The Boston City Council’s Ways and Means Committee, chaired by Councillor Ben Weber, held a hearing on May 14, 2026, at 3:12 PM to review the Fiscal Year 2027 operating budget for the Election Department. The hearing was part of the council’s budget review process for the upcoming fiscal year. Acting department head Paul Chong and Head Assistant Register of Voters Sabino Piamonte presented an overview of the department’s operations, improvements since the 2024 elections, and plans for the 2026 midterm elections. No members of the public provided testimony.
Okay, good afternoon. My name's Ben Weber. I'm the district six city counselor and the chair of the Ways and Means Committee. Today is May 14th, 2026, and it is now three twelve p.m. I have a few preliminaries here, so bear with me. This is a hearing this hearing is being recorded. It's also being live streamed at Boston.gov/slash city dash council-tv and broadcast on Xfinity Channel 8, RCN channel eighty-two, and file channel nine sixty-four. The council's budget review process will encompass a series of public hearings beginning in April and running through June. You can do so in several ways. For a full hearing schedule, check out our website at Boston.gov slash council dash budget. To give testimony in person, please use the sign-in sheet at the entrance, and we'll call you in the order you've signed up.gov, or by emailing uh Karishma Chohan, that's K-A-R-I-S-H-M-A.CHOUHAN at Boston.gov. She may not know who Bob Dylan is, but she can send you a Zoom link for for you to testify. Our last listening session will be Thursday, May 26th at 6 p.m. Again, right here. And you can come and sign uh sign up and testify in person or uh you can email us and get a zoom link and testify virtually. Um let's see. So you can also submit written testimony to the committee. You send the uh send your written testimony by email to 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. Again, in-person public testimony uh will be taken after the first round of counselor questions. Um, and if you are looking to testify virtually and haven't done so already, email our director of legislative budget analysis, Chris Machon at K A R I S H M A.C. O U H A N at Boston.gov for the zoom link, and your name will be added to the list. This afternoon's hearing uh is on docket number zero seven three three to zero seven four zero and emergency, sorry, an emergency, an overview of the fiscal year 2027 operating budget for the election department. This is one of a series of hearings to review the fiscal year 2027 budget. These matters were sponsored by Mayor Michelle. We will refer to the committee on April 8th, 2026. I'm joined by my colleagues in order of arrival, Councillor Murphy, Councillor Flynn, Councillor Fitzgerald, Counselor Braden, and Councillor Louie Jen. We uh waive opening statements at these budget hearings. So we're gonna go directly to our panel. Let me introduce you and then go forward with our presentation. We're joined by Commissioner of City Records, Paul Chong, and Head Assistant Register of Voters, Sabino Piamonte. Um, so uh the floor is now yours. If you have a presentation or any other comments, go ahead. Oh, sorry, one last instruction for the panel. Do not touch the buttons. We will handle turning on and off the mics. Uh so Krishna's over here. No, this is just like a month of frustration on our part, just watching people pressing the buttons and us turning on the mics and they press the button, and so no need to press any buttons, just uh we'll take care of turning your mic on and off. Thank you for that process improvement. You're welcome. Um, thank you, counselors. We appreciate the opportunity to uh testify about the election department budget and look forward to answering your questions. Uh as counselor Weber said, my name is Paul Chong. I'm the commissioner of CD Records and currently acting as the department head for the elections department. You can see up on the slides our mission statement, and I think we all know that the election department cares deeply about delivering free and fair elections. If you will humor me, I'd like to take a minute to introduce our election commissioner, one of the members of our Boston Elections Commission, Janet Sloven, Commissioner Sloven, thank you for your support. We started something in Boston 250 years ago, and I wanted the council and the public, our voters and residents, to know what it takes to make our revolution an ongoing reality in the day-to-day. And that work is done by our election department staff. The staff, you'll see them in the second floor of City Hall in a windowless room.