'Tis the season: Quincy city councilors start to break down $372.7 million budget proposal

QUINCY – Debt service, federal relief money, city revenues and budgets for several individual departments were hashed out at the first Quincy budget hearing this week.

City councilors met to discuss the mayor's proposed budget for the first time Wednesday. Mayor Thomas Koch has proposed a $372.7 million budget, a 7.7% spending increase over last fiscal year. The budget increase is so large, Koch said, in part because the last two years were kept "very lean" due to economic uncertainty during the coronavirus pandemic.

Eric Mason, the city's CFO, said revenues for are in a good place.

The majority of the city’s budget is funded by property taxes, with state aid and local receipts covering the rest. Mason said the city received $5 million more in state aid than it was expecting, that meals tax is on pace to be 135% of what he expected to see and building permits are up $1.6 million over what was expected. He also said the city received a $4.25 million payment from FoxRock Properties this year in connection with the developer's project on Hospital Hill. 

This year's debt service line item is listed at $43.3 million, a 32% increase over last year's debt service of $32.8 million. That includes $8.35 million for school projects, $19.3 million for "other" and $15.6 million for the pension obligation bond.

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The city borrowed $475 million over a 30-year bond period to pay down the city's pension obligation,. The bond exchanged the old system of paying the pension fund – in which the city's retirement board essentially sent a bill at the start of each budget season – for a bond financing plan that funded the pension system all at once.

Koch said he expects that amount paid toward the pension bond will continue to increase for two more years, then level off for the lifetime of the payback period.

City councilors also heard from the legal department, human resources, the planning department and Fire Chief Joe Jackson.

The council approved a $1.2 million planning department budget that includes $300,000 for the expansion of a citywide language access project. 

"This has increased access significantly in just a small amount of time and this project is really still in its infancy," city councilor at-large Nina Liang said. "It has already been implemented within some of the major agencies that are front facing much of the time. It's so important and (the planning department) has made it possible in the last year. I'm so excited to see it grow."

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The fire department has a $28.7 million proposed budget for fiscal 2023, including a $181,936 salary for the fire chief, a $2.26 million overtime budget and $11.4 million for firefighter base salaries. Jackson said the fire department is well staffed and has applied for a federal grant that would allow it to hire 16 new firefighters as current members retire.

Earlier this year, the city council approved spending $2.3 million of federal COVID relief money on a new fire engine  for the Quincy Point station and new ladder truck for the fire station headquarters.

Ward 2 Councilor Anthony Andronico slammed the administrator for not proving a detailed account of how all of the city's federal COVID money has been spent. Councilors passed a resolve asking for the information months ago, but have not been updated publicly on where the $46 million in federal COVID relief money has gone.

"Does it take nine months to put a presentation or a notification together – we've passed two resolutions on this – for us?" he said. "I was just curious if you'd be able to say the total number that has been expensed thus far or what might be remaining? Considering we're talking about budget deliberations, I think this might be pertinent to our discussions." 

Chris Walker, Koch's chief of staff, said the administration is working on a full report on federal spending and expects to have it ready for the council "well before the break for the summer." He said there have been no major expenditures the council doesn't know about.

City councilors will continue to discuss the budget at a 6:30 p.m. meeting of the finance committee Monday, May 23. Councilors will hear from the school superintendent, police chief, council on aging, natural resources department, traffic division, veterans services director, IT department and public buildings commissioner.

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Reach Mary Whitfill at mwhitfill@patriotledger.com. 

This article originally appeared on The Patriot Ledger: Quincy city councilors start to break down $372.7 million budget