City Council - Regular Meeting

My name is Ben Weber. I'm the district six city councilor and the chair of the committee on ways and means. Today is 05/12/2026, and the exact time is 10:09 a. M. I have a few preliminaries to get through here.

So this hearing is being recorded. It's also being live streamed at boston.gov/citycounciltv and broadcast on xfinity channel eight, rcn channel eighty two, and phiOS channel nine the City, of of York giving testimony on the record. You can do so in several ways. One, you can attend one of our hearings and give public testimony. You can do so by speaking coming to hearing in person or by testifying virtually online.

A full hearing schedule is on our website at boston.gov/councilbudget. We also in addition, you can come to fourth of four public listening sessions we're having. The last one will be on Thursday May 26 at six p. M. Right here in the City Council chamber.

You can give testimony in person again here in the chamber by zoom. For in person testimony please come to the chamber and sign up on the sheet near the entrance. For virtual testimony you can sign up using our online form on our council budget review website or by emailing the committee at ccc. Wmboston dot gov or by emailing Karish Machoan at karishma. Chouhanboston dot gov.

When you're called to testify please state your name and where you live and your affiliation with any organizations and please limit your comments to two minutes. In lieu of attending one of our hearings and giving public testimony, again if you're here to give public testimony there's a sign in sheet near the entrance. You can also testify virtually or you know or you can submit written testimony. Email your written testimony to the committee at ccc.wm@Boston.gov lastly you can submit a two minute video of your testimony through the form on our website for more information on the city council budget process and how to testify please visit the City Council's budget website at boston.gov/citycouncilbudget. In person public testimony will be taken following the first round of councillor questions.

Individuals will be called on in the order in which they've signed up and will have two minutes to testify. If you wish to sign up for public testimony haven't done so and you you know again the sign in sheet is by the entrance or you can email our director of legislative budget analysis Karishma at karishma.chouhan@boston.gov for the Zoom link and your name will be added to the list. This morning's hearing is on docket numbers seven thirty three to seven forty, an overview of fiscal year twenty twenty seven operating budgets for the Office of Equity, Office of Black Male Advancement, Fair Housing and Equity and Office of Women's Advancement. This is one in a series of hearings to review the fiscal year twenty seven budget. These matters were sponsored by Mayor Michelle Wu and were referred to the committee on 04/08/2026.

Today, or this morning, I'm joined by my colleagues in order of arrival. We have Councillor Flynn and Councillor Santana. We were waiving opening statements at our budget hearings, so Councillors will have ample chance to speak after we hear from the panel. So this morning we're joined by the Chief of Equity and Inclusion, Maryangeli Solis Rivera. We're joined by Director of the Office of Black Male Advancement, Frank Farrow.

We're joined by the Mayor's Office of Women's Advancement's Deputy Director, Hallie Smith and the Deputy Director of Operations for the Equity and Inclusion Cabinet, Maya Gedder. So, with that said, I'm going to hand things over to the panel. If you have a presentation, it looks like you do. The floor is yours.

Good morning, counselor, and thank you for your patience. I needed to make sure that we had some warm water and snacks as we are here all day in the hearings. For those of you who may not know me, my name is Marie Angeli Solis Herrera, I'm the Chief of Equity and Inclusion, and I have the pleasure of leading a cabinet of eight different departments with several priorities that I'll go into in just a second. But before I start, and I'm gonna say this again at a two p. M.

Because it's important for me to sort of just like name the moment and articulate what what some of us may be feeling is that for the last four years, I've had the opportunity to lead a cabinet that when I first joined in f y twenty two during the f y twenty two budget, had less than 30 staff members. And today, I get to share that we are 80 plus strong as a cabinet. And I know I have colleagues across the country who do not have that resource. And so I just wanna sort of set a little bit of of the facts at the table that while we are experiencing cuts in the form of the grant making that we do, that is very impactful, and you will hear testimony about this directly from our staff and also from the residents, We are not cutting personnel or programming. That work will continue in FY twenty seven.

So, with that, I'd like to begin. If I can get the next slide, Or is there a clicker for us?

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take of Just on, okay.

