the city plans to increase its operating expenses by four percent from last year, driven by moderate increases in spending on staff wages and schools. On Monday, the City Council voted to pass the budget to a second reading and transfer it to the finance committee, which will have hearings starting next week before it can be fully adopted.
Establishing the exact commercial and property tax rates will come in September, after the state certifies property values over the summer. But the city did cost out the exact amount it will need to raise in total tax revenue, with a planned total increase of 6.9 percent.
City Budget Director Taha Jennings spoke to the “challenging economic and political environment,” that dominated thinking about next year’s budget.
“This is really highlighted by falling commercial values, decrease in development activity, weakening economic trends, and increased uncertainty, especially due to federal actions and policies,” Jennings said.
Property taxes have become an increasingly larger share of the city’s revenue – increasing from 64 percent in FY 2022 to 70 percent in the proposal for FY 2027. Taxes have been used to cover stagnant revenues from fees and revenues raised by departments, but it’s the “miscellaneous revenue” category, including things like interest earnings and reimbursements from the state, that’s taken the biggest hit, decreasing from $83 million to a projected $56 million in just two years.
Major line items reflect city council priorities: the city plans to spend over $51 million on affordable housing, which includes plans to develop social housing. The other two priorities City Manager Yi-An Huang said were most important to council in an interview earlier this month were also costed out: about $16 million for homelessness and housing stability, and $5 million to explore early childcare options for Cambridge kids too young for the Universal Pre-K program.
Huang said the city has made efforts to make the budgeting process more transparent than years past. New developments include sharing salaries of part-time workers and producing an interactive website for residents to explore line items.
Despite the higher dollar value of the budget, Huang said the city had worked hard to find savings at the central administrative and department levels. At Monday’s meeting, he said increased efficiency “has helped us ensure that we are minimizing tax increases during an economic downturn.”
He added that Cambridge is “also preserving the ability for us to make the important investments that we know our community needs.”
Councillor Patty Nolan, who co-chairs the finance committee, lauded city staff responsible for putting the budget together. She noted Cambridge has been able to increase its budget in a time when many other municipalities are making cuts.
“We are not facing a deficit for this year and having to change things midstream, which many cities in the Commonwealth are,” Nolan said. She said city staff “have worked really hard to continue our growth, and at the same time … imposing some kind of fiscal discipline.”
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