City Councilor and I'm the chair of the Boston City Council Committee on Government Operations.

Today is October 8th, 2026, and the exact time is 1001.

And according to in accordance with chapter two of the acts of 2025, modifying certain requirements of the open meeting laws and relieving public bodies of certain requirements, including the requirement that public bodies conduct its meeting in a public place that is open and physically accessible to the public.

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

This hearing is being recorded.

It is also being live streamed at Boston.gov forward slash city-council dash TV and broadcast on Xfinity Channel 8, RCN Channel 82, and files channel 964.

Written comments may be sent to the committee email at CCC.gov and will be made 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 signed up and will have two minutes to testify.

If you wish to sign up for public testimony and have not done so, please email our central staff liaison megan at MEA G A N dot C O R U G E D O M A R T I N at Boston.gov for the zoom link, any name will be added to the list.

Today's hearing is on docket 1099, an ordinance to require quarterly revenue reports to be provided to the city council.

The matter was sponsored by counselors Warell, Culpepper, and Mejia, and was referred to the committee on May 29th, 2026.

Today I'm joined by my colleagues in order of order of arrival, Councillor Warrell, Louis Jeanne, Flynn, and Culpepper.

I will pass um the mic over to Councillor and my colleagues if they choose to for any opening remarks, and then we'll get into today's panel.

We have uh administration panel and then uh advocates.

Although Councillor, I may just defer to you to have everybody go all at once.

So just let me know what you're thinking.

If not, that's fine.

We can just have um budget director go first.

But for now, I'll pass it over to you for your opening remarks and just let me know on that point.

But the floor is yours.

Thank

you.

Uh thank you, Chair.

And I'm okay with everyone going all at once.

Um, want to thank everyone for being here, the uh panelists uh from the administration and then uh the experts um around um you know, looking at cities um revenues um and expenditures um and currently the city charter calls for this council to receive quarterly expenditure reports.

Um when I was waiving meetings, chair we were asked for also quarterly revenue reports, and that's a practice that I would like to see uh codified.

Uh that's why I filed this ordinance, which is a basic effort to require transparency and provide the council and the public uh with information around revenue on a quarterly um and maybe you know I was thinking maybe this should also be monthly, right, instead of quarterly.

Uh this will allow the council to see city's revenue trends uh quarter over quarter in order to get a better sense of revenue projections for the upcoming fiscal year, um, and also just to see the trends what's happening with whether it's hotel, sales tax, and all the other revenue that we do collect.

Um, as of now, the way that it is structured.

Um, as of now, the way that it is structured, the process has been at the pleasure of whoever is the ways in the shared, but I want to get protect against that and any administration changes in the future to codify this practice more formally.

I look at how the state revenue commission works and how there are monthly revenue reports that inform not only our budget projections for current and upcoming fiscal years, but again, it can allow us for a reaction to an on-the-ground trend and revenue changes, our permit fees down, is the mill tax drop it, um, in what neighborhood?

And when we see those trends, uh, the council, the city could take action um to try to correct them.

So, thank you uh everyone for joining in on this conversation.

I do think this is a basic win-win with transparency and the power of data, and I'm hoping we can move forward with this ordinance by the end of the

year.

Thank

you, Council Warrell.

Oh,

I had to sneeze, sorry.

Um, Councilor Louis Jeanne, you have the floor.

Good morning, everyone.

Um, happy to be with all of you.

Uh, thank you, Councilor, for the filing.

Looking forward to hearing from uh the administration and from everyone and how we can move forward.

Thank

you.

Thank

you, Counselor

Flynn.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I do want to acknowledge Council Warrell, Councillor Culpepper, and Councilor Mejia for bringing this forward.

I believe this is a common sense um exceptional recommendation on how we can better be pre be prepared uh for upcoming budget process, but also be prepared for um changes in revenue that will impact uh basic city services in the budget process as well.

This demonstrate this shows residents that we're uh focused on the fiscal stability of Boston.

It also ensures that we're providing financial um oversight, that we're providing transparency, accountability, and the positive leadership to Boston residents.

Uh so again, want to say thank you to the um my council colleagues for bringing this forward.

This is a common sense approach, and I'd love to have it um quarterly, certainly monthly, but but but at the least quarterly.

Thank you, madam chair.

Thank

you, Council Culpepper.