Good morning.

My name is Ben Weber.

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

Today is April twenty-seventh, two thousand twenty-six, and the exact time is ten.gov slash city dash council dash TV and broadcast on Xfinity Channel Eight, RCN Channel Eighty Two, and FIOS Channel Nine Sixty Four.

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

You can do so in several ways.

First, you can attend one of our hearings and big give public testimony in person or online.

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

The two public listening sessions will be held here in the chamber in person on uh Tuesday.

It's tomorrow, April 28th at 6 p.m.

And then again on uh Tuesday uh Thursday, May 26th at 6 p.m.

You can give testimony in person here in the chamber virtually via Zoom.

Uh for in-person testimony, uh please come to the chamber and sign up on the sheet near the entrance.

For virtual testimony, you can sign up using our online form at our council budget review website, or by emailing the committee at ccc.wm at Boston.gov or by emailing Karishma Chohan at Cry K-A-R ISHMA.CHOUHAN at Boston.gov.

When you are called to testify, please state your name and affiliation uh or your residence and uh limit your comments to two minutes.

Um in lieu of of testifying in person or virtually, you can also email written testimony to the committee at ccc.wm at Boston.gov.

Lastly, you can submit a two-minute video of your testimony through the form 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-budget.

In-person public testimony will be taken following the first round of counselor questions.

Individuals will be called on the order which they've signed up and will have two minutes to testify.

Again, if you wish to testify publicly and have uh have not signed up on the sheet already, uh please do so.

Or if you want to testify virtually, email uh our director of legislative budget analysis, Kurishma Choan at K-A-R-I-S-H-M-A dot C H O U H A N at Boston.gov for the zoom link, and your name will be added to the list.

Uh perhaps for better ways uh for that we can get public testimony uh virtually.

Uh we've assembled a panel today who can help us with that.

Uh today's hearing is on docket numbers 0733 to 0740 uh and uh number and docket numbers 757 for an overview of the FY27 operating budget uh focusing on the Department of Innovation and Technology.

This hearing will also cover the PEG Access Fund.

Uh this is one of a series of hearings we'll be holding on the FY27 budget.

Uh for my colleagues' uh information, Chief Garcis will be joining us virtually today, and we can see him up on the screen.

Uh these matters were sponsored by Mayor Michelle Wu and will refer to the committee on April 8th, 2026.

Today I'm joined by my colleagues in order of arrival, Councilor Flynn, Councilor Murphy, thank you very much.

Um we uh we usually waive we wave opening statements at these hearings, so we're gonna go right to the panel.

Let me introduce you.

Uh we're joined by Chief Information Officer for the City of Boston, Santi Garcis, who's virtual.

Can you hear me?

Uh yes, looks like a thumb.

And yeah.

We have uh chief of staff Kerry uh Jordan, great, uh Department for the for the Department of Innovation and Technology.

We have uh Sheila Lee, Director of Operations, uh Department of You know, for the Department of Innovation and Technology, and the uh and do its digital equity officer and director of broadband and cable, Brian Donahue.

Am I pronouncing that right?

Okay.

Uh so I'm gonna hand it over to the panel.

I don't know if you have a presentation, um, but the floor is now yours.

Thank you so much, counselor.

And again, my apologies for not being there in person.

There's a last-minute urgent matter that uh took me away from being able to join in person.

And my apologies, but let me and and again thanks to my amazing colleagues that are there in person who will be able to uh support the hearing.

Um can you see the presentation all right?

Yes, yes, we can.

Perfect.

Um so again, it is uh my honor to share with you uh the uh proposed budget for the Department of Innovation and Technology for the fiscal year 2027.

Um foremost, if there are anyone in the room that is not familiar or virtually that is not familiar, do it is the city's uh principal um uh like the central innovation and technology team.

So we support every department and agency, and we connect them.

We connect them with residents that live in every neighborhood and every corner of the city.

We connect about 367 buildings.

Uh we connect about uh 20,000 employees, and the people, everybody who gets a paycheck from the city of Boston gets so by a system that is stewarded by us.

So we're really kind of like at the heart of the operation and supporting all of the great work that all of our departments and and cabinets do.

So this past year, and thanks to our mayor and to the support of the city council, we've been busy uh driving uh progress at the city.

Um the first set of areas where we've been investing is to build a more seamless city experience.

So uh we know that our constituents uh are entitled and they deserve the best of the best in terms of having a government that is simple, that is intuitive, that is effective.

So we've been in the process of modernizing a lot of like the inner workings of the systems that connect constituents with the services that they request from us, especially those services that are um kind of like in the public right of way uh when you report that there's an issue or you request a service.

Uh that's what we call the uh basic city services modernization.

Uh we've also been really busy in improving the way that uh the permitting experience works, focusing on constituents.

Um, and we'll share more about that.

And then we've been, again, thanks to the investment of the council, we've been able to bring capabilities that in the past have been outside of city government, inside of city government.

So we've also been able to uh create this new experience for property owners to search information about their properties.

That's not really just property owners, but anyone who's curious to understand what is the SS value, what is the type of use, um, be able to understand information about uh different permits and different um things that are occurring in the in their neighborhoods that they can find this information in the past for comparable projects, we've received the um bids or or quotes for about half a million dollars per these projects, and then we were able to do this entirely in-house.

Um first I just wanted to share.

So this is a side of the puzzle that most people don't get to see.

But uh Lagan has been the system as our uh constituent resource management system, and it's a system that has been with the city for over 20 years, and it's a system that uh again, it's a commercial system, but um it it has not been supported by the manufacturer.

In fact, the people that make this system have sold over the system uh several times over.

And um we are at a time and a place where this is not really serving our needs.

There's a number of uh operational issues and security issues that have really forces over the past few years to make improvements.

Um and again, this is all of the information, the databases and all the systems that uh kind of like track all the requests that went whether you call through on one or you you enter the information in the mobile app.

Um the new system that we've been replacing is encompassed by a collection of different tools.

But the f the first is this new constituent relationship management system that is powered by a company called CREATIO, and it is a Boston-based company.

It is a company that is based uh their headquarters are right across the street from City Hall.

Um and again, it gives us uh much more security, uh, gives us the ability of being able to innovate and and develop new capabilities quickly.

In fact, it is the system that we use during the elections to be able to track any issues uh related to elections day.

Um and we've been also working with OpenGov, which is a national-based company, but they have uh uh offices in Boston.

Um and and again, one of the main things that we've been working on is changing the way that we captured this information.

So in the past, and still in the new system, whenever someone reports that there's an issue, this information is flowing from a constituent to this uh CRM and then to this uh asset management system.

But precisely because we have a system that tracks assets, we're able to see if there's recurring issues against the same asset.

So, for instance, like do we get multiple complaints about the same traffic light or about the same streetlight or about the same rubbish bin or bench in a park?

And that helps us plan better and be able to understand if maybe the this the asset that we have is past its prime and it is better to prioritize through a capital expenditure.

So it is all about working better and uh and and smarter instead of harder, all of it um enabling a better experience for our constituents as well that they don't get to see these systems, but that's what we've been up to.

Um, and this this current year, our goal um we'll extend over the fall, but to replace this last system.

Another thing that we've been working on is on the permitting transformation initiative, and again, this is something that is very much enabled by the work that the council and the mayor have done, both through the executive order and by the um council order that was passed uh last year.

And one of the things that we have learned is that uh permitting is an area where um only about 37% of people have reported satisfaction with with permitting.

This is a number that has improved uh a little bit.

We we uh we asked our constituents about how they feel about different city services through some surveys.

And about half of the constituents that responded to the survey told us that the primary reason why they are dissatisfied with permitting is because the information that we give them about what they need to do is unclear.

So, thanks to a combination of our teams, our data analytics team, our user research team, and in partnership with IAZ, and actually with our residents or constituents.

We went and we talked to people that actually request these permits.

We were able to understand what are the common things that people are actually trying to do.

So most people are not trying to get an electrical permit, they're trying to refurbish their bathroom, they want to invest in a new restaurant, they want to um build a deck, they want to do these things, they want to put solar panels.

So we've built a new hub in Boston.gov slash permitting that is creating this new type of content that explains to people how is it that they can achieve the things that they're aiming to do and relate them to the administrative permits.

And um we're gathering a lot of feedback and and kind of making improvements based on what we're hearing from constituents both online and in person through different engagements that we have.

Um, and our goal is as we go into the next fiscal year and continue using the both the capital and operating funds that have been set aside for this to build a permitting system that works in this way.

So there's no actual permit type for building a deck or for putting solar panels, but there's a number of different administrative requirements to do these things, and we want to make it so that the system's working for you instead of you having to figure out how to work out the system.

Um properties.boston.gov again is uh new interface for people to be able to find information about their properties.

Um whether you are you know think about investing in a property and you don't know who the owner is, uh you want to, you're a property tax owner and you want to see how the assess value of your property has changed over time.

This is again a project, a product that was built by our digital services team in partnership with our data team, um, and in very close partnership with assessing and others.

So, again, this is a pro something that would have traditionally been outsourced, but that we've been able to do in-house because you guys have helped us uh invest in in really talented staff members and continue to build off of the capabilities that our staff uh has had.

Um next, we've been working on an empowered city workforce.