Male They can take care of it. Also, the panelists, you don't have to press the buttons on your mics. Do not. Central will take care of turning those off and on. There you go.

Great. So, just a little bit of our mission. Our focus is improving life outcomes by targeting the different social determinants of health as in the programs, practices, policies that this larger city of Boston is responsible for. So, we are less focused on doing direct programming, although there are, and you will hear examples of that, and more focused on changing the systems internally. And we have three ways in which we do that.

We have direct equity inclusion services in the form of workshops with staff so that they can change behaviors as well in their work, and technical assistance. We also have targeted programming, which is what our departments have done incredible work around. And we've done some work around coalition building. We've spent the last four years focused on building coalitions within each of our entities. So, you'll hear again from women's advancement, specific groupings of of women that they've organized and built agendas around.

What I'm looking for in the next four years is that we do some cross cross departmental work. As there are limited resources, we need to be more effective and strategic with what we do. So you'll see you'll see some changes in the next couple of years. Next slide, please. Just a reminder of the departments that are under us. You'll hear some from us today. Some right now at ten a.

And then

the rest at two p. M. And last but not least, when it comes to the office of equity, which just often gets confused, There's a cabinet that encompasses eight departments plus multiple priorities, and on top of that, there is a specific office that has some other work such as culture affairs, the work of operationalizing equity and inclusion throughout the city, the work of reparations task force, and something that we do that's often behind the scenes that we don't talk about during hearings is just cabinet wide operations and supporting the different departments that are that have been resourced in different ways throughout the years. Counselors have given us amendments, etcetera, and not but not all departments have had the same amount of resources. And so that's where the equity office steps in and provides those operational needs.

Okay. So just some progress on f y twenty six related to dollars. Cultural affairs is wrapping up their selection of who will be receiving grants for this summer mini grants, and that will be the last time that we do this. When it comes to cultural affairs, we have some work, then we're happy to share some reports that we have available for you on the academy on technical assistance program and our native governance center, which is preparing to do a training with departments to ensure that we are applying a lens that is that has been formalized by native nations, and and and we are looking into that as well. When it comes to the work of reparations, we are the dollars hasn't spent on finalizing phase one report when it comes to f r twenty six, a seminar that we held at the Roxbury Community College, and some work that we're doing right now with the archaeology department.

And in a second, I'll get into f y twenty seven. And then some of the cabinet wide operations just for transparency. We are looking at centralizing admin and finance since some departments have access to this and others do not. FY '27, I'm gonna go briefly on what our spending goals will be for each of the initiatives, and then I'll pass the mic to my colleagues to talk about their specific departments. We'll continue our direct programming.

Just because grants end, that does not mean that our programming ends. We continue to do educational workshops in target languages to ensure that residents receive and know how to access services from the city, and we're looking at building cross cultural policy agendas. Right now, we have our Caribbean liaison, thanks to the advocacy of members of this panel and city council. And I don't know if you all know Bianca, but she's already developing a policy agenda with members of the Caribbean community, and we're going to be doing that with others as well. When it comes to the work of embedding equity and inclusion, internally, we are looking to double the number of participants.

We have already reached over 40 departments just through the work of the academy. And as I said earlier, we're gonna reengage with the work of supporting indigenous communities. Now for the reparations task force, which I hope to be getting questions about to make sure that we are clarifying some of the confusion at this point. We recognize first that there has been a significant delay since the ordinance was signed in FY twenty two. The but our hope for f y twenty seven is that we deliver on the task which ends after phase three with a set of recommendations informed by research, informed by the public directly from the task force to the city of Boston.

And that is that is something that we will meet by the end of f y twenty seven. And last but not least, some of the cabinet wide operations that I'm happy to go into if needed of how we plan to support our departments, especially those that are losing significant dollars in their grant programs. But again, programming is not sorry, grant grant program, but not the direct programming that our personnel is in charge of. Okay. And now I'm gonna pass off the mic to, I believe, a black male advancement led by our director Frank Farrow who him and many others he represented today have had very little time to take in all the information about the budget and had to rethink their strategy with us through their commissions or advisory boards, listening sessions that we've hosted.

