Good afternoon.

My name is Ben Weber.

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

Today is April 23rd, 2026, and the exact time is two eleven in the afternoon.

This hearing is being recorded, is also being live streamed at Boston.gov/slash city dash council dash TV and broadcast on Xfinity Channel 8, RCN Channel 82, and FIOS Channel 964.

The council's budget review process will encompass a series of public hearings that began last week and will run through June.

We strongly encourage residents to take a moment to engage in this process by giving testimony for the record.

You can do so uh in several ways.

First, you can attend one of our hearings and give public testimony.

We will take public testimony uh at the end of the first round of questions from my council colleagues.

Uh, we're also going to take public testimony to listening sessions, um, which will be at night at at uh the Boston City at City Hall, uh, the first being on Tuesday, April 28th at 6 p.m., and the second being on Thursday, May 26th at 6 p.m.

Those are listening sessions.

You can see the full hearing schedule on our website at Boston.gov slash council dash budget.

Uh in lieu of appearing in person, you can also testify by Zoom.

Um you which you can let's see, if you want to testify virtually, uh you can email the um council budget review website.

Uh or you can sorry, you can fill out an online form at the council budget review website, or you can email the committee at ccc.wm at Boston.gov, or by emailing uh uh Kerish Machon, that's K-A-R I S H M A C H O U H A N at Boston.gov.

Uh if you're here to testify in person uh at a hearing, which uh anyone uh is welcome to do should sign up.

There's a there's a sheet at the entrance if you want your name called for public testimony.

Um if you're if you signed up and your name is called, you have two minutes to testify, please just identify yourself uh and uh tell us what your affiliation is uh if you're representing your organization or just uh where you live in the city, and uh you'll have two minutes to uh make your voice heard.

Um instead of if you don't want to you don't have time to come here or testify virtually, you can also email written testimony to the committee at ccc.wm at Boston dot gov.

Uh lastly, you could you can also submit a two-minute video of your testimony through the form on our website.

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

Uh in-person testimony will be taken uh following the first round of questions from my colleagues, and folks will have two minutes to testify again.

If you want to testify virtually at this hearing, you can email uh our director of legislative budget analysis, Krishnmach at K-A-R-I-S-H-M-A.CHO UHAN at Boston.gov for the Zoom link and your name will be added to the list.

This afternoon's hearing is on docket numbers zero seven three three to zero seven four zero, an overview of the FY27 budget for the Office of Particip Participatory Budgeting.

This is one in a series of hearings that we'll be having on the FY27 budget.

These matters were sponsored by Mayor Michelle Wu and referred to the committee on April 8th, 2026.

Today I'm joined by my colleagues in order of arrival, Councillor Flynn, Councillor Culpepper, and Councillor Caleta Zapata.

Let's see.

So at these budget hearings, we do wave opening statements.

We're just gonna go to the panel.

This will be easier than some panels because there's only one panelist.

So to introduce today's panelists is Renato Costello, who's the director of the Office of Participatory Budgeting.

So just give me a second.

There's no one online.

Okay.

And nobody here wants to testify in person.

I'm just checking, you can decide later.

Okay, so uh Renato, the floor is yours, and then we'll go to questions for my colleagues.

Thank you, Chair Weber.

Um I will uh do a brief presentation and then I'm happy to answer any questions about the office or the process that we're running.

This works.

So the Office of Participatory Budgeting consists of three full-time staff, me as the director, Blanca Texera, Senior Finance and Operations Manager, and a community partnerships and project coordinator that we're currently accepting candidates for review.

Um participatory budgeting is a democratic process where community members decide how to spend a part of a public budget.

PB advances the city's goals around civic engagement and community collaboration by addressing barriers for public participation and decision making in local government, elevating resident-informed project ideas that reflect their priorities and lived experiences, and bringing communities and city government together.

The mission of the Office of Participatory Budgeting is to provide an official point of entry for Boston residents to contribute to the city's budget process through partnerships with community organizations, collaboration with city departments, and guidance from our external oversight board.

The office hosts yearly participatory budgeting cycles to allow for continuous engagement.

We offer opportunities for the public to propose community-centered project ideas to address local priorities, engage resident priorities to inform the city's budget process.

The ideas that residents propose have to meet certain criteria.

Projects are limited to a one-time expense and cannot create new permanent positions.

Project ideas must be feasible to implement, be consistent with existing city policies, laws, regulations, and the participatory budgeting ordinance.

Projects must be implemented or managed by the appropriate city department or agency receiving direct budget appropriations.

Project ideas may include programs and services, as well as funding for physical improvements, such as community enhancements on city-owned public property, like benches, trash containers, green infrastructure, etc.

Physical improvements on projects, projects on private state or federal property are not eligible, such as projects concerning the Department of Conservation and Recreation or the MBTA.

So this is our timeline and phases that we have as part of the process.

We start in July with idea collection, and it is an opportunity for residents to share their project ideas with our office.

And we have multiple ways for residents to submit their ideas.

We have a multilingual online platform, we have a multilingual phone line, we have boots at public libraries and some BCYF community centers, and here at City Hall, and we also work with community organizations to host events across the city to collect ideas from residents.

After we collect those ideas, that happens during the entire month of July.

We take August and September to review those ideas and make sure that they fit with the criteria that I shared earlier.

And we work with the office uh the data analytics team to help us categorize those ideas and uh put them into um uh packets so we can bring those back to residents for proposal development.

So, what happens in October through between October and December, we host what we call proposal development forums.

And there are two types of meetings that we do uh during this phase.

In October, we go to different neighborhoods across the city and um engage residents so they can review the ideas and they can prioritize the ideas that they want to see on the ballot.

So at the end of the October forums, we walk away with 12 to 15 prioritized ideas by residents.

And then in November, we host additional forums where residents and city departments come together to review the ideas and develop a draft proposal for that idea.

So between November and December, city departments have an opportunity to continue to review that proposal, and we also work with the legal team, procurement, office of budget management, and the finance cabinet to make sure that whatever ideas move forward to the ballot are actually feasible to implement.

During this time, departments also determine the amount of funding that each of the ideas will have attached to them.

And this is done based on the capacity of the department and also the impact that the idea will have on residents.

So once the ideas are finalized, then we go on to the voting phase, which typically happens between January 15th and February 15th.

We have a whole month for residents to vote.