So we've been extending uh beacon is one of the systems that the city has uh used for HR for the past few years.

Um, and we have extended this to uh to be able to be used by IT for fiscal year 27.

We're actually hoping to our plan is to consolidate a couple of different tools that we have to uh enable people to submit um requests that are going to the law department or to finance and run it all on beacon, and I'll show you a little bit about some of the advantages that that gives us.

The second place is we've been um making improvements to our employee self-service.

So um this coming weekend, if everything goes according to plan, we're still working on this.

We will be migrating the technology that employees use to request uh time off and to interact with the city.

Again, this is the system that everybody both, whether they work in the Boston public schools or um in uh uh parks.

This is the system that we use for for interacting with our with our employees.

And um, we had an actual quote to do this migration from the current system to the new system, which actually reduces some components and it is uh more secure.

Um, but we had received a quote for 1.2 million dollars to be able to do this transition, and at the time we had decided not to fund it.

Uh instead, our team was able to do the work in-house.

They were able to um figure out and learn how is it that we could deploy this new experience and being able to do all the work.

So the city saved 1.2 million dollars by doing this work in-house, and hopefully by next Monday, people will be able to see the this new solution.

And then we've also been investing in this Boston data hub, so replacing our uh old data warehousing infrastructure to um a cloud um data infrastructure that again is gathering information from different departments, kind of this like shared space uh for data, and we by virtue of doing this work in-house, we've been able to save uh about 200,000 a year in licensing costs, and actually in the past, we only had 50 licenses for staff members to be able to access the data warehouse, and now we have the ability of sharing the data warehouse with uh with all employees, obviously using different restrictions for for data that is um regulated.

Um, but we also were able to save about a million dollars of professional services that was what we were quoted to do the migration by doing the work in house.

So again, just um the the investments that the council over the past few years have done in letting us have a few more uh staff members is really paid off in our ability to complete projects um for less money.

Um we talked about service management again.

What does this mean?

It means that for the first time we kind of have visibility around like what what is it that people are requesting from do it at a large scale, and then and as I mentioned, we our intent is to scale this.

So we've since October of last year uh when we went live, we've received 12,000 service requests.

Um again, this is all the way from someone requesting us to um help them with uh the design for a campaign that our creative services team does, or they need uh new email distribution, or they uh want to their their Wi-Fi is not working.

We've received 12,000 of these requests, and again, do it is a complex team.

Um we have 43 different technical teams that are managing different components of a really complex uh technology infrastructure that is reflected in the fact that we support 413 different services, so like when whether it's Wi-Fi or the fiber network that connects all the different buildings or the phone on someone's desk, all of these are different kinds of services, so we're able to track what the issues are.

Um we now know that we resolve um our median resolution time is 3.75 days, so we we're really fast at resolving some simple issues, and we it takes longer to resolve uh issues that are more complex, but now we have an ability of measuring and try to make improvements towards that.

And all of these service deliveries also happening in the context of uh we've been implementing and working using uh some methodologies that we're called like agile methodologies and and DevOps.

So we on top of all of these service requests work, we are um every quarter fulfilling about 400, so in a year, about 1600 project components.

So these are all of the projects that help us do major work to help us continue to improve our environment to make to be more secure and reliable.

Um just to show you this is what the new employee self-service uh environment will look like.

If it seems similar to the current one, is because the goal was to make it very similar to the current one.

But the nice thing is that we've actually been able to simplify so we're actually removing some components from our environment which improves security and reliability.

Um, and hopefully um our employees will all be able to access this in a week.

Um, and again, we've have um the great um work thanks to this is uh the work of Kerry Jordan, our chief of staff in partnership with uh Marcy Osberg and from others across the city, but um, we wanted to celebrate all of the creativity and hard work of our employees.

So our employees are constantly using skills that we that we've been training people on and uh just investing time in making government work better for our constituents.

So we've been saving hundreds of thousands of hours when you add up, like when you save five minutes, um, for instance, with the with the registry, we're able to reduce the amount of time that that constituent waited um in the lobby from 12 minutes to about five to six minutes.

When you add that across the tens of thousands of people that come to the registry, you're saving so much time across the board, and we wanted to celebrate all of this creativity and innovation that our employees are driving.

So uh next May 6, we'll be having in Court Street an open um kind of innovation expo where people are going to be able to see some of the work that our that our employees are driving.

So as of uh five minutes ago, as of this week, we have made public what has been a lot of work, and this is accessible on the website is the Curb Atlas.

And we're starting uh initially, our prototype is just for Chinatown.

We'll be expanding to Charlestown later this week, and then also for All City for paid parking.

But the council had asked us to figure out how that constituents can see where can someone find parking depending on the regulations and the restrictions that they have.

So where can someone find parking if they have a resident parking sticker or if they have they want to do paid parking or if there's a loading zone?

And our team, our emerging technologies team has been able to leverage a lot of these asset data, all the data that we have about all the street signs that we've been I mentioned earlier.

Santi, sorry, could you just just uh slow down?

I know there's a lot to get through, and it's highly technical, maybe just uh just a little slower uh for us.

So thank you.

Absolutely.

Also then, and if you have questions, obviously happy to go back then.

But um, anyways, the most important thing is we have the ability of letting constituents see where there's parking available and where parking is not available and their streets, which is a thing that we know that the council has been really keen on.

Um, it will allow the team in the streets cabinet to be able to do a better job in planning when there's construction to understand where there might be areas that are being impacted.

So we'll be happy to share the link so you'll be able to see again like the prototype is up on the website for uh Chinatown, and uh later this week we'll be getting more and more information.

Um again, it's related to the asset management work that we had shared before.

Try to go a little bit slower.

I get excited about this stuff.

Um another exciting project, which again has been the council has given us uh some additional resources to pursue these kinds of projects.

So the first piece is the underlying data infrastructure that the city has is really important.

So the record that we have of where our streets go and how are they configured is what enables us to be able to do route optimization.

Um our team has done a lot of work improving the quality of this data.

In the past, we used to have four different data sets across the city.

Streets had one, the police department had one, and obviously this creates issues for a number of reasons, but the biggest issue is that it also prevents us from being able to do route optimization and other things.

So this is an example of a project that our analytics team has done in partnership with the solid waste team.

And what you can see is um mattress pickup, which again was a thing that was uh required by the state a couple of years ago, um, has as we know a lot of seasonality.

So around September 1st, there's a large number of people that dispose of their mattresses.

Um, and it's unusual compared to the regular pattern.

And the currently there's three different pickup zones.

So what our team was able to do in partnership with um the uh with with Solid Waste is figure out if there's a way in which we can allocate those pickups differently to try to minimize the disruption.

So when the chart, these big spikes are when there's a longer lag, a longer time for people to collect the mattress.

Um, but it's partially again because we're using in in the past, we're using these like static areas to do mattress pickups.

So our team worked with the mattress pickup team to be able to um adjust the way that the pickups are distributed across the three different uh teams to be able to reduce the seasonality, and you see that in the red chart um because there's no spikes.

So this is work again.

Like I don't know if it's yet in production or it's something that we're still working on with with Solid Waste, but this is exactly the kind of uh work that we're able to do now, thanks to the investment of the council and giving us this.

This is work that was done entirely in-house by our team.

Um so again, connecting our constituents with these resources.

We've been spending a lot of time and a lot of money and building a great digital infrastructure, but we know that this doesn't mean much if the people that need it the most cannot connect.

So we have partner with 36 community partners, and I know that Glenn from BNN is in the room, and BNN is definitely one of our key partners here, and they're the um they're our partner in being able to broadcast uh all of the public meetings at the city through our community access and through uh city cable channel.

So there's a lot of recognition and gratitude for our partners.

Um but again, these are our what we've worked to serve uh over 11,000 constituents to make sure that they have access to devices, to affordable internet and to digital skills to uh enable those people to access digital resources in a way that are safe in a way that are helpful.

Um, and all of that requires a lot of partnership and work from our um from our team.

Um we are really grateful for uh the state uh being able to give us some funding to expand wicked free Wi-Fi, and again, we work closely with our equity cabinet and with others to make sure that we were putting these investments into places where it had the biggest impact.

So we started to focus on areas where there was high incidence of people that we knew uh lacked limited that had limited access to data on their phone.

So we put it primarily in commuting nodes.

So we uh expanded to Nubian Square, Matapan Square, Egglist Square, Maverick Square, Malcolm X Park.

Um so Wicked Free Wi-Fi serves about 117,000 unique users since we launched.

That means that about 50 to 60,000 people are using Wicked Free Wi-Fi every month.

That's the the average for the unique number of users.

And we know, thanks to our digital equity survey, that it is those constituents needed the most that are that are getting access to Wicked Free Wi-Fi.

Um, thanks to the council for appropriating the funds from from another grant that we received from the state, we're going to be in a position to refurbish and improve all of the computers in the Boston community um and the BCYF centers, um, and partnering with other departments that serve the public to make sure that uh our constituents that are needing to use these devices to access career, to access entertainment, to access uh skill building, all are doing it with devices that are reliable that are working, and that's work that Brian's team um is peer heading.