And my hope is that today, we remain focused on what is possible and hear directly back from the public about how we can make this work better for everybody. So without further ado, am I right? Yes. BMA.

Thank you, chief. Good morning, chair. Good morning, counselors. This FY twenty seven budget pro proposal for the Office of Black Male Advancement outlines our impact, priorities, and the vision for deepening our investment, in the lives of black men and boys across the city. BMA continues to build on our progress, expanding opportunity, fatherhood engagement, youth pathways, workforce empowerment, affordable homeownership, men's health, and more.

This year, we will continue our efforts to increase access and opportunity through policy, programs, partnerships, and continue to build out our ecosystem, and ultimately, a city a city where every black man and boy can thrive. The mission of the office is to improve outcomes, reduce systemic barriers to investment for black men and boys, and ensure they have the opportunity, access, resources, and support across the city. Our core priorities are equity and racial justice, economic opportunity and work workers' empowerment, affordable housing, pathways to homeownership, education and youth advancement, public health and wellness, and fatherhood of families, community safety, and returning citizens. Some of our core programs include My Brother's Keeper Boston. My Brother's Keeper Boston, is a partnership with the Obama Foundation.

We are the Boston chapter connected to the national network, and we work to break down societal, economic, and educational barriers for black boys and young men who target efforts in education, career pathways, mentorship, out of school time support, and our community partnership network. In FY '26, MBK has served over 2,000 young black males through our initiatives like the MBK fellows, MBK ambassadors, Opportunity Lab, Reach one thousand, college tours, and the summit. Project opportunity focus on the older population, 25 and above, and that works to establish successful pathways to prosperity for Boston residents through concentration of offering access to employment, career training, health and housing resources, free legal support for record selling and expungement, and community partnerships. In FY '26 so far, project opportunity had provided resources and supports to over four four hundred individuals, through career fairs, resource fairs, and community partnerships. We passed three budget cycles, operated a community empowerment grant, where we fund community based organizations to scale up their work, deepen their impact, and strengthen community outcomes.

In FY '26, we supported 40 based community organizations, to support and advance the work, targeted focus on mentoring out of school time, youth and young adult pathways, housing mobility, economic inclusion and wealth building, workforce training and development, fatherhood engagement, and mental health. Since the start of the office, through these grants, we have provided over $2,000,000 to community based organizations and supported over 240, community organizations in the city of Boston. As a result of our grant process, in working with community based organizations, We identified some areas of need of additional assistance. And in those conversations, we established a community building capacity building institute where we provide technical assistance to nonprofit organizations. And this year, not only we're providing technical assistance to organizations that we are funding, we are providing the opportunity for technical assistance to any organization that applied through our grant process, and that is an initiative that we will continue in FY '27.

Through the Corey Shilling project, we provide free legal support, to help residents sell their criminal records, remove barriers to employment, housing, and opportunity. We do that in a partnership with with legal legal advisers, community partners, and that's something in FY '26 we provided support to over 81 individuals. We are in the process of launching our data dashboard, which will be a centralized real time platform featuring rolling data from city departments, organizations, and agencies looking at outcomes, progress to better inform policy and drive impact. This data dashboard will be publicized in the coming weeks, and it will have datasets from over seven city departments.

Whoever has the clicker or Ethan back there, I think we're a couple slides behind. Yeah. Great.

And the next is the equity study that, was made possible through through support of the council. We recently announced, the brief for phase one of the equity study, which is a comprehensive assessment of data related to black men and boys and how they are served by the city of Boston through policies, program, and services. In FY twenty six, we engaged with over 2,000 black men in the city Of Boston through equity surveys, focus groups, one on one interviews, community outreach. We are currently, the RFP for phase two is currently live and closing, in a few weeks, and that focus will be on a comprehensive assessment to identify and evaluate existing programs to determine black men and boys are benefiting from programs in the city, identify gaps in service, and ultimately provide recommendations to remedy any disparities, if found. In all of the work through the office of blackmail advancement is focused through kind of the priorities and roles named through our ordinance.