Same accessibility, we try to, it's mostly online voting, but we are offering also some in-person voting opportunities here at City Hall and through some of our community partners.

And this is multilingual as well.

So there's accessibility on that end.

Residents can vote for up to five of their favorite proposals on the ballot, and those with the most votes get awarded up to the funding amount that we have for that particular year.

For instance, for from our previous process, we were able to fund eight ideas out of 13 on the ballot, totaling 2.2 million dollars.

Once those ideas are selected, we connect with departments again to start thinking about implementation plans and also a timeline for them to start implementing the idea and also determining what's the best way for implementing this particular idea.

Our FY27 recommended operating budget is 1,891,561.

And this is a decrease of 242,690 dollars compared to FY26.

And this is due to the reclassification of the chief of staff role to a coordinator position and also a reduction to the special appropriations line.

As authorized by the PV ordinance, prior year balances in our operating budget have been rolled into a separate continuous fund to support multi-year projects.

Using accumulated balances in the fund, we can award $2 million worth of projects for the upcoming participatory budgeting cycle.

So I'll share with you all a brief overview of our latest participatory budgeting process that ended this past February.

The main phases that I want to highlight is idea collection.

We collected over 1200 ideas from residents across the city.

The highlight here is that we co-sponsor 31 events across the city where residents can come together and submit their ideas.

We also had, as I mentioned earlier, accessibility for submitting ideas at BCYFs, public library and city hall, and also online and through the phone.

For proposal development, we hosted five in-person forums in East Boston, Marapan, Brighton, and two here at City Hall with a combined number of 200 participants in all those forums.

And out of those forums, we have 13 project proposals drafted by Boston residents seated on the same table with city departments crafting an idea for the ballot.

And then for voting, we had residents had the chance to vote on those 13 ballot proposals.

We received over 4800 votes collected both online and in person, with the highest voter turnout in Jamaica Plain, Dorchester, Brighton, Austin, East Boston, and Rosingdale.

These are some photos of the five events we hosted.

In all of the events, we provided child care, interpretation and translation and refreshments for people.

This was these were often two two and a half hour meetings, so they were quite long and demanded a lot of attention and engagement from residents.

And we created these meetings in small group tables, so there is room for conversation and collaboration among residents and city departments.

One of the highlights of our process is our model for resident engagement, where it is where we use our contracted services line to contract with community organizations to connect with residents who would otherwise wouldn't know about this process or wouldn't engage in the process.

This past cycle we contracted with 19 nonprofits throughout the timeline of our process.

And our goal is to leverage their expertise they know best about their communities and also their trust so more residents can participate and engage in ideas in action.

This past cycle we had eight winning ideas that received a cumulative 2.2 million dollars in funding.

So in order of most voted, we had immigrant legal defense fund.

We had over 3,700 people voting for this idea, and the mayor's office for immigrant advancement will receive 400,000 to implement this.

The neighborhood fresh food access initiative, we had over 3,000 votes, and uh $500,000 will go to the Office of Food Justice to implement this idea.

Bridging the gap, assistance for housing stability, we had 2800 votes, and the Office of Suppose Housing Services will receive 200,000 dollars to implement the idea.

Immigrant career pathways bridging language and employment.

We had almost 2100 votes, and the Office of Workforce Development will be receiving $300,000 to implement this idea.

Green My Block received over 1,900 votes, and the Office of Green Infrastructure will be implementing this idea.

Workforce training programs focus on trades.

Also, the Office of Workforce Development will be managing this program for $300,000.

Youth Financial Literacy and Empowerment Workshops received over 1,500 votes in the and the Center for Working Families will receive 250,000 to implement this idea.

And Small Business Development Resource Program received a little bit over 1,200 votes, and the Office of Small Business will receive 150,000 to implement it.

Out of those six ideas, two are completed already.

So one of those is expand access to fresh foods, and it was successfully led the PV funds were successfully leveraged as part of a $3 million coordinated response to the November 2025 SNAP funding delay, which was in line with the language of the proposal when it was voted for.

So residents and anyone in the city can visit Boston.gov slash participate.

This site is under the idea collection tab, and you'll be able to explore all the ideas we've collected during the past two years.

We've embedded evaluations since the beginning of our process because we want to learn more about how to improve it and some of the impacts that participatory budgeting is having.

The earlier phases, which is idea collection and proposal development, residents submitted ideas and where residents submit ideas and shape the proposals, most effectively engage residents who have been historically excluded or underrepresented.

Earlier phases engage more youth and older adults at or beyond their share of the Boston population.

So youth ages 11 to 19 participated, double the rate of their population during these earlier phases, which means we received many ideas from them and they also helped shape those proposals, which is about 22% of the participation of youth.

And similar numbers for uh folks ages 60 and above.

We have over 20% of participants that we engage in those earlier phases, sharing ideas and helping shape those proposals.

We see that for voting, over 75% of residents were between the ages of 20 and 49.

About 8% of voters identified as youth 11 to 19, and the same percentage of residents 60 and above.

In terms of household income, earlier phases engage more lower and middle income residents relative to their vote to the Boston population.

Over 60% of residents who participated in idea collection and proposal development had household incomes of less than 75,000 dollars.

And for voting, about 38% of residents fit under that bracket of income.

In terms of race, uh, in earlier phases, also we engaged more Asian Latinx and black residents, well beyond their share of the population.

And in terms of neighborhood, all neighborhoods participated.

Just to highlight some of the neighborhoods where we had more engagement.

And to close the presentation, um, a little bit about the impact of participatory budget, and this is a fairly new initiative.

Uh we just finished the second year of the process.

Um similar to the first year, participants felt that ideas in action allowed their voices to be heard by the city of Boston, which is an early indication for trusting city government.

And residents and city staff worked together productively to develop the proposals, and almost all forum participants, which were about 91% of those who responded the survey, said that it helped them understand how the budget works, um, how the budget process works.

We are finalizing a full report of this latest cycle, which will be available in June of 2026.

And I'll close sharing a quote from one of the forum participants, and I'll read it in Spanish and English.

Uh, in Spanish says, um, creo que's un lugar in el que uno is libre il dan el poder anda to boss, and le dan la opportunidad de hacer una diferencia.

I think this is a setting where you're free and your voice is given power and importance, and you are in you have the opportunity to make a difference.

And I welcome any questions.

Thank you for the attention.

Okay, thank you very much.

We've also been joined by Councillor Braden.