So um again, we're so proud like that this work wouldn't be able to happen if it wasn't for the partnerships that we have with our community organizations in healthcare and housing and in many other spaces, um, and obviously the support of the council in in helping us do this work.

Um so our proposed budget for FY27.

So this is a difficult year from a financial standpoint.

We're working very closely with budget and with our financial team and and with others.

Um so we are proposing a budget that has reductions.

Um again, we're able to do this because we have done investments over the past few years that are allowing us to replace services that are less secure, less reliable, and more expensive to new, more modern systems.

Um we know that we're able to drive down costs across the city when we leverage the fact that do it is a shared resource.

So instead of having five different CRMs, having one CRM that serves five or ten departments is less expensive overall.

Um so even though we have limitations in our ability to serve everybody, we we're uh we we know that this shared service approach um has the best bank for the buck.

Um we are also bringing this constituent experience to City Hall.

So we're using, as we mentioned, these like user research, uh impact evaluation, and all of these great relationships to serve.

So even though do it doesn't necessarily do a lot of work directly uh with the public, we're supporting all of the departments and agencies that are working on supporting these our residents and making sure that they're having the best of the best resources.

Um to have um to have the best uh experience.

Um and again, digital equity, so always making sure that our constituents have the right resources and the right tools to be able to do their work.

Um so again, that concludes our presentation for the day.

And we're happy to take questions, unless Brian, uh Sheila, or Kerry want to if I miss something.

They gave thumbs up.

I think that means you covered everything.

Yeah, sorry there.

I felt like I was listening to a podcast where I accidentally pressed like two point two times or something.

Uh so went back to like 1.5.

Thank you very much.

Um, we've been joined by Councillor Durkin.

Uh I'm gonna start with uh go to my colleagues now in order of arrival, uh, Councillor Flynn.

Um you have six minutes.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair, and thank you to the administration team for being here.

Especially want to say thank you to Kerry Jordan, who I've worked with for eight years, does an exceptional job, but also the entire do it team as well.

Um let me let me start with a quick a quick question or a comment.

How are we working?

Maybe to Kerry.

How are we working with advanced technology to improve um the delivery of basic city services, but also using city workers in that in ensuring that Boston residents are part of that discussion as well.

What do you what are your thoughts about that, Kerry?

My immediate thoughts um thanks for the question, are around our user design team.

So there are very few decisions that we make without capturing that feedback, um, making sure that we're working with residents to figure out exactly what are the needs that we're we're answering to.

So when you look at basic city services, we've been kind of monitoring what are the top tickets, what are the the top needs, and then working with the teams to to build that out.

And then I don't think we're taking any steps without including the people who actually do the work and making sure they're getting the training necessary to deliver for the residents.

Okay, thank you.

Um whoever wants to take this question, I know you mentioned the BCYF department getting it um updates to their computer system.

Um can you give me a little bit of background information on that as it relates to BCYF centers specifically in District 2?

Yeah.

So we were able to work with the state to receive a grant that is going to refresh all of the city computer labs across the city, so that won't uh take into account the place that they were starting out at, which I think that a couple of the uh centers in your district might have needed a little bit of love from a computer standpoint.

So we're basically going to each of the computer centers and uh surveying the folks that are running those centers that are using those centers and making sure that we're able to bring in the exact type of technology that's gonna be the most useful to them if they need to have it be a flexible situation, like they need more laptops than desktops, then we're able to make sure that we fulfill that need in addition to that that we're also investing in some uh accessibility technology to make sure that everybody that comes into the BCYF regardless of where they're coming from from uh from a disability standpoint are able to use those devices effectively and comfortably.

Okay.

I was at a I was at the BCYF Center in at the Blackstone in the South End last week, and they had an outstanding mural program that I attended, and it was wonderful seeing the young people working together, learning from each other, providing critical communication skills.

Um but I do know in some of those old, not not necessarily old building, but buildings that are not all that um helpful to Wi-Fi at times, challenging for Wi-Fi.

Is that something you freak frequently run into?

Um so that's another part that we've uh by an enhanced partnership between ourselves and the BCYF by having a public computer labs uh director to take on that role.

We've exactly focused on that exact question, and we'll be working over the summer and uh the next couple of I guess quarters to make sure that we're able to reinforce all the network infrastructure in each of these sites, and also uh make sure that that is not a problem for folks that are working in the sites.

So that's exactly the kind of thing that we're focused on.

Thank you.

I also know you mentioned um um Glenn at the Boston um Boston Able Network News.

I've seen the work he does, I've seen the team over there, they do an exceptional job.

So I want to give a shout out to um to Glenn, who I know is an outstanding employee as well.

Um thing that was mentioned in the opening statement, something about the Boston election department and improving improving how we uh manage elections through advanced technology.

Give me give me the 20-second version on how how we're going to do that.

I can get started and then just give me just give me the 20-second version.

So again, um we work closely with elections and with uh cross-cutting team from the city, and uh we're focusing on improving the way that um people that were working at the polls were able to get information and report issues that were happening at the polls.

So this uh past election we deployed uh poll pads and we deploy the new system.

So again, we use our uh CRM, the new CRM to build a system to track what were the issues and whether they got resolved.

Um and then thanks to Brian and a couple of other members in our team, we're able to expand network connectivity in some areas because the pulpits need to connect to be able to get real-time information.

So we both made those enhancements at the network level and then created this new system to track this information.

That's the information that um we shared with the Secretary of State to uh to drive improvements.

Yeah, let me uh Mr.

Chair, I have 10 seconds, but can I ask one more question?

Yes.

Okay, just as a follow-up on that.

How much money have we spent on advanced technology or contracts relating to Boston Elections Department since it was um uh over to overseen by the place and receivership by the Secretary of State's office?

I would defer that to the elections department.

Uh development to elections.

I no no, I'm not.

I'm talking I'm talking about advanced technology.

So there, yeah, so there is no on again the whatever funding we did not increase expenditures to cover the um the CRM work, so all of the expenses that were incurred uh in terms of technology to uh make improvements to the elections department were covered by the elections department, so they wouldn't be in do it's budget, so I wouldn't be able to answer your question.

So not none of the funding was coming from do it.

Was do it part of the discussion on what um technology companies would be selected?

We were advising them on how to provision uh those services, yes.

Okay, yeah, that's that's what I was getting at is um you you know I don't think the election department would would move forward without do it's involvement on a contract that we seek advanced technology to implement and deliver an election.

Um but I know the funding itself is not coming from do it, it's coming from the election department.

But um but Mr.

Chair, can I get that um question on the record and maybe the election department in do it could somehow provide me the answer?

Yeah, yeah, we'll work on that.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Thanks for giving me an extra minute.

Okay, we've been joined by Councillor Culpepper, uh Councillor Murphy.

Six minutes.

Thank you.

Um two things.

One, um there was a thorough overview, a lot of work, and you guys live it every day, so you know, but your department has a handle on in every department, I would say.

So a lot happens every year.

I know this could take 20 minutes, so I'll ask this question second, but one thing I did want to um just kind of have you talk through like what are the top three projects you feel like you worked on since last year, but I'm gonna ask my other question first, just in case I ran out of time.

Um, it's 2026, so we could have probably said this in 2015, 2020, but we are becoming more reliant on technology, and it's going faster than it used to, and as we upgrade departments to become more just literate about it, but also giving them the tools to be more digital.

And many of the hearings, not just budget ones I've had this year so far.

We talk a lot about getting communication out, pushing out and another plug for BNN, like a resource many residents do, you know, turn on that TV channel, but many like libraries and BCYF and um, you know put use the internet and use technology to give people not just communications about events coming up, but also you know, pay your bill online.

So, how are we balancing shifting to where we know we're gonna be and making sure we're not leaving anyone behind?

I know that's always the big, you know, digital equity question, but also knowing like isn't there like a state law that we can't ask residents to opt out of getting their taxes paid, even though that would be probably easier to like not send out we're spending millions of dollars on postage and stuff.

So I think on our end, we need to push that.

But so the digital equity, I think every year it seems like it's getting smaller, the group, but the divide in my mind is getting bigger.

And then if you could just touch on maybe three of the biggest projects, maybe they were departmentalized, but that you worked on since last year.

Thank you.

Anyone can be a good idea.

I can I can get started, and then maybe I'll let Brian uh take a make a double take on the digital equity piece.

So again, I think like the three major projects that we've been working on are again the modernization of the basic city services, the 30-1 infrastructure.

Um is a big complex project, and we have been migrating a number of departments.

So we have the parks department already in the new system, we have uh street lighting, urban forestry, and then um our goal is to get public works um over into the new system by June, and then transportation in the fall.

Um, and that'll conclude the all of the major departments.

Um permitting improvements is the other one which we shared, um, and that's a big complex project.

And again, we decided to start tackling issues around um the content, the clarity of the information first.

That was the the area where our constituents told us that there's the biggest gap.

Um, and again, I would say like digital equity um is another of the major areas where we've been working on Brian can add more to this, but um actually since 2019 we've been able to reduce the number of households without internet access in Boston by about half.

There used to be about 32,000 households without internet access.

Um it is, as you mentioned, it is a problem that is tough uh to deal with, and it's hard to track because there's a number of reasons why people are disconnected, and we know that some of it is affordability, some of it is access uh to quality internet, uh, access to devices, access to resources to be able to do the work, and and we try to make sure that we're providing services to everybody regardless of how they prefer to work with us.