As an office and through our commission, we are tasked with advising the mayor on issues pertaining to black men and boys, assisting, the mayor in determining budget and policy priorities, monitoring and advising city agencies and departments on issues pertaining to black men and boys, performing outreach, communication, and a liaison for black men and boys related to community groups and organizations, working with departments, city agencies, commissions to ensure that black men and boys are representative of all levels of city gored government, coordinating dialogues in collaboration with our commission, other city agencies. We have both local and national partnerships censoring around the work of black men and boys. And annually, we provide a annual report through the clerk, through the city council, and to our community to outline the work that we were doing. And we make sure that, through the advisory of our black men and boys commission made up of 21, community leaders, that we're moving the work forward, that we're tracking progress. And so looking ahead, the office of black male advancement will focus on expanding MBK Boston project opportunity, advancing phase two of the equity study, and monitoring progress through our data dashboard.

Our office will also prioritize continuing capacity building institute, supporting black men and boys commission budget and policy recommendation process, convening regular commission meetings, publicizing information concerning black men and boys, and maintaining our BMA partnership network to strengthen collaboration and impact across the city, and continue to build out the ecosystem to ultimately ensure that all black men and boys in the city have pathways and opportunities to advance, thrive, and build wealth. Thank you.

Thank you.

All right. Good morning, everyone. My name is Maya Gedder. I serve as the deputy chief of operations for the Equity Inclusion Cabinet. My use sheher pronouns. I'm here on behalf of the Fair Housing team today to walk you through our FY twenty seven budget. Oh, I've done something.

Sorry.

Looks like we're bit do we Would

you bring me back to my slide? Thank you. So I wanted to get started today with our office's definition of fair housing. Our team works really hard to make sure that these this definition is upheld every single day. And when it comes to your constituents or to other folks across the city that would like to use our services, we wanna make sure that they are coming to us and asking questions about if something like this applies to them.

So there's a long list of protected classes that I'm not going to read aloud for you. You can read them yourselves. But we wanna make sure that anyone that is in one of these protected classes, we often have cases where people sit across multiple of those classes, is not experiencing housing discrimination in their search for housing. That can look like a leasing agent, a broker, a landlord, a lender. And the tricky thing about our office is we are limited by the federal government and the jurisdiction we are allowed to instances within six months of occurrence.

We often ask folks when they come in for their intakes to make sure that they are letting us know about the most recent instance of discrimination they're alleging. But we also are able to use state resources at our disposal if the timelines are a little bit longer than that. So like I've mentioned, these are the priorities across our team. We really spend most of our time focusing on that casework in the middle. But additionally, mayor Wu's first executive order in her term was the affirmatively furthering a fair housing executive order, and we continue to lead a cross departmental group that is working towards ticking off the boxes of all of those goals we hope to accomplish, and I'll get to that a little bit later where we are.

And then excitingly, we've been working for a couple of fiscal years now and with the support of the council last year to develop a fair housing testing program. There are not that many in Suffolk County right now, which does mean that the only people who are really coming up with fair housing cases are folks that are being personally discriminated against. And testing programs allow us to sort of do mystery shopping, for lack of a better word, with those lenders, brokers, and different folks that could be sometimes accidentally, sometimes not as accidentally engaging in discrimination. So like I said, our team has seen some great success for our affirmatively furthering fair housing work. The work is across several departments, but this is not an exhaustive list, but BHA and MOH and planning and ISD and the public health department, as well as BPS all work towards affirmatively furthering fair housing for constituents.

And so we were able to directly address that goal, right, in the anti displacement work that planning has been working on, and continue to sort of advise on Article 80 modernization to make sure that the fair housing pieces are not left out. As I said, our you know, the the core part of our work is our constituent casework, and we continue to make sure that we are meeting those needs of our constituents. We have not changed anything we do in this current federal administration, and so our team continues to work really hard to make sure that we are assessing the needs, keeping track of trends, and things like that, and making sure that we are closing our cases as quickly as possible. And lastly, we are excited to be continuing to do more work around education outreach around fair housing. The team hosts a weekly Zoom that is open to the public.

