Good afternoon.

For the record, my name's Ben Weber.

I'm the District Six City Councilor and the Chair of the Boston City Council Committee on Ways and Means.

Today is April 14th, two thousand twenty-six, and the exact time is two oh three PM.

This hearing is being recorded, it is also being live streamed at Boston.gov slash city dash council dash TV and broadcast on Xfinity Channel Eight, RCN Channel Eighty Two, and FIOS Channel Nine Sixty Four.

Okay.gov slash council dash budget.

Our scheduled hearings dedicated to public testimony, uh, you know, which we call listening sessions, are in person on Tuesday, April twenty-eighth at six PM, and here again at City Hall on Thursday, eight uh May twenty sixth at six PM.

You can give public testimony either in person here in the chamber or virtually via Zoom for in-person testimony.

Please come to the chamber and sign up at the uh on the sheet near the entrance.

For virtual testimony, you can sign up using our online form on our council budget review website by emailing the committee at ccc.wm at boston.gov or by emailing uh Karishmachon.

That's K-A-R-I-S-H-M-A dot C H O U, H A N at Boston.gov.

When you are called to testify, please state your name and affiliation of your residents and limit your comments to a few minutes to ensure all comments and concerns are heard.

You can also file written testimony with the committee by emailing it to CCC.wm at Boston.gov.

Submit a two minute you can or sorry, you uh you can submit a two-minute video of your testimony through the forum on our website.

For more information on the city council budget process and how to testify, please visit the city council's budget website at Boston.gov/slash council dash budget.

In-person public testimony will be taken at the be uh uh let's see uh in-person public testimony will be taken uh following the uh panelists' presentation.

Um is that accurate?

No.

We're not doing it, yeah.

Okay, we'll be taking it will take in-person testimony after a first round of questions from the council.

Each person here to testify or virtually online.

We'll have two minutes again.

If you're interested in testifying virtually, uh, you can email uh K A Karishma Chohan, that's K-A-R I S H M A dot C H O U H A N at Boston.gov uh for the zoom link, and your name will be added to the list.

Today's hearing, uh, this afternoon's hearing is on uh docket numbers 0733 to 0740 for an overview of the FY27 capital budget.

Uh this is one in a series of hearings to review uh the budget of and um these matters were sponsored by Mayor Michelle Wu and referred to the committee on April 8th, 2026.

We uh have been joined by uh three of my colleagues in order of arrival, counselor Flynn, Council President Braden, and Councillor Culpeper.

Um I believe we've also received a letter of absence from Councillor Coletta Zapata.

Uh so I we'll you know we're we're generally waiving opening statements uh for these hearings.

Uh there'll be many, and people have lots of chances to speak.

So we're gonna go to our uh presentations.

I'm just gonna introduce our panelists.

Uh we're being joined again by uh Chief Financial Officer Ashley Groffenberger and uh budget director uh Jim Williamson, and now also joining us this afternoon.

We have Chief of Operations Dion Irish, interim chief of streets, Nick Gove, Chief Climate Officer Brian Sweat, uh Senior Deputy Superintendent of Operations for Boston Public Schools, Dr.

Sam DePina, uh, and we uh I'm sorry, we've uh Kathy Baker Eclipse is not not here.

Okay.

Kathy Baker Clips is over there.

Um sorry, I didn't introduce everyone.

Ian and then uh deputy director for Capitol, Ian Donnelly.

Okay.

Uh so I guess if we have questions for the parks commissioner, she'll be here to answer them uh on hand.

Okay.

Um so I I don't know what you hopefully you're not all gonna speak simultaneously.

Uh you have some, you know how you want to do this.

I can call on people if if that's how you want to do it.

No, uh so I'll do uh an overview presentation and then I um I like this hearing because I get to bring friends and so you can uh direct questions to any of us here.

Um so I'll run through this uh quickly.

Um the FY 2027 through 2031 capital plan uh that we're uh presenting to you today uh totals 4.4 billion dollars across 321 projects in all of our neighborhoods, making investments in BPS facilities, libraries and municipal buildings, parks and open space, sidewalks, roadways, and other state of good repair projects all across the city.

We've seen some great improvements come online in the last year, uh notably the Carter School, PJ Kennedy, about a dozen park and playground innovations, uh, decarbonization efforts at Boston Housing Authority, and the completion of the Bill Russell Bridge among dozens of other state of good repair projects at municipal facilities all across the city.

And as always, this plan maximizes the city's triple A bond rating while maintaining strong fiscal responsibility.

Just a quick overview on what the plan is and how we use it.

So the capital plan is really a roadmap for how we intend to improve our inventory of capital assets, hundreds of miles of roadways, dozens of bridges, parks, municipal buildings, and schools.

It is not a budget, but it does align with revenue projections and is made up of individual programs and projects, with programs representing annual recurring improvements at different locations and projects associated with a discrete improvement at a specific location.

The projected expenditures that are printed in the plan may be sufficient for advancement or may need increasing investment to actualize the full project.

The city uses a combination of general obligation bonds, other city funds, and grants such as federal, state, and other resources to finance the capital expenditures necessary to implement capital projects that support repairs of existing assets and the acquisition of new assets.

So we'll get into a little bit about how we finance the capital plan.

So there's kind of three key phases of how we do capital planning and funding here in the city.

So the first phase is kind of what we are here to discuss today.

It's the capital plan.

It's our intention of planned projects over the next five years.

And it's a plan, it's five years, but we come and talk about it every year, so we're constantly updating it on a rolling basis.