Um but uh we know that digital access is a key part.

So it's like we've made a lot of improvements thanks to well, thanks to your uh support and thanks to uh Brian's work.

But I'll turn it over to Brian to maybe dig in a little bit more about how his team is approaching the digital equity work.

Yeah, and I won't belabor the the point about the uh community computer labs because that's something that I think that everybody is very excited about from our standpoint.

Another exciting partnership has been between uh our department and the uh officer returning citizens, and we're making sure that folks who are uh returning from prison are able to get the types of access that they need, in addition to that, getting some of the skills and the basic pieces of the puzzle that they need to participate in society once they're coming back.

Um and one other one that I would highlight, even maybe as a pet project is our uh enhancing our partnership with Madison Park.

Um so Glenn over at BNN has been hosting uh some of the students for uh after school sessions and getting them kind of exposed to what it looks like to do this type of work in the field from an audio and video production standpoint.

In addition to that, we're also having uh one of the folks apprentice um co-op at the cable office down the street.

So we're really excited about that, and just heard today that uh one of the students is uh placed high enough in the Skills USA competition to be traveling for that.

So he's uh he's got a misswork on Thursday and Friday, but we're excited to have him back when he's done.

So uh just hitting a couple of the different pieces of puzzle, but happy to talk through any other parts about it at a deeper level if you'd like.

Okay, thank you.

Okay, thank you very much.

Uh Councillor Durkin, you had six minutes.

You have to yell for six months.

Thank you so much, Counselor Weber and Chair.

Um, well, uh Chief Garces, we haven't had a chance to see each other.

I guess we still haven't because you're on the little box over there.

Um, but we haven't had a chance to see each other um since I worked with Scanska through the Longwood Place development to secure Wi-Fi, public Wi-Fi uh for that development, which is going to be great.

It's um I think it'll be great for the nearby Longwood area medical area.

Um that was an ask that I made through the Article 80 process of the developer.

I know that we are without federal funding, um, or there's been major cuts to federal funding uh for digital access, and I was just curious um if you know what we did there at Longwood Place um through that development could be a model for expanding public Wi-Fi through the city um in times you know, financial hardship.

And I was just curious if you know what we did there at Longwood Place through that development could be a model for expanding public Wi-Fi through the city in times, you know, financial hardship.

Yeah, absolutely.

Again, we're excited to see different partners coming together to enable connectivity.

And again, we know the data shows us that uh people, especially those that have the biggest need, um, are using our free Wi-Fi to connect.

So uh we're be happy to work with the council and with others that are trying to bring these kinds of amenities being something that we think a lot about, and that's something that Brian and Sheila and Carrie uh think as well is making sure that we have the funding to be able to keep up those services, you know, like we have to replace the access points and we need to uh cover some costs of like that's something that's always in our mind whenever we're expanding an area and why we've been so strategic and and pinpointed, but we're always happy to work on an unexpand, we're grateful that uh digital access is such a priority for you as well.

Thank you so much.

And so looking through um, and anyone can answer this question, but looking through the history, it seems like personnel has have gone up five hundred thousand dollars and contractual services have gone down a little over $750,000.

I'm just curious.

I know as a council, as a counselor now in my third budget season, I know that there's way more flexibility with personnel money than there is with contractual services.

So I just was looking to see if there was an overview of um of why personnel has gone up and why contractual services have gone down, and whether in personnel going up or those jobs that already exist, um, or those um, you know, just sort of an explanation for that.

I can start and maybe Sheila can uh supplement my answer.

But again, so the play the first place that I would say is the the pattern that you're observing is there's actually been a deliberate investment both from the mayor and with the support of the council in bringing things that in the past have just been contracted out in-house.

Um as we showed earlier in the presentation, that's how that's uh been able made it possible for us to save millions of dollars of funding that we otherwise would just be spending on contractors instead spending on on our employees.

Um and we continue to benefit from the expertise of our employees that are here at the city uh for a longer period of time.

Um that's a starting place.

Do it like if you compare other cities like Boston, the number of employees that work in technology but also in digital services and data is actually much bigger.

Like you um, if you compare San Francisco has about 400 people in their IT department, but they also have about 160 people that do data and digital, so they have like a couple of different uh cabinets that do what do it does.

Um the the good thing is Boston still is able to really deliver some great things, uh a level a staffing level that is still substantially lower than what other peer cities do.

But generally speaking, the shift that you've seen is a deliberate strategy of bringing those resources in-house with our union high-quality employees and trying to avoid uh outsourcing some of the work.

Thank you.

That makes a lot of sense, and I'm happy to have that answer on the record.

Um, just curious.

Um, I noticed that in fiscal year 24, um, which obviously you you know um that the equipment um expenditure was over $4 million.

Um, and then when you go down to 2025, it's $2 million, down 26, 1.5 million, and then this year what's recommended is 1.3 million, which is down 182,000 from last year.

I'm just curious if you can explain that trend and sort of like what what equipment was being purchased in 2024 that is no longer needed, you know, as we move into these you know later fiscal years.

Sure.

I'll defer Sheila.

Do you want to take this question?

So a lot of the times um during the fiscal year when we require it, we will slowly shift money based on actuals when we have savings in other areas so that we can buy equipment during that year.

Um, but plan for planned equipment, we um specifically want only certain things, and then for um for this budget year, we've also um the lease purchase we've increased the year, so the the spending anticipated spending because of the increased years will is um slightly decreased.

So, are you do you know what the 2024 equipment was that I'm just curious?

I'll need to get back to you.

Okay, thank you.

Yeah, I'm just curious because I obviously equipment has gone down significantly.

Um I mean it it looks like like every other department, um you're spending less on supplies and materials, and um it look it looks I mean to me this budget looks healthy and like I'm I don't have any further questions about this budget.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you very much.

We have been joined by Council President Liz Braden, uh Councillor Culpepper, six minutes.

Thank you, Chairman Weber, and uh thank you to the panelists today, and uh for all that you do.

I had a couple of questions that had to do with the cable and the reduced cable subscription subscriptions, knowing that the seniors, many of the seniors um watch BNN, and they have specific programs that they look at and anticipate.

With regard to the 10 to 15 percent cut, and it says annually, are you saying that that's something that you anticipate for the foreseeable future, or are you looking back and look at how it had to be cut?

Thank you over the last three or four years.

Thank you for the question.

We we've been able to avoid having annual cuts up until this point because there was some uh reserve in that fund.

We're now getting to the point where we're gonna have to start to reduce, but we're also at the same time looking at any and all opportunities where we can consolidate pieces of the infrastructure that are things that are uh potentially costs that the city could help support, and um finding ways where where we can find general cost savings by changing up the different models.

A lot of the uh existing infrastructure is stuff that if once we are able to update it, that it'll be lower ongoing costs.

But um happy to talk more about that, but yeah, that is uh not again our decision, it's the function of these um this funding source being directly tied to uh how many folks sign up for cable.

So we are having to deal with the fact that there's a lot of cord cutting, and uh I know that a lot of folks still do take in this programming, and it's a huge benefit to us, and it's a huge benefit for you all to be able to share uh and communicate through through my friend Glenn over there and through BNN.

So we're thankful for the partnership, and we're uh trying to be very creative with how we find cost savings and shift pieces of the puzzle that are things that the city could help with.

So, what years has it been declining by the 10 to 15 percent?

It's it's been declining by that much for the last uh five, six years at this point.

And so what are what are what are you doing to attract additional cable subscription?

What kind of outreach?

What what are you doing?

So we do a lot of uh community engagement on the standpoint of finding ways that folks can find affordable packages for themselves.

So we don't necessarily do outreach directly on behalf of the cable companies, but we do have a function within our office that helps folks who are finding it unaffordable to find better options and find deals within those uh those cable companies and kind of not to say lean on them but have conversations that enable us to make it so that they're able to stick keep their subscriptions and not have to uh find other cost savings.

What's the percentage of folks that are challenged financially with keeping their subscriptions?

I'd have to get back to you on that exact number.

I I um I know that we have you know maybe a couple folks every month that call up and say uh I think the one just uh Peter from my team just helped one person who was coming from uh the mayor's uh office hours that that had that exact problem.

So I'd have to get back to you on the exact percentages, but um and and as as you cut and as you look at how you reduce uh the programming, how do you make a decision of what gets reduced?

I mean, will one day the council not be able to be seen because of the cuts?

We we we haven't at this point had to reduce any programming.

That's a discussion that we have with with Glenn and our at BNN uh about the different ways we can offset those costs, but up to this point we've not had to make any programming costs whatsoever, I think.

That's that right.

And and when you look at the um the BNN and and the operations when you look at what's at risk if revenue does continue to decline.

What's really gonna be at risk and what's the impact on the public access to government proceedings and community media?

At this point, I think that it's uh it's an uphill battle across the country and definitely across the state for community media.

I I know that there's a lot of advocacy that's going on, and something that we're pushing at the state house right now is something that would help to subsidize and help fund these projects through a small, very minuscule fee on uh services like Google um and other Amazon services like that.

