The Boston City Council Ways and Means Committee, chaired by Councilor Ben Weber, held a hearing on May 18, 2026, to review the proposed Fiscal Year 2027 operating budgets for the Boston Centers for Youth & Families (BCYF) and the Office of Early Childhood (under the Office of Human Services). The hearing covered Dockets 0733–0740 and 0747, including the child care revolving fund. Commissioner Mike Tarivet presented BCYF's level-funded $30.5 million budget, while Commissioner Marta Rivera presented the Office of Early Childhood's reduced operational budget and the sunset of ARPA investments. Councilors Flynn, Santana, Culpeper, and Braden participated, and public testimony focused on concerns about programming at Curtis Hall.
Good afternoon. For the record, my name's Ben Weber. I'm the chair of the Ways and Means Committee and I'm the Boston City Councilor for District Six. Today is May 18th, 2026, and the exact time is uh 211 p.m. This hearing is being recorded and it's also being live streamed at Boston.gov slash city-council-tv and broadcast on Xfinity Channel 8, RCN Channel 82, and FIOS Channel 964. The council's budget review process will encompass a series of hearings that run from April through June. We strongly encourage residents to take a moment to engage in this process by giving testimony for the record. You can do so in several ways. First, you can attend one of our hearings in person or virtually and give public testimony.gov. Or you can uh get a zoom link by emailing our uh our central staff uh budget analyst, Krishnmachon at K-A-R-I-S-H-M-A.CHOUHAN at Boston.gov. Uh again, following the first round of counselor questions. We'll allow for we'll have public testimony. You'll each be given two minutes uh to to make your remarks. Please introduce yourself, tell us your name, where you're from, uh, uh, and what organization you're with, if any. Uh also on uh May 26th at 6 p.m. We have uh the fourth of four public listening sessions right here in the council. So you can come here 6 p.m. Uh and I will be here and hopefully, you know, some of my colleagues to to hear public testimony at that listening session again. You can testify in person or virtually uh at that session. Um, in lieu of testifying at a hearing uh virtually in person, you can also submit written testimony to the committee by emailing us at ccc.wm at Boston.gov. Lastly, you can submit a two-minute video of your testimony through the form on our website. Uh, for more information on the city council budget process uh and how to testify, please visit the city council's budget website at Boston.gov slash council-budget. Uh uh, let's see, I think I've covered everything. Today this mor uh this afternoon's hearing is on Docket numbers 0733 to 0740 and number 0747, 747, at uh an overview of the FY27, it's the fiscal year two thousand twenty-seven operating budgets for the Boston Centers for Youth and Families and the Office of Early Childhood, uh, which is a program under the Office of Human Services. This hearing will cover the uh will also cover the child care revolving fund. This is one in a series of hearings to review the fiscal year 2027 budget. These matters were sponsored by Mayor Michelle Wu, and we're referred to the committee on April 8th, 2026. This afternoon, I'm joined by my colleagues in order of arrival, Councillor Flynn, Councillor Santana, and Councillor Culpeper. We waive opening statements at these budget hearings generally. So we're just gonna go right to the panel. Let me introduce you. We're joined this afternoon by the Commissioner of Boston Centers for Youth and Families, Marta Rivera, Director of Operations, Eddie McGuire, and Analytics and Program Director Paula Gaveria Via Real. Okay, if I got that right. It helps says there's a soccer team from Spain from Viral. So but uh I would like to let my colleagues know that director of VRL uh may need to leave a little prior to five o'clock due to child care needs, and I advise my colleagues to ask her questions now during the first round. Um because she has has to leave for uh good reason. Um so okay, so I'm gonna hand it over to the panel. If you have a presentation, let's let's hear from you. Just so director, what what time do you need to leave by? No, but five, it's perfect, just not after five. Okay, by five. I think we're we're good there. Okay, so both of you give your presentations and we'll go to Councillor Questions. Perfect. Thank you very much. Um, the Office of Early Childhood, and I'll just show you a bit of what we've been doing and will continue to do in this upcoming fiscal year. So we have several trainings for our family child care providers, and these are home-based providers. Um, throughout the years, we've served over 590 family child care providers in all of our 14 neighborhoods. And out of all these family child care providers, 90% of them remain open. Uh, these trainings started in 2019, so this speaks highly of the value of our trainings.