A $955.6 million budget was approved Monday for Cambridge’s 2025 fiscal year. It’s an increase of $71.8 million over the current year’s adopted budget, or 8.1 percent more, but the series of votes that funds the business of the city as of July 1 this time calls for some follow-up.
Along with the three votes that underlie the budget as a whole – for the general, water and public investment funds – were a few loan orders approved without argument on the basis that public money was being unlocked but due for a second step: All are coming back to the council in the coming months, budget co-chair Patty Nolan said, as part of a new caution befitting the city’s moment of austerity.
“Many of these items will not necessarily go forward without vetting, without an understanding that we are at a new economic position,” Nolan said. “There’s a range of projects. We will not be able to do them all.”
The city has seen slower private-development permitting as part of a national trend even as it’s pursued long-wanted goals such as universal prekindergarten, construction of a $299 million building for two schools and a teacher contract that provides for a longer school day – and contains $268.3 million for the school district.
The submitted budget identifies $216 million of funding across areas including housing and homelessness, early childhood, sustainability, traffic safety and antiracism, equity and inclusion.
This budget creates sustainability and housing departments and looks to do deferred maintenance on languishing municipal structures. But some of the moves, which were announced in February, are largely restructuring. Some even make room for potential budget trims, such as the possibility of having a head of emergency management – never hired despite the city manager getting a green light to do so – being combined into a climate officer role. Yi-An Huang’s executive branch has moderated its allowed spending in other ways as well, such as downgrading a strategy officer role to part time.
Move to austerity
The public investment fund budget of $38.4 million was another example of the city’s move toward austerity, Nolan said.
“Some of these investments were put off over time to allow the city to really look at our spending. Initially, in our last year’s budget, it had been expected to be much, much higher” in the $90 million range, Nolan said. “Again, I know harder decisions are coming, but I just want to appreciate that we are already seeing the impact of some of the ways in which the current economic and macroeconomic trends are affecting the work that we can do.”
In addition to the decrease in municipal revenue, borrowing for big undertakings from the past decade is nudging Cambridge toward scraping its debt ceiling and cramping a wealthy city’s big swings.
“We’re in a very different, somewhat scary time in terms of looking ahead,” Nolan said. “We simply cannot sustain the kind of growth that we’re seeing in our operating budget this year. And the capital budget is going to have some hard choices to make in the fall.”
Finance co-chair Joan Pickett agreed that increases such as the coming year’s 8 percent are likely at an end. They “translate into tax increases for our residents and our businesses and becomes really hard for them to sustain over time,” Pickett said. “We don’t want to have a situation where our taxes are so high that people say, ‘Gee, is it really worth staying in the city.’”
“For us to really look at the taxes and the tax rate means we have to moderate our spending. That’s the challenge in front of the council,” Pickett said. “We do want to look at our capital projects differently, or a little bit more comprehensively.”
Free cash change
Over the past couple of years, the budget process has changed to explicitly include money from the city’s accumulated “free cash,” rather than leave it for appropriations throughout the year – even though the appropriations aren’t surprises. Whether injected to reduce property owner tax levies or as “pay-as-you-go” capital in the operating budget, staff said the new approach is more transparent.
There is “a significant increase in the overall amount of free cash that is being used in the submitted budget,” assistant city manager for fiscal affairs Claire Brewer Spinner explained during a May 5 hearing of the council’s Finance Committee. “Typically throughout the year, additional appropriations of free cash come to the City Council for many of these things that we have already placed in this budget.”
For example, the council would otherwise soon be approached for $2.9 million in free cash for a firetruck and $1.7 million for emergency communication radios – items that are now spelled out in the budget councillors vote on upfront, Spinner said.
This year the applied free cash amounts to $31 million, with most of it being used to lower the property tax levy and $13 million going to capital outlays.
The loan orders approved Monday – for discussions that could start as soon as August or September – included such things as $11.5 million for “complete streets” roadwork; $8.5 million for sewer reconstruction; $6.6 million for construction for water needs; and $3 million for open space.
Delay briefly considered
Concerns that the budget vote had been publicized poorly led to brief discussion of a week’s delay; the 45-day window for action on a submitted budget ends around June 13 for Cambridge, according to budget director Taha Jennings.
