This afternoon, the Boston City Council voted 11-2 to approve the operating budget for FY2011.  It was a tough process that involved many difficult choices and many compromises for both the administration and the City Council. 

Many Bostonians contacted my colleagues and I to voice their opposition to cuts in this budget.  Rush to close four branch libraries and extensive layoffs in the central library caused alarm throughout our city.  The Council wrote a letter voicing concern over the haste in which the decision to close libraries was made, and asking the Board to find alternatives to closings and to extend the period of public discussion.  This month, the Trustees agreed to delay closings and continue the conversation into the new fiscal year. 

Part of that conversation will include legislation filed and passed unanimously at today’s meeting by my colleagues and I—and endorsed in a letter from the chairman of the Boston Public Library Board of Trustees—that would enable the Trustees to raise funds and add an additional four board members.  I look forward to enabling the men and women who oversee America’s oldest library system to raise the funds to keep it open for generations to come.

Another issue that affects the future of Boston is what happens in our schools, and in particular the food we feed our children.  This spring, the Boston Public Schools moved to bid out a co-management contract that would have attracted only huge multi-national corporations—like the French company Sodexo—to feed our city’s K-12 students unhealthy foods.  Sadly, we continue to feed students processed and unhealthy food trucked in from Pennsylvania and New Jersey by Preferred Foods.  (WBUR’s Radio Boston has covered this story extensively—you can listen to their report here.)

I have been assured by the administration—most recently by Mayor Menino himself—that the co-management contract will not be bid.  I have also been told that the Preferred Foods contract will be up this year, and I remain hopeful that a locally-owned business that serves fresh, healthy meals from Massachusetts farms will soon be feeding Boston’s students.

Perhaps the most difficult part of my decision to support this budget is my doing so given was the number of layoffs it created.  Boston is not immune to the worst recession since the Great Depression.  It has hit us, and hit us hard.  We were forced to let go of city employees—in particular custodians and library workers—impacting the lives of not only these employees, but the families that they support. 

We saw sacrifices from the administration and Local 718 as we developed a reasonable solution to the four-year contract dispute between the parties that was more fiscally responsible for Boston.  Small sacrifices like these on the part of everyone in our city—managers, union members, the administration, and residents—are what will allow the City of Boston meet the challenges our city faces. 

I’d like to thank Councilor Ciommo for taking on the daunting task of chairing the body’s Ways and Means Committee, and thank Lisa Calise Signori, the Mayor’s Director of Administration and Finance, for her hard work and responsiveness to the Council during this process.  Most importantly, I want to thank all of you who contacted my office to voice your concerns about the budget, and thank you for your continued support as we continue to work to make Boston an even greater city.