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NEW BEDFORD — City councilors in the wee hours Wednesday morning sent the mayor a freshly trimmed budget for the year starting on Monday and a message: spend less, particularly on employees who aren’t actually there.
The council wrapped up its annual “cut night” endurance ritual shortly before 1 a.m. — after six hours and 324 roll-call votes, delivering a general fund plan about 2% below the sum Mayor Jon Mitchell proposed in May. The reduction, including a big cut in allocations for vacant Police Department positions but no deep city service reductions, is meant to rebuke Mitchell for budget practices that some councilors have opposed for years.
The council voted 9-1 — with one member absent — to allocate nearly $432.5 million from the general fund, including revenue from local taxes, state education aid, and the federal government. The allocation from hotel taxes and fees such as water, sewer and airport services is nearly $55.6 million, about 3% under the mayor’s proposal.
The council’s general fund cut of nearly $9.13 million is in range of last year’s reduction. The council eventually restored $1.7 million of about $8 million in cuts in fiscal 2024 spending in a supplemental appropriation.
It was not clear how much of the general fund reduction would hold up for Fiscal Year 2025, starting on July 1. The two largest trims in vacant police positions and employee health insurance — comprising more than half the total general fund cut — could be diminished by higher insurance premiums, and, less likely, robust police hiring.
As the council lashed the administration’s spending habits, Mitchell responded Wednesday on the council’s way of doing business, particularly for not disclosing proposed cuts until the final budget session.
“The City Council refused to disclose to the public, the media, and the administration the 1,036 proposed cuts its members filed a week earlier, and voted on them in a single meeting without allowing input from the public or city officials,” Mitchell said in a statement.
He called the reductions “particularly arbitrary: a slashing of the police budget, the elimination of funding for legal services to protect the interest of City taxpayers, cuts to the City’s capacity to maintain and plow its streets and parks, and other measures that are difficult to justify. The residents of New Bedford deserve a cut process that is subject to far more daylight.”
At-large Councilor Linda Morad, the Finance Committee chair, has responded in the past to complaints about not disclosing the cuts until the night of the budget vote by noting that many public committee hearings preceding the vote that show where cuts are likely to be proposed.
As the Tuesday night session began, Morad called on the council to “rein in an administration that’s definitely out of control.” She castigated the administration for proposing some 20 to 24 new positions, and for appropriating money for employees not likely to be hired, then using that money — with council approval — to pay other bills as the year unfolds.
“They can’t hire the people they’re budgeted for,” said Morad, challenging her colleagues specifically to cut the $27.3 million appropriation for staffing the Police Department.
Three hours later the council did that, voting 6-4 — with one member absent — to cut $2 million from the personnel account, the largest of 55 proposed cuts in police “vacant positions.” Concerned that the cut could be misconstrued as “defunding” the police, councilors said they’d like to see the department fill the ranks, welcoming Chief Paul Oliveira to propose added spending for officers as long as the positions can actually be filled.
New Bedford is among many communities across the country that for the last several years have struggled to hire police officers.
“This is not a ‘defund the police’ movement,” said Ward 3 Councilor Shawn Oliver, who voted against the $2 million cut. “This is a ‘fund the police you have’ movement.”
At-large Councilor Brian Gomes, an outspoken public safety advocate who voted for the cut, but ultimately was the lone vote against the general fund allocation, said “we don’t have the bodies” to fill vacancies. “There’s no reason to tax the taxpayer” for those positions unless they can be filled.
The Police Department’s complement of sworn officers at any given time fluctuates with retirements and new hires. It stands now at about 200 sworn officers, short of a full complement of 256. The approximately 50 open slots are more than half the city’s total vacant positions of nearly 100, said Chief Financial Officer Robert Ekstrom.
With Morad leading the charge, the council trimmed allocations for vacant positions and new positions across city departments.
The councilor from the North End, second to Gomes in years of council service, seemed to take particular glee in mocking the mayor’s proposal for a new hire, a Chief of Innovation and Policy Development. The position with a starting salary of $96,000 was to be supported by a number of departments paying for the specialist’s services.
Morad called that way of funding the position “ridiculous,” and made clear during the night that she was trying to cut the allocation from every department where it appeared. She wondered out loud several times how the position would help various agencies, noting that the mayor’s office was not including payments to the innovations chief.
The mayor’s office, it appears, “can’t innovate in any way, shape or form,” Morad said.
Along with the $2 million police reduction, employee health insurance, a nearly $21 million item, took the other big hit, although not as significant as it could have been. With a menu of 52 possible cuts between $6 million and $100,000, the council went for the middle: $3 million.