Um we're gonna lead off with Councillor Flynn, uh six minutes, so time for a second round if you need it.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair, and thank you for being here, sir.

Can you tell me um last year's fiscal year?

What was the budget for um participatory budget?

For FY25.

Yeah.

Let me get you that number.

The total number was 2 million 130,000 and two and two hundred and seventeen dollars.

Can you repeat that?

2,130,000.

And what is it for this FY26 recommendation?

For FY26, yeah.

Um, the current fiscal year is 2,134,250.

Okay, in the recommendation for um FY27.

1,891,561.

And what percentage decrease is that?

About 11.4%.

11%?

Yeah, okay.

Um you have you mentioned you have three people on your staff.

Correct.

Okay.

Um that's a pretty significant decrease, decrease, isn't it?

11% for your for your staff.

I mean, for your um department.

Part of the decrease came through a reclassification of one of the roles in the department.

We had a chief of staff and um Cynthia transitioned at the beginning of this year, and we saw this as an opportunity to transform that role into more of a community partnerships and project coordinator role.

So that was part of the decrease in the salaries for that role.

And the other part came from a reduction in the special appropriations.

Okay.

Oh, so part of it was the reclassification of a personnel position?

Correct.

Okay.

So what would the salary uh the chief of staff salary?

So when you reclassified it, the salary was at a certain point, and then once it was reclassified, it was decreased to a certain point.

Is that accurate?

Correct.

Okay, what was the chief of staff salary?

I don't know top of my mind.

Um I know that there was a yeah, there was a reduction on that.

I I can get you that number.

Okay.

And what is the current salary of the new position of the reclassified position?

I think the range will go from 70 to 78 or something like that, depending on our experience.

Okay.

Um can I ask, was there any outreach to any of the veterans community or military families as part of participatory budget?

Um I I'm not sure if we they were not part of what they were not one of the organizations that applied.

We had an open application uh for groups to receive funding to support with outreach.

But we welcome any applications or any any um uh referrals.

But was but when you were educating the public or doing town hall types, did you do make any specific um outreach to the veterans community?

No, with this particular population.

Um we have um we did um communications and media um investment, so general public are aware of the process, um, but we were able to work with the 19 organizations um focus mostly on neighborhoods and different types of ages and um backgrounds, but I don't know nothing particularly to that community, which is something that we can definitely do for the next cycle.

Was there any outreach specifically in South End or Chinatown?

Yes.

We're we're in the South End.

Uh well in Chinatown.

Um the South the South End we didn't have any organization apply from that neighborhood.

Okay.

Um we're in Chinatown then?

We work with the uh Chinese Golden Age Center to engage um older adults Asian community.

What programs do you work with with the Golden Age Center?

So the way we run our contract with community partners is depending on the phase in which we're in.

So for idea collection, um they host uh workshops or events where they engage the residents in collecting ideas.

So they hosted, I believe, two workshops um last year.

And for proposal development, we invite people to come to the events here at City Hall, and for voting, they help us do outreach to for residents to vote.

Oh, but they weren't uh they weren't funded with anything.

They were funded.

Oh, they were they were how much were they how much did they receive?

Top of mind, uh I think our limits for last year were about 3,500, 4,000.

Okay.

Yeah.

What is the and and I I just want to I just want to be be very respectful when I'm asking.

I I don't necessarily agree with participatory budget program, although I I think you're doing a good job.

I want to be respectful to you.

Um I just think during challenging times we have to look at all city departments and make difficult decisions.

But having said that, is there anywhere any place else in your budget you think could be cut?

I don't think so.

We're running with a pretty tight budget.

Um thankfully the reductions that we're making um impact the funding amount for projects for next year or our operations.

So I feel like we're we're um contributing to the city, especially in this tight financial times, but I think our our budget is set um I don't see other or the other ways that we can cut it.

Okay.

Um Mr.

Chair, my time is up, but may I ask one more question?

Yes.

Okay.

So could I just go back to the one question I asked is about the reduction that you potentially going to receive?

Part of it is because of the reclassification of a job position.

But if that wasn't the case, how much would the budget have decreased without that issue without that particular um job reclassification?

The um the reduction in the special um special uh rep what's the appropriation line, special appropriation line is 200,000.

Oh, so you'll so your budget would have decreased 100,000 200,000.

Oh 200,000.

And what percent would that have been?

Top of mine, I'm not sure.

Um, but combined, so we have the 200,000 um our total decrease for this year is 243,000.

So yeah.

Okay.

Uh thank you for answering my questions.

Mr.

Chair, thank you.

Thank you, Councilman.

Thank you very much.

Uh Councilor Culpepper, do you do you want to use your time or uh today?

Okay, you get six minutes.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Um thank you for holding this hearing.

And unlike my colleague next to me, uh I believe that the participatory budgeting process uh should and in some cases must be increased.

And I say that because when you think about the involvement of community in the budgeting process, this is the only real involvement that they have to really be part of how the budget is shaped.

And when I looked at the budget and I looked at the cut, I've always said that this budget should be increased from uh the two million to ten million.

And and I say that because we look at where the proposals are coming from, as we look at how the decisions are made.

I really think there should be one per council district, and then maybe one for each of the at-large counselors.

Uh, because when you look at it, not every area of the city, not every district is gonna have one of the proposals coming out of that district.

And so when I look at what I'd like to see, unlike my colleague here, uh and we agree on most things, this is just something that we don't agree on.

I'd love to see the budget increase.

But let me ask you a couple of questions about the 13 proposals.

Uh in the information that you provided, um there were 19 nonprofits that were chosen.

Um how much were those, what was the average of the contract amounts for the 19 nonprofits that were chosen to be part of the outreach for this participatory budgeting?

I think on average we spent maybe 2500 to 3,000 per group.

And and did you have out of the 19, was each council district represented by the nonprofits?

Um I have that information in one of the slides uh where we share the areas we covered with the nonprofits.

Um I'm not sure if we cover every neighborhood of the city, but we did we had 31 events happening in the city.

What about district seven?

Did you cover my district?

Yes, we did.

Um we worked with um let me get an answer on that so I don't give you an incorrect answer.

Okay, yeah.

And how did you determine in in the participation participation breakdown?

You have the household income.

How did you determine the household income of those that were involved?

We do uh surveys.

Yes, so for idea collection for people who submit ideas online, there is an optional survey at the end.

We actually embedded key questions as part of the uh idea submission form, so people feel more um inclined to respond those to those answers.

