Following a much-scrutinized operating budget vote last month, a Boston city councilor is proposing changing the city’s foundational charter to give the council more budgetary authority.
Councilor Lydia Edwards, who represents East Boston, Charlestown, and the North End, is advocating for a charter change that would see the council “hold equal budgetary authority,” as the mayor. She wants to put the issue before voters in a ballot referendum next year.
On June 24, the council passed Mayor Martin J. Walsh’s $3.61 billion operating budget by an 8-5 vote, drawing vociferous opposition from several councilors who said the spending plan fell woefully short of the moment and the movement to dismantle structural racism.
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But the councilors were effectively limited on voting the measure up or down.
Edwards was among the councilors to vote “yes” for the operating budget. During a speech before the vote, Edwards pledged to work to restructure local government to change the way the city allocates funds and the council’s budgetary powers.
On Monday, in a letter to the city clerk, Edwards said, “Currently, the charter constrains the ability of members of the public to advance changes that would increase or otherwise reallocate public investments.”
The council has the power to accept or reject the mayoral administration’s proposed budget. It can also reduce the budget but has no authority to add to it. Councilors can transfer funds only if the mayor requests that. Edwards’s proposal would see both the mayor and council have the power to “to originate an appropriation order for the capital and operating budgets.”
The charter change “would allow for the council to respond to public feedback with actions other than simply rejecting the budget, including the increase or reallocation of funds,” said Edwards in the letter.
According to Edwards’s office, the council is required to hold a hearing within three months of her filing and take final action on the matter within six months. Her office said the measure does not require mayoral consent, per the subsection of law the proposal was filed under.
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The council would have to approve the proposal by a simple majority and from there it would go to the state attorney general’s office for a constitutionality review. If that office signs off on the measure, it would feature on the ballot for next year’s municipal election ballot, according to Edwards’s office.
Danny McDonald can be reached at daniel.mcdonald@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @Danny__McDonald.
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