So that's something that Glenn's been taking the lead on as far as advocating for that at the state house, and we're excited because that would if those types of legislation are able to pass, then we would be able to shift where we're seeing the 10% reduction in the cape.

Basically, the people that are cutting their cords are going somewhere.

Right.

And they're going to the place that we're hoping to work with the legislature and the statewide organization that is the community media lead to get that type of legislation passed that would able to is that some kind of home rule petition?

Or are you just working with the legislature for increase appropriations?

It's it's not a home rule petition to my knowledge.

Again, I'm not quite an expert on this.

Maybe Glenn can give uh a minute or two when he gets his his time.

But um the from from our perspective, that's something that's happening at the state level.

So it would be the state um able to pass the legislation, and then they would pass on the funds to ourselves and to it looks like it's just uh an appropriation, not a home rule petition or anything.

Not a home rule petition to my knowledge.

I think it would be a new revenue uh generating mechanism to get some of the money from the folks who are benefiting from the cord cutting, those companies like Amazon and uh and Google.

And so how would that work?

Let's say you did get additional money.

And let's say some of this is subscribers had to pay for Google.

How would that work?

Well, it's a it would be a very small addition on again.

I'm not an expert in legislation.

We can give you a longer briefing, actually if you'd like to okay.

Well, just how would it work in terms of right now they're going into Google, they're not paying anything to go into Google.

If they had to, how would that work?

Uh I see I see what you're saying.

Yeah, so it wouldn't be on the the Google Mail type of stuff, it would be on those additional services like YouTube YouTube TV, I think is one that is uh responsible, or you point to is uh where the where the cord cutters going.

So those are the type of streaming services that I mentioned.

I I miss when I was describing Google, it wasn't just your Gmail, it's uh Counselor Cole Pepper, you may have missed the the beep, but uh I didn't hear a beep.

Okay, well, there were two of them.

There were I could hear them.

Uh but uh I did you mind we so I'm just gonna go to second round.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you very much.

Uh thank you for listening off of that beat.

Yeah, I'll may I'll I'll uh I'll clap my hands next time originally.

Okay.

Uh Counselor Braden, six minutes.

Good morning, good morning, everyone.

Thank you for being here.

Um I see uh from um that do it is losing almost 3.7 million in external funds funding, and how do you expect this to impact external funds projects?

And and do you anticipate a loss of programming due to these cuts?

Like I'm I'm just looking at the at this sheet here.

Um is that how is that going to impact and do it?

So um someone's just saying I'll let Santi start, and if there's uh follow-up questions, happy to so um again, a lot of our digital equity funding has been supported through federal programs that have been funneled through the state um and have allowed us to really expand on a number of areas.

So like we continue to work with the state, and there's programs that are just getting started, so we we we know that there'll still be some time to to make progress on those initiatives.

But uh as Brian was mentioning, and um kind of related to the line of questioning that uh counselor callpaper is making, there's some things that we'll have to figure out around digital equity.

There's some other programs like uh the the stuff that I shared related to the curb lab is funding that we received from the federal government from USDOT.

So um unfortunately there's no additional funding on that program, but to some extent we're grateful that we will be able to that program that project's gonna wrap up and we'll be able to show digital maps of uh parking regulations.

So um to some extent we're we're working really hard with our with our budget office and with uh folks in City Hall to try to figure out how is it that we can minimize the impact, but there's definitely our ability to kind of expand and and and and support more people or do some innovative work has been reduced, and we've been trying to work really hard to try to attract funding from philanthropies and from others who try to make up some of those, but fortunately um broadly speaking, from do it's perspective, there's not uh any projected loss of service that we have.

But fortunately broadly speaking, from do it's perspective, there's not uh any projected loss of surveys that we have uh and our ability to do programming again is mostly focused on digital equity, and I'll turn it over to Brian to see um what else I might have missed.

I didn't miss much.

I think that we're doing what we can with the funding that we have in hand.

Uh uh Councillor Flynn mentioned uh improving the Wi-Fi in the community centers, and those are the types of projects that we're trying to make sure we're making these early investments, and so that once the funding is going away that we'll be able to say we we check that box, we have uh high quality Wi-Fi high quality devices in each of the computer labs before the funding is subset uh sunsets.

And are we partnering with the um broadband companies like Comcast and uh Aspire and those are we are we uh are we partnering with them?

Are they providing services to or are some subsidized um access and for our community centers or anything like that?

Yeah, well we're working we work closely with all of the ISPs in the community.

Uh RCN is one, um Verizon and Comcast as well.

Uh Comcast in particular has made an investment in uh lift zones inside of the community centers, so in locations where it was difficult originally to make sure that we had good connectivity.

That was a program that they had uh built out a while back.

Um so we we do work closely with them and we're uh regulating contact with them for what I was mentioning earlier as far as making sure that residents who come to us and say, Oh, my bill is unaffordable, are able to at least get down to the most uh affordable option that's available to them.

Okay.

And then in terms of just neighborhood equity across across the city, uh, how is um do it ensuring digital services and infrastructure are equitably equitably distributed across the city?

Um I know Alston Brighton is a high proportion of renters, immigrant households, students.

Are we uh how we how are you making sure that you know uh uh digital access is available to folks across the city?

And is there uh is there an update on and how do we know how is there a way to evaluate broadband reliability and public access across you know areas like um Alston Village or Commonwealth of Um, you know, how how do we look at our are there how do we find the gaps in the system?

Yep, um happy to happy to talk through that and maybe leave a little space for Santi's additional comments, but we uh had partnered with the state to run a digital equity survey back in 2024, so we have at least neighborhood level data that I'd be happy to dig in on with you if it's some that's helpful.

We are uh looking forward to working with BNN on updating that survey and figuring out uh at a at an additional level where we've moved as far as progress goes since 2024, and we're excited to uh to get that feedback and would be uh happy to work with you all to make sure that each of the districts has uh outreach that we've uh done for that survey's purpose.

Yeah.

I think um people are feeling the squeeze at the moment, and I think uh you know, and so many more people are using uh internet access, et cetera, to do uh telehealth visits with their doctors, et cetera.

So it's it's almost become an essential utility in a way that electricity was a while ago.

So it's it's really important to make sure that all of our folks get access.

Um in terms of um accessibility for um for seniors, um, how does the this year's uh budget expand digital accessibility for seniors um, particularly in in places where there's large numbers of folks who are trying to age in place.

If they live in a big center, you know, a big multifamily building, it's it's one thing.

But if families uh are living if if seniors are living um in the neighborhood on their own, sort of how do we um work on expanding digital accessibility for those folks?

I I appreciate that question.

It's definitely an area of focus for ourselves in addition to our partners at the BHA who have a significant focus on this.

Uh one of the programs that we are have worked with the state to uh launch and are uh about to do our our next year of is the digital equity fund grants.

So uh those in the previous iterations had uh an emphasis on the senior populations, a couple of the different partners who have that specific focus.

So telehealth or uh specifically for nonprofits that serve folks so they can help age in place.

Those are the two of the programs, but uh those are programs that are state funded and are things that we are going to go through one more cycle of uh at this point that'll um be through October or November of this year.

So we're excited to uh we just got the applicant list back, and we're excited to partner with those organizations to make sure that we are emphasizing on the aging in place aspect of it.

Um are we still working with tech goes home and those groups like that independent nonprofit at this stage?

But uh are we still working with with those folks to try and get uh a lot of more um knowledgeable users?

Yeah, so so um we we are partnering with like Santi mentioned about 35, 36 nonprofits at this point.

Um we had funded previously a number of programs in the community centers that were supported by Tech Goes Home.

Tech O'Shome recently had two um roll-up operations, so we're actually working with with BNE and with the community center leadership to make sure that we're filling the gaps and uh and able to both uh ensure that high quality digital training is going on in our community spaces, but also make sure that folks are able to get the devices and the internet access that they need to to thrive in today's society.

Very good.

Thank you.

Okay, Madam President.

I did try a little call pat removes.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I know people are selectively uh losing their hearing.

Uh okay.

Uh so I can give myself six minutes and test out my auditory uh abilities here.

Um so uh just in terms of uh you know, number of positions in the department and vacancies, like if you look going back to 2022, um there were about 36 vacancies.

Uh and since then, uh I want I I think this suggests that you've done a good job in terms of hiring.

We've added positions, uh maybe 22 positions, I think, and uh the vacancies are have gone down uh to about 23, 22, 23.

So for FY26, it was there were 178 positions and 155 were filled.

Is that number those numbers level for FY27?

Yes, um, and I think that to your point, counselor, there's been we fill some very highly specialized positions, and one thing that we've been really keen on is whenever there's a vacancy, being thoughtful about like updating the job descriptions, you know, like technology's changing, and we want to make sure that we have the right skills.

Um so um I think that but our our intent is to continue the level of staffing leveled, obviously working with our partners in budget and people operations, um, as they've been some uh slowness, you know, like we've we've made a commitment to uh reduce the number of positions posted.

Um so um our our goal is that uh given some of the financial constraints that we're that we're able to prioritize positions to be able to post them and backfill them to make sure that there's continuity of service.

But we um our goal is to stay lit leveled in our in our current uh head count.

Okay, and and you're uh I guess number one that so there's you face some challenges in filling like highly technical positions.