For organizations that hosted in-person events, we printed forms for them.

And um same thing with proposal development, we had surveys at the forums and surveys for voting, and that embedding those questions into the actual form increased tremendously the response rate.

So the in some cases we had like more than 80 percent response rate for participants.

And and so when you look at the earlier phases engage more lower and middle income residents, when you say earlier phases, do you mean when they submitted their proposals?

Yep.

And how did you determine that?

Through the analysis of the responses.

So we saw that people who completed surveys during idea collection and proposal development tend to be more of that demographic.

And that's due mostly some of the purposeful outreach that we're doing with the community partners.

During voting, um anyone in the city can participate, anyone can vote, and this is an mostly online voting.

So that's where we see you know more people from other income brackets or other um uh demographics also participating and voting for the ideas.

And so you had 1,200 ideas submitted and nearly 5,000 votes cast?

Correct.

And and you looked at where those came from?

Right.

Um and where did most of those votes come from?

So let me share.

I have my slides.

So for voting.

For voting, we had about 20, so in terms of income or race or um what what metric or age?

Where so whether they came from Jamaica Plain, whether they came from the South End, whether they came from Roxbury.

I just wanted to look at where the breakdown of those votes came from.

Yeah.

Um that may be something I can get you afterwards.

I don't I don't know.

I have some data, but may not have that with me, but definitely have that as part of the analysis.

And and so for uh the proposals of for the ones that were uh selected.

Can you give me when you get a chance where in what part of the city, if you can by district, a council district, where they came from?

The ideas that were the way the ideas originated.

And the final, yeah, and the and the final selection.

Uh-huh.

Um I'll take this chance.

This is something we can we can find for you.

Um, the way so we're tasked to run a citywide process, and residents submit ideas from all parts of the city.

And the way we uh go about implementing those ideas, in many cases, most of the proposals are um programs or services which become then grants to nonprofits across the city to do the work locally.

That's a 19.

The 19 the 19 nonprofits.

No, no, no.

The nonprofits only.

So you're talking about other grants.

Exactly.

So I can explain.

Go on.

Yeah, so the 19 nonprofits that we work with this past cycle support our office mostly with outreach and engagement, you know, to collect ideas, bring people to the events and support uh voting outreach.

At that point, after voting is done, our contract with the non nonprofits is over for that year.

Okay, okay.

So once an idea is selected, we go to the department, and with the department they define what's the best way to implement this idea.

For instance, one of the ideas from the first cycle was you go through where the city departments that are responsible for that.

Oh, okay.

Okay.

Subject.

For instance, we had an idea about supporting incarcerated and formerly incarcerated residents, youth.

Um, so we work with the Office of Returning Citizens to determine what would be the best way to spend this money and support that population, and they opted to do grants to nonprofits working with that population.

So when they open a grant application, nonprofits from across the city can apply and receive funding to do the work at the local level.

And so those grants came out of the original two million from the first year, yes.

Okay.

Mr.

Chairman, I've got one more question, if I may.

Okay.

So if you were to arrange or set up the participatory budgeting so that every council district and each at-large member could identify one.

How much more would that cost?

I mean, because I I think it would be a great idea if each council district, like council Flynn, his district had one project selected or mine, where each were within those districts, they competed, and then the four at large had the ability to identify one citywide.

How much more would that cost to do it that way?

I think some of the things I'll consider is the staff capacity to run those processes.

It's the one we're running now, is very involved, and we heavily rely on community organizations to support us and some external contractors to help us with some of the events.

So I will think about how much more staff the office will need to run nine or ten.

It will be many, you know, it's not mini because it's a lot of different things.

Per district you would have to run the same operation per district in order to come up with one.

It took us a little bit of time to come up with this model that we have right now.

So I will really have to think about, you know, not I don't have a solution off the top of my head for such a change in the model.

Right.

No.

I just think it's a fair way because some districts don't get one.

And so if you look year after year after year, that district may not get one.

I'm just looking at it from a fair perspective to give each district an opportunity to have at least one project where you have other districts, you have more than one.

So think about that model where each district had at least one, and the four at-large councils could identify one citywide.

Okay.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Thank you very much.

Councillor Culpepper.

Uh Councillor Coleta Zapada.

Thank you, Chair.

Um, good afternoon, Renato.

It's good to see you always.

Um happy to see your ascension into this leadership role.

Um, just really want to give you kudos and uh your flowers for the work that you've done.

Folks in my district have said that the process was exactly how they envisioned it, and a lot of that has to do with your visionary leadership and your work and the work of your team.

So thank you for that.

Um, I'm really proud to have played a support role in 2020 2021 to draft the charter amendment uh outlining the creation of this office, um, the inquiry to the AG's office about the constitutionality of that, and then following up with the uh uh Better Boston campaign in 2021 that uh got this on the ballot, and the people of Boston resoundedly said yes.

And so just to see this presentation and and the fruits of our collective labor was just amazing, and it's great to see that city government actually can work on behalf of the people and um in such a tangible way.

So I I think that that's great.

Um there's been a lot of misinformation about I think specifically that the teenagers that are able to participate in this process for I don't know what the intention is, maybe it's to rage bait or fear bait people into getting clicks or likes or fake kudos, but can you just talk about the percentage of um teens that have been a part of the process and then the percentage of votes that they had within the process?

Thank you for that question.

So uh from the data I presented, um, we saw that during the earlier phases, which is idea collection and proposal development, we had about 22% of those who participated were between the ages of 11 and 19.

Uh which is great.

It's you young people getting involved, proposing ideas on what they would like to see in their communities, and also helping shape what those ideas become on the ballot working alongside city departments on the same table.

Um, in terms of voting, we had um about eight percent of um voters in that age range participated.

Okay, so eight percent of the final votes came from that that group of 11 to 19, correct?

Okay, okay.

I mean, uh for me, I I think that that's um the numbers is low.

I I I do love the fact that youth are actively involved in and getting a course, crash course into how city government works, and understanding that while they may not be able to vote, they do have power over the future of their city and helping to define it.

If I'm a young kid and I'm getting involved, um I would hate to be dissuaded uh to not get involved by some of the comments that are that are being said.

So thank you for that.

I I hope that we get that number up.

Can you just talk about the amount of money?

I'm sorry if I missed it, that's in the uh participatory um special revenue fund.