Ward 6 Councilor Ryan Pereira, who joined with Ward 2 Councilor Maria Giesta in proposing the reduction, told the council that item “has always been over budgeted.”
Ekstrom was not so sure. After the meeting he said he would know more in the fall, when he sees new health insurance premiums. He said it was likely the city would need more money in that account.
The night’s smallest cut was made to the largest single budget item: more than $246 million for public education. At-large Councilor Shane Burgo proposed a $1 reduction to protest the School Committee’s high-handed approach to the council.
Burgo thanked Superintendent Andrew O’Leary for meeting with him, but said the committee disregarded the council throughout the work on the budget. The committee’s authority is “not absolute … Our requests for basic information are routinely ignored,” he said.
That $1 cut was adopted by a unanimous vote, as a dollar bill was handed from one councilor to the next.
Email reporter Arthur Hirsch at ahirsch@newbedfordlight.org.
Editor’s note: Portions of this story were rewritten on Tuesday, July 9, 2024, to add clarity.
City council sure sound like serious people
Tale of 2 cities..Back in the day becuz of lack of funding New Bedford lost the Morgan to Mystic Ct. And the tourist $ it would have generated for the city. Who’s crying now😭..Tday we have a ship.of fools on the City Council (some who have been there too long and should apply for assisted living )that wants to take a pair of scissors ✂️ to every budgetary request the Mayors office proposes wout a thought out of the box on how to advance the city’s economy or well being..this is why New Bedford stews in the past while Boston Somerville even Lynn boil in New growth w a vision for the future
Exactly George
“Ship of fools,” is a correct assessment.
Wake up New Bedford and vote them out – the job is too big for these people.
Down 56 police personnel? I wouldn’t take a job here either… it’s like a Wild West show- GUNS DRUGS CRIME uninsured, unlicensed men driving cars and dirt bikes like maniacs, absentee landlords that plunge neighbors property values, the highest adult illiteracy rates and the most subsidized adults than I’ve ever seen in my life.
Tens of Thousands —— yes …..thousands of abled bodied people do not work in New Bedford. Why not? They don’t have to. Because you and I subsidize half of the people who live in NB. Tens of Thousands of people. Where are the incentives or time horizons to end this subsidization of an abled bodied person who can work? Where are the checks & balances?
Why am I financing the neighbor guy who is my age and more physically able, to sleep all day, then spending a leisurely afternoon padding his subsidized apartment getting high only to then (financed by me) take a taxi ride (PAID by us) to a bar after rolling out bed at 4 in the afternoon?
We (working people like you and me ) pay for people’s rent, we feed their school aged kids 365 days a year with food stamps, their baby’s for 5 years through WIC, their utilities that freely run 365 days, free bus rides through SRTA, free transport, furniture and clothes.
Most of us working 40 hours a week can’t afford to have AC running 24/7 yet the abled bodied MEN in the downstairs apt, up and down the street and around the corner from me, are unemployed, loud, sitting on front porches smoking 11 dollar packs of cigarettes, 10 dollar joints from dispensaries (yes even cannabis is subsidized by us) 15 dollar cases of beer with their broken down buddies car up on block,,, -kitchen window, wide open, bad music spilling out along with the subsidized cool conditioned air (subsidized by PACE & again paid by you and i. We make it very comfortable for the subsidized man to comfortably shoot the breeze all day long while the meals on wheels guy merrily beeps his horn announcing the delivery of their subsidized meals oh BUT wait – it’s Friday ….here is 5 more frozen delights for the weekend (paid by CES – subsidized by you and I).
What a dream city for the entitled, the unmotivated, and for those w/ 2 craps to give. It’s only going to get worse as they gentrify places like Dorchester / Brockton. It’s loose and it’s coming our way and it’s a long time coming. The present council does not have the fortitude, brainpower or bandwidth to move NB through the next chapter.
It’s not the train that’s causing this – it’s the lack of public policy that will eventually leave this city to the poorest of the poor. The beaches are polluted (somebody ought to tell the newly arrived) many food deserts, increasing drug & gun crime and always, the increasing HS drop out rates.
City Council – you are failing miserably.
Shawn Oliver – come sit on the front porch of my rental off of Shawmut ave, walk the street with me, dodging the trash, the uninsured/unregisterd racing car and dirt-bike doing a pop a wheelie through stop signs. Come on , let’s go do a garden tour of the fri t and back yards of off Cedar and Cottage street, filled with abandoned cars and household junk from renters and absentee landlords.
Come on councilors, let’s all take a walk through the beautiful neighborhoods and experience what it’s like to witness pure and utter BS.
Observing the city council is like watching my HS class of ‘82 working on a group project. FAILED!