I think there's some companies out there seem to have a lot of resources uh they're in the tech.

It's a growing interest.

No, I'm just kidding.

I mean, it's you know, it's obviously the uh all the money in the world apparently uh is is in these companies.

So what are the sort of positions you have trouble uh uh like sort of matching uh folks' uh you know wages on the I mean we do a lot of work again, first trying to update our positions to meet kind of like the marketplace of of skills, um, and that's also one of the things that drives us to continuously modernize some of the tools that we use because like the using tools that are more modern means that there's a higher availability of people with those skills to to maintain them.

The reality is you pointed out um the private sector when it comes to technology just pays much more money, and then there's also benefits like uh bonuses and a number of different benefits that people have in the private sector.

But I think that we've done a really good job of trying to position uh do it and the city as a leader in uh space doing technology for public good, the projects that we're doing and the work that we're doing, and again, to a great extent because the mayor and because you all trust us and and have given us the resources being able to work on projects that are interesting that are impactful, all of those are the things that have allowed us to um bring people that are not motivated just by the money, they're motivated by mission.

Um we struggle a little bit with all of them to be honest.

Uh the more technical ones are harder to fill.

Well, so I just so for this uh for the FY27 budget.

Have you eliminated any positions, long-term vacancies?

We are on a holding pattern with some positions, but again, one of the things that we do is we upgrade the positions as they become vacant for whatever reason.

So every time that there's a vacancy, we go back and review where do we know that we have gaps and how I said that we could what would have the highest impact?

So uh we've made changes of staffing on to add additional positions to our network team because again we support 400 367 buildings.

Um before I run run out of time, sorry, I apologize.

Uh so the 23 vacancies, you know, like how many of these have been open for longer than I don't know.

What was it what I you can define what a long-term vacancy is, but uh, you know, how many have been open like for a long period of time?

More than six months.

I don't know.

I'll defer to Sheila, but what I would tell you is that we have a plan.

If we were able to post on again, it's just our agreement with with budget and with the mayor is to hold on posting, but we have uh a plan to post every one of those positions if we have the availability tomorrow, and then we would try to hire them.

Okay.

Uh so in terms of the contractual services, that's it's a large decrease.

Uh so you know, can you give us specific examples of contracts or have you decided which contracts you won't be renewing, and you know, what uh I'd appreciate uh later, like maybe a uh a list or or you know, if you if you if you can if you've made decisions already uh and if you want to highlight any contracts that you won't be able to renew uh because of the decrease in contractual services.

I can give you a list.

Some of them are again uh whenever we've had a position that we could replace a contractor with a full-time employee, we've done that, and that's what's led to some increases in in our staffing levels.

We've replaced the solution that we use for our data warehousing tool uh to a new one that costs us less money and gives us broader access that Civ is.

Um we are counting on being able to eliminate the contract for our CRM, which we spoke about in the presentation, so we can give you a more comprehensive list, but that's just a sample of some of the things that we are cutting on next year.

And we're fortunate in the timing of the the new things are coming at a time that we were able to replace the the things that we're using and be at a lower operating uh level.

Okay, I think I heard a bird chirping in here.

I'm not sure what that sound was, so I'll just keep going.

Uh uh, there's more okay.

Um so we're gonna go to uh in uh public testimony uh and then go for a second round here.

So Glenn Williams from the Boston News uh sorry, Boston Neighborhood Network.

Uh I'm gonna it's uh two minutes, you keep your eye on the clock whenever you're ready to start.

Um floor is thank you.

Thank you very much.

I appreciate being here.

Counselors, how are you?

How everybody councilor Culpep, I'm glad you brought up that cord cutting thing because it's such an important thing.

I just came back from Washington, DC testifying to uh House of Representatives, people and all that stuff, and in May 6th, I'm on my way up to the State House to talk about streaming.

Franchise fees back in the 80s, all of these big companies gave this municipalities five percent of the basic subscription to do things like BNN does.

Cord cut, cord cut, cord cut.

Now they're using the same infrastructure to do the streaming, but they're not giving in the five percent.

So we're going up to the state house on May 6th to say how come, and we deserve the three and a half to five percent for our franchise fees, so we can do the things that BNN does.

I'm sure you're all familiar with a lot of it.

All the sports stuff, minute 15, all the sports stuff, all that, you know, all the city council stuff, all the parades, all the things that go on in our city.

We're very, very proud to be part of the of the functioning group.

Um but one of a couple of the things that we've started to do that we're very, very proud of, is we've brought other organizations and we've partnered with a lot of them.

One of them is uh circles of support, people who are whose whose parents or partners have been wrongly accused of things.

They need someplace for the families and the kids to sit and talk.

They come to BNN.

Uh uh content creators with Robert Lewis over in in the mayor's office of tourism and stuff.

We just finished and had a graduation at Emerson.

We brought all these kids in, taught them in six weeks, twice a week.

They produce programming for the television, for the radio, for editing as well.

Madison Park, we do, and we bring kids in from Madison Park to attach to their workforce.

Mass caught mass art as well.

And one of the big ones.

Mr.

Williams, because there's you know, obviously not a long line behind you.

We have one person online.

I'm gonna give you an extra minute, okay?

For the best.

Thank you, counselor.

I appreciate that.

Harvard Health has veterans program where there are senior citizens who need help with technology.

They come to Boston Neighborhood Network, and the questions they're embarrassed to ask their grandkids and stuff.

What's the A with the circle for?

How do I order something online?

But they come to us and they have been for a while.

We're very, very proud of that.

I've been working with Brian.

We're going to be talking about going in to the community centers, building some satellite places for BNN where people can go and learn what's that A for.

Where in their own communities?

So we're um we're very, very proud of the work that we're doing.

And if there's anybody that has any questions, I think you cats know where I am, so you can uh you can please get in contact with us.

Okay.

Thank you very much for the extra minute, counselor.

I do appreciate it.

Uh please be safe.

My my big supporter of BNN.

I did a BNN interview yesterday at the at the pond.

Uh every chance I get it, you know.

I'm sure my colleagues uh you know show up for BNN.

Uh is it in my district?

Uh Councilor Culpepper.

Well, I think my uh I don't know, it may be moving.

The plates, the tectonic plates move, and it might be in my district.

Yeah.

The building right next door is in my district.

Uh so um, you know, it's close.

Uh okay, so we have one uh virtual, one person sign of virtually Lori Radwin.

Uh can you hear me?

I'm still seeing Chief Garcis.

Yeah, no, that's I'm now seeing his name.

Uh Lori, if you can hear us, you gotta be promoted.

Ethan have any advice.

We we we can uh move on, and then if Laura if Ms.

Radwin can log on, then we'll just uh pause between counselors.

But she dropped on okay.

Uh well uh uh Laurie, if you can log back on, uh we'll we'll get your testimony in.

But uh for now we're gonna go to a second round for my colleagues uh in order of arrival, which would be Councillor Flynn for you, Councilor Culpepper.

Um Counselor Flynn, uh five minutes.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Again, thank you to the administration team that is here.

Before I ask my before you ask my question, I I did want to mention that I'm in a graduate leadership program, and one of the discussions we've been having is about artificial intelligence.

Um so my question is how is the city currently using artificial intelligence or AI in city government and where are we utilizing the technology from and is there a data center in the city or state, or how is Boston using it?

But but I also have a hearing order coming up this week.

I would like residents to have a discussion about a data center, maybe considering a moratorium on having a data center, but learning more about it.

But any thoughts that you might have on this issue.

Sure, absolutely.

So I'm happy to share again.

Foremost, I'd say artificial intelligence is a complex topic and one that brings a lot of conflicting uh perspectives.

We're really proud that when we have worked on building our policy, we've worked closely with uh folks from the ACLU from AFL CIO, uh, from with our employees, with academics around um how we regulate this.

Um I would say there's a couple of examples of where we use artificial intelligence.

The first one is actually in the council's website uh for roll calls.

Um one of the issues that we had is that it was really difficult for constituents to be able to understand what the council was voting on, and we actually had build summaries using artificial intelligence to be able to show people what the uh item that the council was voting on.

Those uh summaries get statically generated, so it's not like a chat bot like you just generate a summary statically.

Um, but it was something that we um that is now in in Boston.gov.

Uh the second example of using artificial intelligence is in uh the search functionality of the website.

So we actually in the traditional search, we had only 10% satisfaction.

So only one out of 10 people told us that they found what they were looking for when they use the traditional search.

We upgraded to AI search that basically uses some techniques that are similar to uh large language models, not all of it's not entirely the use of large language models.

Um, but it allows people to find information using uh semantic search so you can find things that are similar contextually based on what you're actually looking for.

And what we've noticed is that there's a 4x uh four times improvement in satisfaction.

So we've been very deliberate.

Uh we've been doing all of the work by um doing computation within cloud services that the city controls.

So uh the companies that are um that we that we use are it's all the data is kept uh confidential and under the same level of protection that the city has.

I'll just say with regards to data center, the city uses a data center that is located um at one summer street.

There generally speaking, one summer street?

Yes, there's uh one major data center in the city, I'd tell you like the cost of electricity in Boston is not really kind of like a driver for major data center investments, but having that that one data center in city a limit is one of the things that enables us to have a data center is like a highly secure uh environment that is really designed for computers to operate.