Yes, um so in the special revenue fund at the end of this fiscal year, we'll have about 2.2 million for this year.

We have 2.2 million in the special revenue fund, yes.

Okay.

At the end of this fiscal year, that's what we will have.

Okay.

And then how okay, and then like the flow of money coming in and out with the projects that are being funded.

At what point are you then, is the Treasury transferring these funds over to, say, for example, Office of Food Justice for FY27 or housing.

Like how does that, how does that timeline work?

Does it depend on the readiness and eligibility of the department to receive these funds?

Yeah, so this happens or is planned to happen within the next month or so.

So it will happen within this fiscal year.

So each department will receive a line item, a budget line item that they can from our special revenue fund that they can pull funding when they are ready to do the implementation of the projects.

So those 2.2 that I mentioned is what carries for the next for the next year.

But departments can technically access the funding as early as you know in the next couple of weeks to start implementing the ideas.

Okay, that's great.

And I had food just we have food justice in here yesterday, and so I was asking, just given the urgency of some of the numbers that we're seeing in the gaps for feeding some of our most hungry and the loss of federal funds through SNAP and all of that, how quickly they can get this operationalized within their office.

Walk me through what your conversations are to manifest this in the departments and make sure that the intent and spirit of what folks had voted for is actually happening in the office.

And what sort of oversight role do you play to make sure that that happens?

So we we kind of help shepherd the process.

At the end of the day, those implementing the ideas are the city departments, but we are there to support and uh provide as much uh scaffolding as possible so the the projects get implemented as soon as they are able to.

Uh we had meetings with each of the departments uh last month to have a kick-off meeting basically to establish um uh a timeline, what are some of the milestones that they want to do, and also ask about you know the um coordinate the transfer the transferring of the funds to the departments.

So that's so we host meetings with them every month or every other month just to check in on progress.

In some cases, the implementation is very straightforward, like you know, this will become a grant for X, and then it's just creating a grant um agreement or a grant proposal for nonprofits to apply.

In other cases, it takes a little bit more research working with the legal team or procurement to figure out how to bring that idea to reality.

We've seen that in the first uh years um projects, uh two of those were which were grants were already completed, fairly simple, like fairly simple in quote unquote.

Uh but there were some others that needed a little bit more technical revision, like the community gardens, for instance, which they are just now reviewing applications to award those grants.

So uh each project moves at a different pace based on how complex it may be to implement.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you so much for your work.

I appreciate it.

Thank you, Chairman.

Okay, thank you.

Uh Madam President.

Thank you, and good to see you.

Likewise.

Um I I'm really another big supporter of um participatory budgeting.

I think it's a wonderful it's a pro it's the process, it's really in that whole engagement that's has got a lot of added value.

It's not just about the the dollar amount, it's the the level of engagement that's that's that it's transforming community conversations about budget priorities.

And I I know from talking to some of the participants in the Alston Brighton groups, uh, you know, they got to appreciate uh from listening to other participants that got to appreciate other people's opinions, other people's priorities, get an understanding of the challenges that folks that they may not have met on a regular basis, maybe not have met ever before in their lives, but to hear what their challenges were and what was important to them.

Um so I think it's it's testament to the way it's been structured and and all the great nonprofit groups that are partnering with you to increase the outreach and engage with more and more people.

So I'm really pleased uh with how it's going.

I I I share counselor Culpepper's uh sentiment, we put it would be nice to have more money in the in the bucket to to use in this process, but I think this is it's I think it's reaching its um purpose of just in democratizing how we think about budgets and and uh and and community participation, so it's really wonderful.

Um I was wondering just um what criteria does the office use to determine whether a resident proposed project is eligible, feasible, or cost appropriate, like this certain checks and balances that you have to think about going through the process.

to to use in this process but I think this is it's I think it's reaching its um purpose of just in democratizing how we think about budgets and and uh and and community participation so it's really wonderful um I was wondering just um what criteria does the office use to determine whether a resident proposed project is eligible feasible or cost appropriate like the certain checks and balances that you have to think about going through the process yeah um that's that's a great question thank you um I think it goes through through different phases so at the beginning we collect all the ideas we can and what we do internally in those months of August and September is broadly review that they fit the general criteria for project for project um eligibility of the projects so for instance from the last year's cycle uh we received 1200 ideas but about close to a thousand were actually eligible because others were let's say not in city property or you know too big to implement so that's the first review most of the ideas make it through but there were some that are beyond the scope of what the PV process can do.

Then we see ourselves more of a as a facilitator of the process because all the ideas grow as they come we bring back to people in bite size that they can review them and prioritize them.

So residents themselves get a chance to make that assessment of what's more urgent what makes sense for the communities in which they they live so from the October forums we we charge with residents the responsibility of reviewing and creating a and voting for their top ideas.

So at the end of October we have 12 to 15 ideas that make it through then those ideas come to City Hall where we bring residents and city departments and we create a space where residents share why this is important for them and city departments provide some of the technical context what is the city already doing you know what are some gaps how can we best you know transform this idea and make it feasible so that's one of the checks as well we have city departments having that initial conversation with residents on feasibility and after those meetings once we have the draft proposal because they actually draft a paragraph of what the idea can look like this goes through the legal department procurement budget management just to make sure that whatever goes to the ballot is actually feasible to do but from the proposal drafting stage to what you see on the ballot there is like minimal if any changes because those meetings are are very important that people can understand some of the trade offs of what they are proposing.

And and you know when when you when you sort of developing the review the idea categories is do you bring people from different neighborhoods together to review the different categories I think that was part of the that that happens doesn't it?

Yes.

And I think that was where um I was getting the feedback that that was really incredibly valuable for people because it was important for folks who lived in Alson Brighton to hear what folks in Matapan were up against or people in Chinatown were experiencing and it and you know I think to this is where I would differ with my colleague Councillor Culpepper you know I think it it it gets people to think outside the box in terms of what their needs are in their own particular neighborhood are but to think citywide about the challenges that other residents of Boston are facing so I think uh I think that's really valuable.

And then I was wondering how can residents track the the project progress is there a way to track progress of a project that was maybe approved last year and going forward over time.

Yeah we have a section of our website that is called project implementation and by cycle they can click on each of the ideas and we update that you know every month or so with updates we receive from city departments.

So the information we have there is the most up to date information on each of the projects that receive funding.

And then how does how does how do we measure success?