So sometimes we have members of the public join who are renters themselves or homeowners themselves. More frequently, we have brokers and lenders and folks that are sort of on the giving end of housing who join to make sure that they are following fair housing law and can ask us a lot of questions as well if they would like to learn more. In FY twenty seven, we are really hoping to grow that casework. I think a lot of the work around education outreach is towards the goal of making sure that we actually have more cases coming in so we can truly assess those trends and figure out where discrimination is happening in the city if it is. And then we are really excited to draft an assessment report on the progress we've made with affirmatively furthering fair housing.

Guys, try saying that one seven times fast. It's a really, really exciting time. We are, I think, five years past the initial drafting of the executive order. And so getting to go through a very, very long list and figure out where we are and what we what we still wanna work on is something we're really excited about. And then, of course, lastly, our testing program, we are hoping to launch in f y twenty seven. We're really looking forward to finding a strong vendor who is able to support us through that process and to help us, you know, continue to dig in on issues of fair housing across the city. And that is my last slide. Passing it on to the wonderful Haley Smith of Women's Advancement.

Good morning, everyone. Good morning. Good morning everyone. Good morning. Great. So I'm Haley e Smith. I serve as the deputy director for the mayor's office of women's advancement. Ethan, do you mind doing my slides? Pretty please. Thank you. So we no. Next not next slide. I'm gonna say next slide. I'm gonna follow your instructions that you printed so nicely. So we are the mayor's office of women's advancement.

We serve women and girls through the initiatives of equity, economic equity, safety, representation, and health. I am leading this office with my amazing executive director, Dana Alice, our policy director, Emily Nassif. We have two fellows that also support our work, Gray Sullivan and Talen Clark. Next slide. So you have the FY twenty six budget available to you, and now we're gonna bring those numbers to life based on what we did and the looks that we served.

So we have signature events in March around all of our initiatives, but what we've really focused on this fiscal year is proving that we can do programming outside of Women's History Month, the month of March, and doing a lot of initiatives in program partnerships by exceeding that efficiency that we know that we have with the fiscal budget that we're facing. We're building relationships in community, both on a national and local scale, including offices within City Hall and KwaZe offices. Next slide. Minstrel equity sits within our health initiative that we have been able to move forward from 2023 when it was a pilot, and we've moved into phase one. And, essentially, we created a educational animation series that's available in 12 different languages.

And through this program, we've been able to train all BCYF staff with plans to train BPS and BPF BPL staff as well. Next slide. We are also following the I am bill with the help of our policy director, supporting the bill and its progress and making sure that menstrual products are not only available and accessible to people, but that ingredients within those products are also revealed to consumers. We partnered with an HKS student who did a feasible study on the cost of providing products to BPS, which is phase two of three of our menstrual equity program. We oh, next slide.

So essentially, WE BOSS is another one of our programs that sit within our economic equity initiative. It stands for Women's Entrepreneurs Boston. It lived under a previous administration, and we were able to revitalize it as it died throughout the pandemic. And we transformed the program from a week of events in October to four annual events, having a summit in March, hosting a workshop in q two, and hosting some sort of like outdoors clinic in q three, and then hosting a mixer in q four for women's small business month. Some examples of our workshops have been a golf clinic.

This year, we're planning to do a tennis clinic. We've host a tariff workshop, and this year, we're planning to do a workshop on corporate sponsorships. We want to be the front door to entrepreneurs and really serve as that first stop when they're saying, like, I'm a woman and an entrepreneur to then feed feed them into the other offices within the city that support entrepreneurs, especially minority entrepreneurs. The summit the summit this year was a rounding success. We were able to gain a new partnership with Roxbury Community College and serve close to 500 women on summit day.

Next slide, please. Some of our impact is on the slides, and this is our some of the testimonials from some of the attendees at this year's summit. Next slide, please. One of our other programs is extraordinary women, which has been around since about 2019 as a formal program of the office. However, we put it under our representation initiative where we honor 40 women and girls in the city of Boston for their astounding work and commitment to service.

This is our second year honoring girls, and this year's reception was able to be held at the ICA in partnership with Endless Flair. It was a beautiful evening and a packed house. It was indeed packed. Next slide, please. This is our second year of our mental mini health grant after much considered community feedback.