It is really critical.

But here's a quick question though, uh, because I'm running out of time, but is the one-on-one summer street, is that plenty for the city of Boston, or do we need to expand that?

Uh we've been able to use that again, it's uh co-located data centers, not just owned by the city.

Um it's been sufficient for the city's need, but there's a need to shift uh some data center pieces that we're happy, and so happy to have a further discussion with you about that.

But um right now that's our our primary data center.

We've been actually migrating a lot of our uh environment to the cloud uh.

Yeah, I I do know that there are concerns residents have about data centers and the impact they have on the environment they they have on quality of life issues.

But is that something you are factoring in if Boston does expand in in building another data center?

Absolutely.

Um we're really concerned, and again, like our mayor is uh obviously someone who puts climate change and and climate uh adaptation and and resilience at the at the top of the agenda.

I'll tell you like we have done some analysis, some initial analysis about the energy consumption related to artificial intelligence, and it is less than one percent of our total compute cost.

Um any computer system takes energy, like if Instagram, Netflix, um, and we're very deliberate about making sure that whenever we're using these tools that we're being responsible on, taking into consideration the energy sources whenever possible about uh that are powering these data centers.

Um, and we are very careful and conscious about when is it that we use these technologies?

Thank you.

Um I know I'm pretty much out of time.

My hearing order would be for the city of Boston to consider um having a moratorium on a day data center until we um we do an in-depth study about uh the impacts it has on residents' quality of life on business as well.

So uh Mr.

Chair, thank you.

Okay, yeah, thanks.

And just talking about AI, I I had one question, I want to steal uh questions from my colleagues, but based on our collective uh ages, I'm just uh we may not be the most tech-savvy uh uh threesome on the council.

But so in terms of AI and AI agents, I know that is sort of uh seen as one possible future people using AI agents to to aid their work, and I know it's particularly helpful in like computer coding and things like that.

So is the is the department using AI agents?

Is there any plan for that uh to sort of increase productivity or solve problems, or is that a bad idea?

Is it the technology not there yet?

I don't I don't know.

Um like everything, I think that there's some um gradients and and um around like these things.

So the first thing is that from a policy perspective, we think that technology is there to support people.

So we can see the benefits, and particularly when we're working on our AI policy, we work with people like the parking school for the blind, and we know that enabling more accessible use for the website or for bit like for instance, um, no screen reader is able to describe a chart or a graph.

Um, and the some of the visual language models are able to do a really good job of of enabling people to interact with data that they haven't been able to.

So that is to say, we always think about what is the benefit against the cost and the risks of the technology.

We have built uh procurement to a procurement agent to help support our employees be able to do better quality drafts of procurements.

There it is not intended, nor will it work at helping people evaluate a procurement.

Um but I'll tell you that uh we've done a randomized control trial, we've done some uh rigorous evaluation of these tools, and we've noticed some marked improvements in the speed, the quality, and even the confidence that the these tools are actually useful as reported by our employees.

So we're being very deliberate, like this notion of like agents kind of without guardrails and without control is not what we think is suitable, but we have done some work in helping build some of these things, and I'm happy to share in more detail again.

This is a topic that's complex and has a lot of nuance.

Okay, yeah, thank you very much.

Um, Councillor Culpepper, five minutes.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Just had a few questions about the 1% decrease in the um in the fiscal 27 budget with regard to the 311 system.

What impact, if any, is that gonna have on the day-to-day operations, knowing how challenging it is now, even before the reduction.

What impact is that reduction gonna have on 311 operation services?

So um we are the the we're able to reduce this expense in the old three-on-one system because we have been implementing a newer one.

So um I'll tell you about the system that we're replacing is a system that in the last year had about 30 days of partial or total uh inaccessibility, like there's components of it that failed for over thirty days of the last calendar year.

So it's a system that's really way beyond its lifetime.

Uh the new system is much more reliable, much more secure.

So we are able to uh budget out the the support for the current system because we are in the process of replacing it, and we've done this has been a project that that was started in fiscal year 2024.

Um, and we are on track to do the last few bits.

The first kind of major milestone will be in June of this year, and then uh we expect to have another major milestone sometime in September or October of this year, and that aligns with our renewal and um with with this um with the systems.

So are you completely into the new system?

Is this the system that cut the resolution time down to 3.75 days?

That's a separate system.

The system with the 3.5 seven, five days is the internal systems that do it uses.

The system that we are replacing one.

That's not the no, that's it.

That's our the internal one.

The one that we replace is the one that's creation and lag in our creation on um beam or cardograph are the the new systems.

So here's here's what the new system's doing.

The first thing is, I mean, in terms of resolution, it just enables people to like our crews to be able to see the work in the same way, but it's actually allowing us to be able to be more proactive in inspection.

So one of the things that we know is through on one is the system because that is based on uh complaints because it's based on complaints, it it suffers from the disparities that not everybody complains about issues the same way.

So we know that in general, some neighborhoods and some groups of people complain to three-on-one report issues more frequently.

Uh with the new system, because it is based on assets and the conditions of those assets.

Our hope, and this is something that will take more time to get there, but our hope is that it actually will improve the quality of experience for constituents because it makes the crews and departments be able to manage and understand the state of the assets even before um a complaint is received because we're being more proactive.

But that's something that again, like we're just right now, we're just in the process of transitioning the systems, but the capabilities of the systems are intended to be more equitable in the way that we uh deliver those basic city services.

So, in other words, the resolution time for the 311 system is is a lot smoother, and the resolution time is a lot quicker under the new system.

In the new system in the short term, the resolution time should be comparable.

In the long run, our hope is that there's less 311 complaints because less things were broken in the first place because we were more proactive in fixing those issues.

That's the that's the hypothesis.

So you so you're saying out in the community, you expect the 311 calls to decrease?

So again, our hope in the short term, we're just replacing the system.

So like if you can you're not gonna notice an issue, but no, but I mean, not the system, I mean in the community.

You're saying that the complaints are gonna decrease because of the new system.

What's gonna happen in the community to decrease complaints?

Well, the thing that would decrease complaints is if the issue that people are complaining about wasn't an issue in the first place, right?

Like if the sidewalk wasn't good condition, if there was no pothole in the first place, if the street light didn't go out.

But again, this is one where in order for things to not break, you have to be proactive in fixing them.

And part of the issue is the old system did not track like those things that were you know, like what are the things that we have out there?

The new system does, and actually you could see it in the data that we're already sharing in the open data portal.

You could see all the street lights and the different districts, you can see the street signs.

Um, and again, it's not the the technology itself is not going to improve the quality of the experience for constituents as you point out, but we're building the foundation that will allow us to do a better job of tracking how those assets are um and anticipate and anticipating.

Yes, sir.

Yeah, yeah.

I I had one more question, Mr.

Chair, if I may.

Sure.

With regard to their new properties.boston.gov.

Now you can go into their properties.boston.gov and put in uh street address and bring up the information.

And and does that work consistent with the department, the registry?

So we are we work with assessing, and one of the places where we've been working on to make improvements, again, there's a lot of underlying data infrastructure that we manage.

The ownership information, as you pointed out, primarily comes from the register of deeds.

Okay, okay.

But we're working with assessing about how is it that we can improve the quality of the data, you know, like the frequency with which we get data from the register of deeds, because we know that that's important to deal with quality of life issues, like code enforcement and other things.

So that's an area where we're actively working to try to improve that that information.

And so, what's the goal with the properties.boston.gov if the information is coming right from the registry.

What's the goal?

Why why the need for this if they can go right to the registry of deeds and get the same information?

So there's information that the city provides that is in the in properties.bost and that gov, like the SS valuation, like that's something that our assessing department creates.

Um the permits associated with that address are things that the city collects.

So really it's kind of creating a central holding place where we can relate every piece of information that we have about a property.

It just happens to be that the ownership is coming from the registrar of deeds, but the other most of the other information is information that the city itself is generating.

Um, and again, what as I mentioned, it's something that's just we launched it earlier this year.

We expect based on the feedback that we hear from constituents to continue to add more information there.

Um, Councilor Culpepper.

Uh thank you, Councillor Weber.

Okay, uh, we've been joined by Councillor Orrell.

Uh, Councilor Braden, you have uh five minutes.

Thank you.

Um I'd like to just continue on on the conversation about um uh the properties uh registry.

Um we able to one of the issues that we found in terms of um code enforcement is we don't always have accurate um addresses and ownership data on certain properties, which makes it precludes us from being more aggressive in code enforcement in some cases.

Um is the use of AI and and um technology, is it is it gonna make it easier to do that in a more streamlined and accurate way?

So I would say our team and our data engineering team is working really closely with different departments, including the law department, assessing collections, treasury, um to get so the first piece that we're trying trying to tackle is getting more frequent information from the registrar of deeds.

The second piece is again like legally, if you've registered the ownership of a property under an LLC, there's a corporate veil, like you know, there's like a the that LLC is the one that owns the property.

There's some information that exists about the people that are affiliated from the LLC, but it becomes more difficult.

So what I would say is that these are not simple issues as Counselor Culpepper brought up uh about the basic city services.

The technology itself doesn't solve the problem alone, but it does enable us to do things that we were not able to do in the past.

