Oh can hear me.

I'm

Weber.

I'm the District Six City Council and the chair of the Boston City Council on Ways and Means.

Today's uh September twenty eighth, two thousand twenty six, and the exact time is ten oh four AM in accordance with chapter two of the Acts of Two thousand twenty-five, modifying certain requirements of the open meeting law and uh reliving uh relieving uh sorry, public bodies of certain requirements, including the requirement that public bodies conduct uh meetings in a public place that's open and physically accessible to the public.

The city council will be conducting this hearing virtually via Zoom.

This hearing's being recorded.

It's also being live streamed at Boston.gov slash city dash council dash TV and broadcast on Xfinity Channel eight, RCN channel eighty two, and files channel nine sixty-four.

Uh

written comments may be sent to the committee email at uh ccc.wm at Boston.gov and will be made a part of the record and available to all counselors.

Public testimony will be taken at the end of this hearing.

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

If you wish to sign up for public testimony, you have not done so already.

Please email our central staff liaison, Korean Chan at K-A-R-I-S-H-M-A.CHOUHAN at Boston.gov for the Zoom link, and your name will be added to the list.

Okay, so today's hearing is on one, two, three, four dockets.

I'm gonna read them out.

Um docket number 1671 is a message in order to reduce the FY27 appropriation.

Here, just give me one second.

FY27 appropriation for the reserve uh for collective bargaining by 1,951,894 to provide funding for the Boston Police Department for the uh fiscal year 27 increases contained within the collective bargaining agreements between the City of Boston and the Boston Police Detectives Benevolent Society.

Docket number 1672 message in order for the Boston Police Department for fiscal year 27 in the amount of 1,951,894 to cover the fiscal year 27 cost items contained within the collective bargaining agreement between the City of Boston and the Boston Police Detectives Benevolent Society.

The terms of the contract are uh it says here July 1st, 2025 to June 30th, 2026.

I think that maybe uh uh we have to change that, amend that.

The major provisions of the contract include a base wage increase of 2% in July 2025.

Again, uh I'm not sure about the year.

The contract also contains an update to hazardous duty pay and amended language around sick time buy back at retirement.

As originally presented to you, the fiscal year 27 uh budget request included a reserve for collective bargaining, a separate appropriation to fund projected collective bargaining increases.

A separate order has been filed to reduce the appropriation by 1,951,894.

Okay, I think I get it.

Docket number 1673, message in order to reduce the fiscal year 27 appropriation for the reserve for collective bargaining by 1,366,093 to provide funding for the Boston Police Department for the fiscal year 27 increases contained within the collective bargaining agreements between the City of Boston and the Boston Police Detective Benevolent Society Superior Officers Unit.

And uh finally uh docket number 1674, message in order for the Boston Police Department for fiscal year 27 in the amount of 1,366,093 to cover the fiscal year 27 cost items contained within the collective bargaining agreement between the City of Boston and the Boston Police Detectives Benevolence Society Superior Officers Unit.

The terms of the contract are July 1st, 2025 through June 30th, 2026.

The major provisions of the contract include a base wage increase of 2% in July of 2025.

The contract also contains an update to hazardous duty pay and amended language around paid details and summer vacation schedules as originally presented to you.

The fiscal year 27 budget request included a reserve for collective bargaining of separate appropriation to fund projected bargaining collective bargaining increases.

A separate order has been filed to reduce that appropriation by 1,396,093.

These matters were sponsored by Michelle Wu and were referred to the committee on September 16th, 2026.

For my colleagues, you may recall, we passed similar dockets in May of this year for fiscal year 2026.

These dockets, I believe, will just extend those appropriations for fiscal year 2027, but we're gonna hear from Jim Williamson.

Uh today I'm uh joined by my colleagues in order of arrival, counselor Flynn and then counselor Murphy.

Uh I'm just gonna go to the uh panelists and then we'll go for questions.

Uh, we've been joined today by uh budget director, uh Jim Williamson.

Um so uh with that, I uh I guess um if Jim is here, which I see.

Uh do you want to just explain what's going on and then uh um you know if my my colleagues have any questions.

I see Councillor Flynn, you got your hand

up.

Yeah, one quick question, Mr.

Chair were the um representatives from the respective respective unions um leadership planning to attend.

Yeah, they are not because we we this is I believe and Mr.

Williamson the budget director Williamson's going to explain we had a hearing in May on the contract on a new contract and I and I'm I'm happy to go over uh the provisions the new provisions in the contract that we covered in May and that we voted on in May uh so this is really I believe we're just going into the next fiscal year to cover the wage increases that were covered by that contract.

So I think we're we're only expecting budget director Williamson today.

I guess if there's other questions I can relay them uh you can really let them through the chair and uh we can get other things answered but I think just to explain what is happening we had uh Jim Williamson here and uh for questions about the contract itself I think we covered all that back in May.

Yeah right I I remember being on that hearing I I don't I don't miss any of these hearings but I um I I want to do my due diligence before I do vote.

Okay yeah thank you.

Yeah no it's a it's a bit unusual uh and so we've gone over the committee report um let's see which I've got right here just to refresh folks' memories you know it's a new contract uh reached uh to sort of extend certain benefits that were in the patrol officers contract to the so the detectives benevolent society and the detectives benevolent society superior officers and I'll just run through the bullet points well

well let me just ask were were they were they invited

uh they they were not invited we had a discussion about what this hearing should be and because we had had so no I I did not invite them.

I I I do think I do think an invitation should be extended whether um at least give them the opportunity to um be invited to be included because there might be some issues that they highlight that might help us do our job better.

Certainly the city of Boston is going to present their recommendations but I I do like to get both sides of the story.

But I I do think we we we owe it to them too based because of their professionalism the work they do to at least invite them to the meeting.

Okay thank you very much let's just we'll we'll let's proceed uh with budget director Williamson if