Councillor Ayesha Wilson took the tone of the room about waiting, “recognizing the lack of transparency around the vote for today,” but met disinterest from fellow councillors and the city manager.
“We’ve had this on the calendar since we began our Finance Committee hearings on the budget in the early winter,” Huang said. “Tonight may be a little late to say, ‘Here’s a new idea about how we would engage the community or have more transparency into the process.’ I’m always excited to think about that in terms of that overall process.”
A stronger
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The participatory budget process in Cambridge has failed to engage Cambridge residents in the larger billion dollar Cambridge process. In fact, the participatory budget process might be a diversion from consideration of how big dollars are allocated. At a minimum, efforts to engage Cambridge residents in the overall budget process should match engagement efforts around participatory budgeting.
Cambridge voted overwhelmingly for the millionaire tax, but even “progressives” in office see ever raising taxes as a red line and would much rather cut public services. Nolan has a lot to be ashamed of lately.
> Finance co-chair Joan Pickett agreed that increases such as the coming year’s 8 percent are likely at an end. They “translate into tax increases for our residents and our businesses and becomes really hard for them to sustain over time,” Pickett said. “We don’t want to have a situation where our taxes are so high that people say, ‘Gee, is it really worth staying in the city.’”
Cambridge is not at risk of having dramatically higher property taxes to the point where people are leaving the city, we have some of the lowest tax rates in the entire Commonwealth.
Similarly: https://crschmidt.medium.com/threat-of-dramatic-tax-bill-increases-exaggerated-8238a07ec7ef
With a budget nearing a $BILLION ($955,584,350 for 118,489 residents from the 2022 decennial census or $8,064 per capita) and “city’s moment of austerity”, I was shocked that so few people had signed up for comments. And I am dismayed that “Cambridge passes a $956M budget easily, reminding that fiscal difficulties lie ahead.” On the contrary, If fiscal difficulties lie ahead, there should have been more comments and deliberation.
I will cite just three issues with now the adopted FY25 Budget.
First, why isn’t the City Council order an audit to find the root causes of River Street Project capital appropriation blossoming to $87M from Western Ave Project’s $15 million between 2012 and 2016, a 5.8-fold increase? And why do we have an additional capital budget item of $22M for Public Works: Western Avenue & River Street (pg. VI-56) when Western Ave Project is complete and there is no additional FY25 appropriation for River Street Project? These two projects combined separated bike lane installation with sewer/stormwater separation. Did anyone assess true total cost of Mass Ave Waterhouse Street to Alewife Brook Parkway (Mass Ave) Improvements for separated bike lanes + sewer/stormwater separation + infrastructure improvement + redesign of Porter Square and other improvements Mass Ave Planning Study might recommend. Does it really make sense to tear up this 2-mile stretch twice or more to implement all the improvements? Or does it make more sense to coordinate the Mass Ave Working Group, Mass Ave Planning Study and House Doctor Engineering Design contract to implement the Improvements in 3 stages, namely Waterhouse Street to Roseland Street; Dudley Street to ABP; and Roseland Street to Dudley Street to allow full public participation in the Porter Square redesign?
Second, why do we need a Department of Capital Building Projects with budget of $1,832,660? It is very shortsighted to limit the role of this department to just Building Projects and City Manager Huang should have corrected this oversight from FY24 Budget. City could easily formulate Capital Project Process Guidelines in accordance to best commercial business practices to “deliver high-quality professional management of the City’s expanding” capital projects, be they building improvement; sewer/stormwater separation; CSO implementation or others, large or small? The Guidelines should include establishing budget, schedule and milestones at the start of a project and setting up a system to track the progress of a project, a standard “tracking book”. Then all CM, Budget, Finance, Law, Purchasing, Performing Department and other departments that might be involved have to do is the follow the Guidelines.
That brings me to my final point. We need an Office of Compliance to ensure all Policy Orders are tracked and executed in timely manner; all processes and guideline are followed; and most importantly to track issues voiced by residents are properly and timely addressed.
Y. Kim
You are utterly delusional if you think bike lanes are the cause of the budget issues.