What's your definition of success I think many measure it yeah many many um many ways of measuring I think one is um amount of participation amount of ideas collected um amount of people that come to the events to work with us to prioritize the ideas um the the rate in which projects are being implemented that's actually one of our priorities and something that we're looking at now more seriously because now after two years we have about 14 project ideas that have been selected and 4.2 million dollars that we need to uh implement we need to spend so two of those ideas as I mentioned have been completed but uh another milestone of success is the rate of completion making sure that uh projects get completed as soon as possible we do have to um acknowledge that some city departments who received funding they have limited resources limited staff capacity and they are very graceful and willingness to will willing to work with us to implement these ideas.

We do have to um acknowledge that some city departments who received funding, they have limited resources, limited staff capacity, and they are very graceful and willingness to will willing to work with us to implement these ideas.

So in some cases, the project may delay a little more just because of the staff capacity in each of the departments, but all of the departments are you know excited about working with residents and getting to uh implement the ideas.

Very good.

Thank you.

Thank you for your work.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Thank you.

Uh a couple questions from the chair.

Um so, in terms of uh the number of votes, how uh it I think there's about 5,000 last cycle.

What was the number before that?

Are we trending in the right direction?

What's the goal for FY27?

Yeah, the we receive over a little bit over 4800 votes.

Uh it's about a 500 vote increment from the first cycle.

Um so we had more votes than the first year, uh, but we want to continue to grow that number over time.

Um, one of the uh yeah, so we do a series of strategies to try to bring those um communities to vote, working with community organizations, also using some social media, the city's uh accounts to promote voting.

So overall there has been an increase, uh, but we want to continue to grow that.

Yeah, I I guess uh um in terms of like our amendments last year, uh and I think we moved 200,000 from contractual services to the actual participatory budgeting fund.

And I uh my memory is we looked at it saying, well, in terms of outreach, they they could do the outreach in-house rather than spend that money on outside firms to do outreach, so maybe we didn't help you in that way.

But then how how did it actually work?

Because my I think there are two contracts, and I I think there might have been some unintended consequences.

Can you just explain what happened after we voted on the amendment?

Yeah, so first of all, I I really appreciated the the effort to increase project funding.

Um we we did face challenges in trying to meet some of the vision we had for outreach and engagement with the contract.

So the way we do that is funding that goes to community groups to help us do the work uh in engaging residents.

So we had to reduce some of that funding and therefore their um their output in helping us outreach communities, and also we had to drastically reduce uh the media and communications presence of the campaign, especially during the voting phase because of the limited amount of funding we had to execute to run the process.

So we ended up um honoring the 2.2 million for projects, but we we had to do an internal transfer of 100,000 back to the contracting line because we couldn't cover, we couldn't run the process basically with what was proposed for FY26.

Okay, and then if you can fill this position, uh it's community engagement or something, like how will that impact how you do outreach?

Uh and we'll you know we'll will you be able to do more outreach in the next cycle or to fill that position.

The key role for this the key objective for this position is to expand and strengthen the partnerships we have with community groups.

Uh this is our second year.

We want to have more in-depth partnership with some of these groups and also expand and bring new groups that you know target other demographics that we may not maybe not be reaching.

Um so that's one of the things for this person.

Also, we need some of the supporting um keeping track and following up on the project implementation side.

So that's another component that this person will help us do.

In terms of outreach, um I think most of the um help that we'll receive from this person will be on event logistics for the forums in the fall.

Uh we now rely on an external contractor to help us with facilitation and help us with some of the venue logistics.

So having someone that can help us look into that can help decrease.

And what's the time?

Do you have a timeline?

We when you thinkfully the application went out, um, was live, I think two days ago.

Okay.

And hopefully by late summer, early fall, we'll can have someone on board.

Okay.

And um, yeah.

Would you mind if I just make a point?

I think the the have the the outreach that we do, um the model that we have is that we act as like a central office for other groups in the different areas of the city to do outreach on behalf of the city.

And the new person can help manage those relationships, but the the funding that we need to contract with these groups, I think is the most important part.

Okay.

Uh so okay, the ordinance.

I'm just gonna read here, this is from a constituent.

The ordinance says that um the you know, the Office of Participatory Budgeting working in partnership, uh will establish and manage a participatory budgeting process for residents to both engage with the city's annual budget process and to make recommendations for projects to include in the budget.

Um I mean, I feel like there's there's a two-part process like that.

This is supposed to create like sort of like a feedback loop where we're not just voting on things every year, we're actually sort of creating advocacy for what we want to see in future budgets.

I is that happening, or do we have to do more?

Uh am I understanding that part right that about purchase three budgeting and and is that are you having discussions you know uh with Office of Budget Management, the mayor's office about what you've you know gained from this, or they're taking these suggestions.

It to me it seems like we're not working on that part, but I'm not in the easier.

So that's that's correct.

The intention is for residents to decide what ideas can be funded with PV money and also helping form budget priorities for the larger budget.

Uh we don't have a way to enforce that obviously.

We we can provide information and departments can look at what at the website we've created to identify what are some of the key priorities that people have.

Yeah, I'm just saying is that happening?

Yeah.

I I um I don't know, maybe some departments are looking at it and considering in their proposals, but um this may be something of an area potentially for growth as we continue to have the process.

No, I mean I want to hear from them that oh, we you know we've talked to Renato, and you know, like at least we have some got you know some guidance there about what you've picked up in your all of your community outreach and what people want to see in the budget.

Okay, uh, but just uh and uh just one last thing for me, and I think Councillor Culpepper, while while uh you stepped out Councillor Braden was talking about um you know her support for the for participatory budgeting, which I think I I join with both of you on that.

In terms of the sort of neighborhood specific things, uh this is um which I you I think if I understand your suggestion, uh which I mean sounds good, it just in terms of the projects that get awarded, I feel like you know, when you look at uh basically immigrant legal defense, uh fresh food access, youth uh rent stabilization, that those are city-wide projects I think that we come to and require sort of cross you know, district discussions, but I don't know what you know, in terms of like and maybe I I I just in terms of I I I'll let Councillor Culpepper address this, but in terms of your office, like when you're looking at projects and things are citywide versus neighborhood specific, or like how how does that factor in to your analysis of a project?

Yeah, so the projects I think are set up in a way in which multiple parts of the city can benefit from, be it through um you know, grants to different nonprofits, or one example is the bus benches from the first cycle.

So those will we have 120 benches that will be placed across the city in areas that are most needed.