And our hope is that we're already starting to see our ability to be able to pull data more regularly to be able to improve the way that and that's partially what we're gonna do with the permitting improvement work, is make it easier for us to keep track of the notices that we've sent, make it easier for us to track the process for code enforcement and all these things so that we can do with so that we can do a better job of being able to hold the property owners accountable and uh keep these quality of life issues under control.

Um the other issue that we have in in the city is just keeping track of um schedules for maintenance and repair of buildings.

Um are we are we using artificial intelligence to try and address those issues?

Like you know, regular maintenance schedules for for equipment and and buildings, etc.

Um I I can see lots of potential for efficiencies and and more accurate targets targeting of timely uh maintenance rather than waiting for something completely collapses.

Absolutely.

Yeah, I think that when it comes to buildings, that's something that property management and public facilities manage that do it really hasn't in the past, based in on capacity, haven't been too involved, but we've uh in constant conversation with Chief Irish about possibilities of working there.

Um the public right of way, um, we have been doing a lot of work, and in fact, it is only through artificial intelligence that we have the ability of extracting information from the assets.

Actually, the map that you saw related to parking regulations, it's only possible to do that thanks to AI.

Um, because designs are so unique and the regulations are every sign is a little bit different, and you've seen it.

Some signs have like taped over the you know, like the hours in which you have restrictions for parking or whatnot, um, that we have to use AI to be able to extract that information.

So again, like this is where we weighed the environmental impact and the um the some of the issues with these technologies against like our ability to have reliable information, but we are using AI to help deliver meaningful improvements in the experience for constituents.

Um and then the other thing is always a big concern is just cybersecurity in this modern time where we're vulnerable to domestic and international threats.

Um are we um I I don't you don't want to give away the secret sauce here, but uh do we face regular cyber threats and and um how how are we managing to handle those?

Because I hear of places like hospital systems getting knocked out and all are are we are we in good shape for cybersecurity?

Yes, I would say again, and if the council was ever interested in having an executive session, because obviously some of the information related to our security posture uh is not public, uh just for safety sake, but what I would say is yes, every public entity in the US is subject to attacks.

Um we work very diligently on when you sense a sense of urgency in my tone about replacing some of the systems that we have for more modern systems.

A lot of times it's because we're trying to align our ability to secure those systems.

Older systems no longer have the security patches that newer systems have.

So our ability to have new relatively new computers, relatively new software, is perfectly related to our ability to be secure.

Um thing that has been improving, and again, just to thank the council for the executive for the ordinance that enabled do it's uh ability, and I know that counselor you and counselor Warrell and others were key parts of that.

Um we've been able to start responding in in partnership with Boston Public Schools and others whenever we know that there's an issue.

So I don't I want to want to get into specifics, but we've been uh thanks to Greg McCarthy, our chief information security officer on our security team, we're doing a better job of making sure that we're coordinated because we're all interconnected, and the reality is that um because we're interconnected, it we all need to be hardened and we need to be uh monitoring and being able to address issues quickly.

Very good.

Thank you.

Thank you for all you did.

Okay, uh thank you, Councilor Council Rural.

Yeah, uh five minutes.

Thank you, Chair.

Um, and I'll try to keep it brief.

Oh, I'll keep it for five minutes.

Um I know you just spoke about the ordinance that this council alongside the mayor was able to pass.

Uh through that ordinance, can you just talk about some of the cost saving strategies that you were able to get with the new a list, a couple of examples?

So the first one is we were able to consolidate in the past, like different departments had Zoom licenses and they had their own Zoom subscriptions.

Um thanks to our CTO Vanessa Kasqueris and Michael Wong and Carrie Jordan uh who's great, we're able to use the same funding that we had to pay for about like uh a few hundred Zoom licenses to have over 2,000 Zoom licenses for the same cost because we're able to consolidate into one single contract.

Um we've been able to um consolidate and shift the phones, uh laptops, and a lot of the equipment that BTD uh use for parking enforcement and do its providing that service, and we're saving about 200,000 here.

That's funding that was being spent on the previous vendor that is no longer spent.

Uh we've been doing a lot of works, uh, wouldn't share the details because it relates to our security posture, but again, we're doing a lot of work with Boston Public Schools in collaborating to be able to have a better, more secure, more reliable environment.

Um we, as I mentioned, we were able to do this upgrade to our employee self-service portal that was quoted to us for 1.2 million dollars, and we were able to do it entirely in-house.

Uh the migration of the new data warehouse tool, which is the tool that allows us to connect data from different departments, uh, we're able to do that work which was quoted to us uh by a vendor for about a million dollars um in-house, and we were able to do um it's saving us about 200,000 a year.

So there's a number of examples I could keep going on, but the capacity, the the ability of us working as a central shared services department, which is what the uh ordinance enabled, has been paying off, and we're incredibly grateful for the council and for the mayor, obviously, for letting us uh uh be able to do a better job coordinating and delivering better quality of services, more secure and for less.

Right.

No, that's that's great to hear.

And then when it comes to cost savings, uh I know that the council passed um some, I believe, contracts um that went over the three-year period.

Um are you thinking about or do you think that we should be revisiting those contracts to see if we could renegotiate better terms, or do you feel like we have locked in those the best terms in those long-term contracts?

So, yeah, so one of the things that, and thanks to your help, what we've been starting to do is lining up our contracts with the expected use of a technology.

So one of the issues that we have is like, you know, like just because we got a new, let's say our financial system, the difficult part is not just installing the financial system, but configuring it to work the way that we need it to, migrating the data.

So it's actually really expensive to shift technology, like it costs us millions of dollars to be able to do that.

So when we align our our foreseeable useful lifetime of uh software piece or a hardware piece with the use case, we're actually creating budget stability.

So one thing that is you can't see quite in our budget numbers, but technology usually increases in costs, actually higher than inflation.

So these multi-year uh contracts actually have allowed us to lock in really beneficial rates early.

It's usually technology goes increases in cost faster, especially like you're starting to see uh increases in costs in memory and and and a number of areas.

So we're we're we always reserve the right of being able to sever a contract, like if we think that we're not getting favorable rates, but actually what those long-term contracts have allowed us to do is lock in lower rates early and have a lot of budget stability because we know that we're gonna stay in that um in that system for for a foreseeable amount of time.

And then uh when it comes to 311, our and maybe this is a question for 311.

Um, but are we able as district counselors?

You know, we we have constituent calls, and sometimes they feel like they're reoccurring.

Are we able to track by district uh reoccurring or just see all the calls uh that come into our specific districts?

So the great thing is that we actually share publicly all of the three-on-one calls and about the different types of calls, and as I was mentioning to um Councillor Culpepper, we actually are increasingly sharing information about the assets across the entire city.

So uh we'll be happy to work with you, but again, all of that information we're making public already.

Um and it is a matter of being able to filter in and getting the right information.

But you should, and even as we transition from one system to the next, you're able to get all of that information.

All right.

Well, thank you everyone, and thank you to your team for all the great work and cost saving strategies that uh you have brought to the city.

Thanks.

Okay, thank you very much, Councillor Culpepper, uh, Councillor Ward, Council.

Counselor Orell, sorry.

Expect to uh anyone's talking, it's probably Councillor Culpepper.

But uh thank you, Councilor Orrell.

Um so just in terms of the FY27 budget, you know, we talked a little bit about vacancies and and you you have so there's like salary savings, and I think it's like one point three million.

Um, and it's something like 23 vacancies.

Can you just explain what went into that?

Uh because my understanding is that you know, for the budget, we're not budgeting for all the vacancies.

Uh and so um, but if you can just talk about what it went into that uh setting that figure.

Yeah, absolutely.

I can get started, and then maybe Sheila can jump in, but that might be a question really for our finance cabinet.

But generally speaking, as you mentioned, we have a number of positions that we're budgeted for, and then kind of like an expected amount of vacancy that we will have.

Some of it is based on historical levels, but again, like we um the city has been slowing down hiring, um, which has enabled us to cover some of the financial gaps for this fiscal year and for next.

So that's that salary savings is a calculation of like what's the difference between what was budgeted versus what we expect to be filled.

Um we we trust we have a very great relationship with our budget office, and we work out of trust and with people operations, so we try to be very vocal when there's a position that we're like if we don't have this position, there'll be uh a lot of pain for us because again, we're managing big systems that are critical, three-on-one, payroll, our vendor portal, our systems that take in revenue.

So we're do it really needs to have support for a lot of these really critical systems.

Um so we're vocal whenever we need to prioritize, but generally speaking, we're working off of a gap between the budgeted positions and the and the actual positions that are expected to fill it.

Um but if we were to have leeway, we would hire all of them, and I we we would hopefully we would try to make sure that every person that is uh hired in to do it translates into more saving and more value for our constituents and and and for the city.

Okay, thank you very much.

Um so I think we have one more person online.

Is that no?

Apparently not.

Uh okay, well, thank you very much.

Uh that's the that's it for our questions.

Uh I appreciate everyone making the time this morning and and for your uh very thorough presentation and uh for all the d data you've provided us and all the services you provided, you know, both us as city counselors and government employees, but also the public here in the city of Boston.

So uh with that said, uh this hearing is now adjourned.

Thank you,