Slaw,
Please read my post more carefully. Where did you read that I blamed bike lanes are the cause of the budget issues? I asked the City to audit River Street projects to see how the cost mushroomed 5.8-fold from Western Ave project, so we do not repeat the same mistakes on other capital projects.
Delusional? Only the little pishers who require bike lane loyalty oaths from people who are running for city council.
Delusional? A short while ago, I stood at the corner of Mount Auburn and Aberdeen, right near the entrance to the cemetery. Now, this intersection has got to be among the worst in Cambridge. Accidents, possibly deaths are coming to that intersection.
Oh, that bike lane on Mount Auburn. So important. So many bike riders use it. Incredible numbers; it’s hard to count how many.
Actually, it was quite easy. From 4:23 to 4:42, I counted 373 cars. Guess how many bikes? Yup, that’s correct…not one.
How does wanting the city to actually implement the safety improvements it said it would delusional exactly?
You have claimed this about a dozen locations that have been analyzed and found to be safer post safety improvements (no figure).
What a bizarre window of time. Did you start immediately after seeing a bike and stop the second you saw another? Why should I believe you either? When the city does its own analysis with a documented and scientific methodology I will take those numbers seriously.
You wouldn’t stand there and count cars. You have more important things to do. And, you simply won’t accept the fact that on that stretch of Mount Auburn, the ratio of cars to bikes is hundreds to one. And, there was not one bike coming from Brattle Street on to Mount Auburn.
And, because of the way the city has foolishly set up the bike lane and lights on that corner of Cambridge, there are going to be lots of accidents with any of the few bikes that traverse that road. And, the lights and lane markings and posts are going to cause accidents between cars. But, you won’t care about that because according to you, there are too many cars on that stretch of road.
You’re in denial, because nothing much seems to matter to you except bike lanes and asking for loyalty oaths… shades of the early fifties with a certain Senator from Wisconsin.
A bicyclist was killed on MT auburn street, but not where protected bike lanes exist, today and you are busy making things up to oppose safe bike infrastructure on the same street. If you were a better person you would be ashamed of yourself. Will this make you pause and reflect? I doubt it.
Yes, there are too many cars and they are a threat to everyone else. Mode shift is part of the point, and it doesn’t happen overnight. It will be at least 6th months until that changes meaningfully. This is more of an explanation than you deserve right now.
Slaw, please in respect to the woman who passed away in this tragic accident, let’s all be respectful of each other. I do not know who you were directing your comment to but if want to discuss my three issues with now adopted FY25 Budget, I am more than happy to but not on this Comment forum.
I am addressing my comment at concerned43, a regular opponent of bike safety improvements, whose opposition to bike safety improvements on a street where someone died on the same day look especially gross right now. I think that was clear but sorry you thought it might be directed at you, it wasn’t.
It is not disrespectful to the victim to say today of all days cut this the fuck out.
Slaw,
I posted early yesterday morning. Please be kind and don’t confuse things.
I’m a bike rider in Cambridge. My wife is a bike rider.
I don’t oppose safe bike infrastructure. I’m for safe bike infrastructure.
You are so focussed on bikes, that you miss the fact that the safe bike infrastructure is not being created on some Cambridge streets… streets that I ride on e.g. Brattle and Mount Auburn (west of Harvard Square).
This is the last post I’ll make on bikes. Your time spent ranting would better be spent advocating for safe bike infrastructure, not the hodge podge
that the city has placed on those two streets and from what we see, other streets as well.
What happened late yesterday is a terrible accident. Again, it would be good if you focussed on the bike infrastructure at the intersection of Mount Auburn and Aberdeen as well as the corner of Brattle and Ash. Those bike lane intersections are unsafe and I fear that a tragic accident is likely to occur.
You said that you go to a medical practice on Mount Auburn. Spend some time with the city administrators and fix that intersection. You would be creating a mitzvah if you could do it.
I consistently do advocate for safer bike infrastructure. It’s you who does the opposite. Instead of lecturing me why don’t you follow your own advice and actually start doing so yourself?
Also: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/There-Are-No-Accidents/Jessie-Singer/9781982129682
There are a lot of policy and infrastructure changes that could have prevented this (sideguards, banning trucks from certain areas and/or at certain times, narrowing the intersection in various ways etc) and “accident” assumes an outcome of the investigation that is still ongoing.