We noticed there was also an area of opportunity per our partners, and so we launched the domestic sexual and gender based violent prevention grant. These two programs welcomed over a 100 applicants. Next slide, please. Something that we want to focus on in FY twenty seven is actually releasing and creating a girls summit similar to some of the other offices that do a a black boy summit, a black boy joy summit, or a mayor's youth summit. We wanna focus a summit specifically for girls in the city of Boston.

This came as a direct request in 2024 from a BPS senior who is now sophomore at Clark Atlanta University. And she request she basically asked, like, why isn't there one for girls? And I thought that was a great question. And so we want to collect as many resources, support, and engagement around creating a summit for girls in the city of Boston on International Day of the Girl, which is Sunday, 10/11/2026. Next slide, please. So that is it for me. Like I said, I'm Haley e Smith. I serve as the deputy director. My executive director is Dana Alice and our policy director Emily Nassar. Thank you so much.

Okay. You. That's that's it from the panelists. We've been joined by councilor Worrell, councilor Louis Jen, councilor Fitzgerald. Just for my colleagues, we do have two hearings focusing on equity today.

So, I have in the morning, we've got the Office of Equity, the Office of Black Male Advancement, Fair Housing and Equity, and the Office of Women's Advancement. In the afternoon, we're focusing on Office of Language Access, Moya, the Office of Immigrant Advancement, MOLA, Office of LGBTQIA2S plus Advancement and the Disabilities Commission. So if some of your questions are for those entities, it might be more appropriate for the afternoon. Okay, so we're gonna go to my colleagues. Seven minutes. Councillor Flynn,

lead us off. Thank you Mr. Chair and thank you to administration team that is here. I want to acknowledge the professional work of of blackmail advancement. Frank, you have done, believe, a very good job in that office and have had the opportunity to attend many of your meetings.

I just want to acknowledge the importance of this department and what you do. I also want to highlight City Councilor Mihiel, City Councilor Worrell for really leading us to develop that black male advancement. Frank, can you just go over a little bit about your mission and during challenging times when we see a lot of cuts or we do see a lot of racism, what is the how is the mission of your department redefined itself during these challenging times?

I'll say during the challenging times, we continue to move the work forward and we are intentional around the work that we're doing and we work closely with our commission on black men and boys to kind of focus on what our priorities are foundation that's kind of laid out in the ordinance. And so we move all work through kind of through the ordinance that gives a specific task and focus on the office.

Thank you Frank. And attending these meetings I I kind of I like to listen and and watch and I see the members providing recommendations about how you can improve the lives of young black boys or how you can support black men as well. What do you what do you do with those types of recommendations and how do you try to use those recommendations into some type of policy?

So I think the first thing we do, we we submit an annual report that lays out the recommendations from engagement with community. We work with other city departments for kind of the issue areas that are identified specific to their departments, you know, the workshop, identify gaps, then identify solutions to those gaps. And so we have ongoing meetings with city departments. We collaborate and find ways to strengthen the areas that are named in the inequities. And we're doing a lot of work through the equity study right now in partnership with those targeted departments.

We're launching a data dashboard where we'll have updates, we're working with those departments in tracking progress monitoring what outcomes in identifying solutions to some of the issues that that are named.

Thank you. And I Frank, I always supported the black men advancement because I've seen the especially during the amendment process, but I've seen the work up up close and I've seen the interaction and outreach that your team has done. That's why I've been a strong supporter because I know what the results are and just want to acknowledge your professionalism. Maybe to maybe to the Fair Housing Commission. I know I know you spoke about the Fair Housing Commission.

What is the status and we obviously we had an exceptional Fair Housing professional director with Bob Terrell. What is the status of that job being vacant, but getting someone into that? I I'm a strong supporter of the Fair Housing Commission. I wanna see a strong leader in there. But what's the what's the latest on getting a permanent person?

Sure. I can answer that question, counselor. Excellent. We are planning to hire, hopefully, this spring and to post the role publicly and do a search. I think, as you mentioned, Bob Terrell's passing was really hard for the department, and it really took us some time to think about what next step should look like. We are really excited to bring somebody in, especially sort of in these federal times where things are up in the air. We're excited that our partners at HUD are still working with us and look forward to filling the role, hopefully, by the fall.

