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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.
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.”
As the Tuesday night session began, At-large Councilor Linda Morad, the Finance Committee chair and one of the council’s most reliable budget hawks, 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 stands at 201 uniformed officers, short of a full complement of 256. Those 55 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.
City council sure sound like serious people