Um so for one example we have for like a neighborhood specific was um the trash containers in the olston Brighton area.

Uh but for the most part uh projects that win any any neighborhood of the city can technically benefit from them is it's just it just depends on um groups applying for the funds, or if it makes sense for that neighborhood if it's like a physical um uh improvements.

Okay, um so I just I want to take a break.

If anybody here wants to testify, you have two minutes.

I see some folks now.

Uh yes, you just get two minutes.

No one online, no one online?

Okay.

Uh so we're gonna go to a second round of questions.

Um I guess Councillor Flynn, uh, I'm gonna give you uh three minutes.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

I know one of my colleagues brought up the age of participatory budget um residents that are able to vote.

Is that accurate?

Age 11-year-old, uh, youth age 11-year-old are able to vote on this budget.

So the age range was something that was determined in collaboration with our external oversight board when we were drafting and creating the parameters of the process by looking at what other municipalities are doing with their PV process.

So we also have a youth focused participatory budget in the city.

But are they able to vote on the budget?

On the participatory budget impact.

Yes, there is correctly.

Yeah.

So we have brackets to do the analysis of the data, 11 through 19 is one of those brackets.

Okay.

And they're voting on the voting on where taxpayer money should be spent.

Is that accurate to say?

Yeah, that's correct.

Yeah.

I do disagree with that.

I don't want to be disagreeable, but I do disagree with that.

11-year-old, um, what is that age?

I mean, grade five, grade six, maybe.

Um, I don't think they should be voting on millions of dollars of taxpayer money, especially where when we're raising property taxes, double digit um two years in a row.

I just I know most of my colleagues disagree with me, and I I respect their position, but I do think during these challenging times, we have to be fiscally disciplined, fiscally responsible, accountable, transparent.

I just don't support 11 and 12-year-old kids voting on millions of dollars where to allocate these funds because it's not it's not our money.

It's not it's not the city of Boston's money, it's taxpayer money.

We have we have to remember that taxpayers work hard, they play by the rules, and they do want us to come to City Hall to be fiscally responsible.

I don't think, and and maybe maybe you're right, maybe residents do want it because they voted for it.

Um but I just think during these challenging economic times, having 11-year-old kids voting on millions of dollars where to allocate that funds is not appropriate.

Thank you, Mr.

Chill.

If I may comment on the other, of course, of course.

Um the ideas that we receive and the development of the proposals, it is basically a community effort.

We have from what I saw, you know, young young people from like 14, 15, 16 in these meetings with people who are in their 60s, 70s, 80s, uh, and all the ages in between.

So the ideas that make it to the ballot at the end of the day was a collaboration of the priorities that all residents of the city want to see funded.

Um the voting aspect of it, uh, as I noted on that bracket 11 to 19, it's only 8% of participants who actually voted.

We don't know what the actual number is for 11 or 12-year-olds, but the what they are voting on was decided as a collective from the city and it's a set uh amount of funding for specific proposals that people want to see funded.

So I see it as you know, a great exercise in you know getting young kids to get involved in city government and you know, um uh deciding what they want to see for their community.

So just want to clarify, I see I see your point, but up until the point in which we're voting, there was a whole process where communities decided what they wanted to see on the ballot.

So that's what young people are voting for.

Thank you.

Yeah, you can yeah, thank you for your response.

Um thank you, Mr.

Chair, for giving me the opportunity to ask um another question.

Okay, yeah, just before Councillor Cole Pepper, in terms of just the general numbers, like you know, I thought we were supposed to start out.

We're only using part of the the funds available for participatory budgeting, like and there'll be money left over at the end of this fiscal year.

Is that right?

And then how much would we have how like I guess uh the idea is to be able to you know use a f have the fund not use the entire amount every year?

Is that right?

All right.

So we we started with 2 million dollars the first cycle, yeah, uh 2.2 this previous one, and the idea is to have 2 million dollars for the upcoming PV cycle.

Um we are able to maintain that level of funding if or even though we have a decrease to our um appropriations to our um what do you call it special um missing the name of the line.

Um we are able to maintain that level of funding if or even though we have a decrease to our um appropriations to our um what do you call it special um missing the name of the line but I so I thought we special appropriations we didn't approve like allocate the two million from the first year am I correct about that so we have a f we had four million the second year but we use two million for participatory that's correct and so at the end of this year there will be an extra two million and then we're adding one point eight to that or is is that one point uh yes that's correct okay and then the idea would be to use one point eight or two the two million use two out of the three point eight or whatever it is right so at the end um I provide Councillor Coletta the the number so at the end of this fiscal year we'll have two point two in the special revenue fund um and we'll have one point one coming from the FY27 so uh we'll have about three million okay and then we're and we'll use two out of that okay yeah okay thank you um counselor Culpepper thank you Mr.

Chair Matt and uh again unlike my colleague I think the young folks voting is just incredible I really do in fact I think if young folks had voted for the president we may not have ended up with the president that we have but let me say this I wanted to ask you a couple of questions about outreach because we talked a little bit earlier about that and out of the twelve hundred ideas that were collected you held 31 co-sponsored idea collection workshops where were they um in neighborhoods across the city I could get you the exact locations I don't have that you can't tell me yeah you get that for me because it's important no where those 31 co-sponsored ideas emanated from because that was the beginning of it in July 2025 what about proposal development you did five in person forums right you hosted one in east Boston one in Brighton one in Mattan was it two in City Hall?

Correct so you didn't do one in Roxbury we did one in Roxbury during the first year during the first cycle so we are trying was that the July 2025 cycle July 2024 cycle okay so when you came to November 2025 there was because this is another year now right yeah so we fiscal year yeah it's another year but but you didn't there wasn't one held in Roxbury or Dorchester.

Yeah so we are for the events in the fall these forums we're trying to rotate different neighborhoods as we do different new cycles each year.

So the first year we did East Boston Roxbury and Dorchester 2024 2024 fall of 2024.

Then fall of 2025 we did uh oldston we did marapan and we went to East Boston again for this new cycle we're doing Hyde Park Upham's corner and Chinatown right but my concern is that these are the proposal developments this is where the proposal developed so in Roxbury and Dorchester they didn't have an opportunity to develop proposals from that area of the city and then when you go down to the voting in 2026 from January to February there were the 13 ballot proposals and the highest voted turnout was in Jamaica plain Dorchester Brighton Halls and East Boston and Rosendale again no Roxbury and so my concern is that if you have the idea collections in parts of the city but not Roxbury and then you get to the proposal development again not Roxbury you get to the final voting not Roxbury again and that's why I wanted to see it within different districts because you don't exclude critical areas of the city that very much would probably like to be part of this.