Excellent. Thank you. I also support the other departments that are mentioned here, women's advancement, language and communication access, immigrant advancement, LGBT, fair housing, certainly the disability commission. One that hasn't been discussed that I've long supported and the chief knows I'm going to ask about this issue, And I've met with the chief many times. Human Rights Commission.

I've always been a strong supporter of the Human Rights Commission. I know it's had better days. It's been a challenging time, but I believe in the mission. I believe in the mission because I've I've seen it work when it when it is supported. City councilor and mayor Flynn regard heavily on the Human Rights Commission, and I don't wanna see this commission disappear.

I used it a lot when there were hate crimes, and I would formally send a letter to the Human Rights Commission asking for an investigation relating to a hate crime, including hate crimes against people in the LGBT community or any type of hate crime against a person of color or someone based on their religion or sex nationality. Again, I'm a strong supporter in the Human Rights Commission as as you probably know, chief. What are your thoughts?

Thank you, counselor. I'm I'm trying to remember. I think you were the first counselor I sat with when I when I first got appointed.

I think so.

And I've always been really grateful for your advocacy this work. I think one thing that I want to address is as I shared, a lot has has changed in the last four years. We have departments now that we didn't have before, and we have learned through the mechanism that still exists of people submitting concerns through emails that a lot of that work can be addressed by the current departments. And I think it's a it's a excellent evolution that couldn't have happened without the work of mayor Flynn. And so I'm just I'm looking forward to further con for was that a so sorry.

Further conversations just so that we can see how we can continue the work. But right now, it is a gap that is being addressed by the staff that exists.

Okay. I I don't want okay. And again, I have respect for you chief. I I don't want us to see the commission fold the the other aspect of this. Miss Chair, can I just continue?

If you have a comment.

Okay, yeah. I'll just have a comment. The Boston Police Department had a community civil rights outreach that investigated hate crimes that was very effective. The Human Rights Commission also was very effective. They're only effective when the staff is in there and and and they have the leadership from the top.

If they don't have the leadership from the top, that's going to prioritize a particular department. But I I I do believe that there is a role in the city for the Human Rights Commission. And I know we're not gonna solve it now, but chief, maybe sometime over the next couple weeks we can talk about it further. Okay? Okay. Mister chair, thank you for giving me an extra minute.

Okay. Thank you. Councillor Santana?

Good morning. Thank you all for being here. I I want to also start just by thanking Frank and your amazing team. I think just from the top down, and your team just do incredible work. I've seen you all in community and just doing amazing work on behalf of of of a black man here in the city of Boston.

Now I think I do have some concern. Think you mentioned, right, some of the grants that will be be losing and the organizations that are impacted there. Just would like to know more about what's being communicated to those organizations. And despite maybe not having those grants, mean what does support look like for them? You know I think my concern is that I understand as the chief mentioned right is the moment we're in right now.

And I think throughout this throughout many departments we' seeing grant funding decrease right or eliminated. And in some cases I think there' other avenues for some of these organizations to apply for maybe other grants across. I am concerned about that maybe some of the organizations you are working with this is the only form of funding that they have right? That there aren't any other you know national or statewide grants. I'm very concerned about these organizations and, you know, just want to know what support we're providing them.

Thank you for that question. So I think our communication with our grant partners concerning FY '27 is that we're going to continue offering our technical assistance program, and that provides organization capacity, nonprofit coaching, capturing outcomes, storytelling, peer to peer learning, and advancing equity efforts as part of a community. We are also ultimately looking to share other grant opportunities that we're able to compile through our city partners, connecting them directly with city departments that work in the spaces of the focus areas. And then we've had initial conversations with our chief and the mayor's partnership team of kind of identifying other opportunities for public and private partnerships to help fill some of the gaps that are going to be identified. As department, we have a number of grantees that through our grant, it was their first time ever receiving funding through the city, and some of them, the only place that they receive funding from.

So we wanna continue to make sure that, know, through our through our office that we're exhausting kind of any effort to make sure that we're connecting them with kind of the resources and support that they need to continue to work.

