Category: Bureau Updates

Mayor Walsh signed an Executive Order on December 9th which modified the City’s Inclusionary Development Policy (IDP) to create more affordable units from housing development. The Executive Order keeps the current requirement for building affordable units on-site, but increases the cost to developers of cashing out, or building affordable units off-site in some areas. The BRA Board approved the new IDP at its meeting on December 10th. The new IDP will take effect on January 1, 2016. (continued . . .)

Receipt by 46 Boston medical, educational and research institutions of $1.70 billion in medical research grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in FY14 topped all other cities in the country for total NIH funding for the 20th consecutive year. Tempering that good news is the fact that Boston’s total NIH funding has declined in each of the last two years ($1.78B in FY12, $1.72B in FY13, and $1.70B in FY14). This record for Boston over 20 years highlights the importance of these nonprofit institutions to the economic vitality of the City. (continued . . .)

The City of Boston ended FY15 with a $7.4M General Fund operating surplus, slightly smaller than the $9.5M surplus in FY14. The surplus is due to the fact that actual receipts exceeded budgeted revenues by $44.8M or 1.6%, which was greater than the $37.5M that actual spending exceeded final appropriations. The General Fund surplus represents 0.27% of city spending of $2.77B. (continued . . .)

Across the country the growth of inflexible costs such as state assessments, debt service and pension payments have put pressure on the departmental expenditures of municipalities. That situation is no less true for the City of Boston. From FY11 to the current FY16 budget, Boston’s inflexible costs have grown as a share of the total operating budget from 16% in FY11 to 21% in FY16. (continued . . .)