Yeah we're not excluding anyone anyone can participate I mean but if they're not included then they're excluded yeah they are included because we hosted uh we had one of the community partners that work with us was Union Capital Boston and I believe they hosted two uh forums in the Roxbury area so we received ideas from roxbury okay I'm just looking at what you gave me when when would they host it there?

I'm just looking at in the summer in this July of last year.

Uh doesn't say anything about any of those being in Roxbury or Dorchester.

When you get to the October to November proposal development, and see, I think when you start with the ideas and the proposal development, and then the voting, I think it's a building process.

And I think once you start developing the idea collection, and you have the ideas coming from certain parts of the city, and then you get to the proposal development, uh, and the voting.

If you don't have the ideas as part of the proposal development, then when you get to the voting, you'll have less voting on the areas where there was no proposal development and where there was no ideas.

That's why I said, for my perspective, Mr.

Chair, the fairest way is to look at the different districts in the city, right?

Have the idea collections in different districts, have the proposal development in different districts, and then you'll get the voting that can be citywide or district wide, but at least you ensure that every part of the city is included in all three areas of the development for the participatory budgeting.

Right.

Oh, yeah, I'll I'll say, you know, we try to do as much as we can with the resources we have.

Um we did host one of the forums in Roxbury during the first cycle of the PV process, and we rotate it.

2024.

Right.

That's correct.

But see, then you come to 2026 for the voting, right?

Two years later, and you haven't done one in them for two years, you're gonna have less voting.

And let me tell you why.

So you had uh out of 4800 votes, 48 41.

The highest turnout was in Jamaica Plain, right?

Then the next highest was in Dorchester, then Brighton and Alston and East Boston.

If you look at where you held the proposal development in the idea collections, you'll see that most of that came from the areas where you have the highest voting.

I think there may be a relation there.

There is also the connection of the the groups that were working with where they are based based from on.

Uh we did have one of the groups being in in Roxbury, so I think that's why I want to stress the importance of us having enough resources in the contracting services line to be able to work with nonprofits that work in some of those neighborhoods.

Um the night the one thing to clarify if I may anyone can participate in these forums.

I know it is difficult from someone from Roxbury to come to uh Austin for a forum.

We did have people from East Boston and Marapan in Austin helping you know develop those ideas.

And with the capacity we have as a team, each year we want to rotate so different neighborhoods have the opportunity to have to be you know to be host so they can host a forum in each of the neighborhoods.

So the 19 nonprofits that received the grants, where were they from?

That's the information I can get you.

I don't know, top of my mind, but I can provide you the list and see that's exactly what I'm pointing to.

If you distributed per district, at least I know my district would be part of the idea collection, part of the proposal development, part of the voting, and also part of the grants that go to the nonprofits.

I just want to make sure that it's fairly done, and from the way I see it now, and I'm not saying you intentionally didn't do it in a way that every district was touched, but the way that it happened, every district wasn't touched.

And I'm just saying and recommended maybe Mr.

Chair, we can look at it from a different perspective to make sure that every area of the city is touched so that we do get idea collection from every area of the city, that we do get proposal development from every area of the city, and that the voting comes from every area of the city.

That's all.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

And uh so um we we have a high school student interning uh with us this week who's over there.

Um according to his parents, he's probably the smartest student in the city, but uh he didn't know about participatory budgeting um until researching this hearing.

See, we have some other where where are we where are we at with high schools?

No, anybody knows Latin academic Latin at BLA, okay.

Okay, we got a B we got an O'Brien student over here.

Yeah.

Well, my daughter is an eighth grade at BLA, so go dragons.

Um, but um so I mean we have a captive audience in schools, like I don't know why every high school senior does or whatever, you know, the high school, we have an assembly, and everyone walks in with a sheet of paper and we do a whatever half an hour presentation on like they they could all vote in this.

Uh have you have you given any thought to that?

Yes, yes.

Uh we've the first year uh we partnered with civics uh teachers from um BPS so they can discuss participatory budgeting and and do the voting.

Um we didn't have a a big um turnouting votes through that effort.

And you know, we this is um I know it's uh it's a population that we really want to get more involved with participatory budgeting.

We're trying to find the best way to partner with BPS to do this.

Okay.

Yeah, I know I just uh I I mean we got five high school kids here, they could all vote right now.

Um I say that one of the that's one of the strategies that Cambridge uses.

For instance, they have great voter turnout because of that partnership, so it is something we want to continue to explain.

Yeah.

Um thank you very much.

I think we've heard some good ideas, and I know uh you know most of the council believes in this uh in the work you're doing and uh wants to figure out a way to you know make it make it more effective and uh more equitable and and so we can make the case for increasing funding in the future and um uh so that's okay, and nobody wants to testify in person, no, it doesn't look like it.

Um sorry I I I'm losing my hearing on my left side.

I I'm not sure what was what that was.

But uh uh okay.

Well, thank you very much.

I want to thank everyone who's here and to learn and listen about it and tell your friends and you know that we have this, we have we're gonna roughly two million dollars to figure out what to do, and uh everyone in the community gets to vote on it and decide how to use that money and let's uh you know let's all work on this together and and thank you very much.

Mr.

Chair, if I may uh well I'm again I don't know, something is happening over there.

Yes, of course.

I I do want to really thank the young folks for coming out and for sitting through this entire session so they could hear the discussion about participatory budgeting.

And I really do want us to figure out some way to involve as many of the young folks as possible, because I think it's critical that if we can involve 11-year-olds, and I say, look, let them vote on the participatory budgeting.

If we can start them at 11, can you imagine where they will be at 16 or 17 in terms of the civic process?

And that's what we really want them to do to be civically engaged.

So thank you.

Thank you.

And when you finish in the council Weber's office, young man?

Uh come on down to D7.

Okay, well, thank you very much.

Uh I'm sure Cyrus will take you up on that.

Uh okay, well, uh thank you again for being here, and thank you to central staff.

Uh just another day in the the budget hearing process.

We'll be coming back uh on Monday.

Okay, thank you.

This hearing chair is now adjourned.

Thank you, Counselor.

Okay.