I appreciate that. I think just following up on that chief, you know, think in other situations, you know, the mayor's come out with even like year round jobs, right, and that's being cut and maybe having some like fundraising outside fundraising happening out there. Like, are there any discussions of that happening even within this department? Again, I'm just very concerned about like and I know you are too. Right? I mean

I don't think about it either.

Organizations. And, you know, I I visit some of these organizations Yeah. That that have received funding from me when they're doing very good work with very limited resources and when that limited resources taken away the sustainability of that organization is not questioned right? Are there any discussions about maybe outside fundraising that could potentially happen for some of these grants that we're losing?

Thank you, counselor. I cannot speak for fundraising. Feel like the law department could better answer that question for me. But I you all have done your own advocacy. Counselor Lujan, you were so successful in getting us that partnership with TBF and others. So this is a moment for us to get creative. I am talking with other chiefs and seeing how we can internally put out an agenda that is comprehensive of all the different needs that are out in the community and and then workshop that with other leaders. But this is gonna take an effort from everybody, so I appreciate that question.

Absolutely. I think please let us know and my colleagues know of how we can support those efforts. I think it's it's extremely important. I think I do wanna echo housewife Flynn and the fair housing. I think, right, you know, I think having a a strong leader at the top as we did in the past, I think is very important.

And I think right now because of the federal administration that we have, because of the highs in cost of rent here in the city of Boston, you know, we need to make sure that that our tenants are being protected and looked out for. So I appreciate that timeline. I think just with the final minutes that I have here, chief you mentioned just reparations and I think you gave an important update that I haven't had. I I can you just actually repeat that update and timeline so that folks know just like what you know the timeline that you mentioned?

Yep. Our and I want to acknowledge the delayed timeline and something that I believe Antonia Edwards is still here and is consistently asking us to be more public about this. So Antonia, thank you for your work in the task force. Don't know what you're saying. There you are.

I we we will be putting out a road map that clearly indicates indicates when all phases of the task force will be finalized. The road map is not finished. It needs to be in consultation with the task force and with the research groups also as we are looking to put out the report. But by FY twenty seven, phase three, which is the completion of the task, will be finalized. And that is research informed, public informed, and city task I'm sorry, task force informed recommendations to the city of Boston to engage in a repetitive program reparative program. That's that's the update.

Awesome. Thank you very much. I got to think this cabinet as a whole I mean there's so much and I think as you pointed out chief I think just going back from to 2022 to where we are now I see that growth and you just really appreciate the work that you all do and especially your teams I mean your teams are just amazing people who are from here people who know the city and know our neighborhoods and on the streets really providing that outreach. Shout out I think to the commissioners I actually had the honor of meeting one of your youth commissioners and just doing amazing work and our community educating other youth and really love to see that so shout out to them. That' all the questions I have Mr.

Chair. You.

Thank you very much. Councillor Worrell, seven minutes.

Thank you Chair and thank you to the panel for the work that you do. Just want to jump right into it. How many this question for this chief. How many positions does the equity cabinet have? Then how many vacancies?

Oh gosh. May I get back to you? I want to give you an accurate number. But I know we're upwards of well a cabinet wide, we're upwards of 70.

No. You're

Just the office?

Yeah. Just the office.

We're I'll give you the accurate number.

Okay. Do you know how many vacancies you have?

I'll get you that number immediately.

Okay. Alright. Phil, did you have the answer?

I think you get it. Just one vacancy. The final number of decisions. So on vacancy it's just one, but we'll get you the official Okay.

Yeah, I I think in page 75 of the budget book it says 33 positions.

Thank you.

Office of Equity Operating Budget.

Okay. So 33 positions and then just one big so the org chart is is that up to date? No, not yet?

It should be.

Okay. Because I was just trying to just confirm that. When you talk about centralizing responsibilities Yeah. How do you go about explain the process.

Yep. So we have been in FY twenty six, we took we made some changes to the org chart to ensure that all the departments that have and when I say departments, I'm not talking about the equity office, I'm talking about the eight departments at Amheras have access to the admin and fines and finances that need to happen in the city of Boston. Because some departments such as women's advancement only have three staff members. And we do not feel like it's a good use of time to hire another person to sit in that small department. Instead, we have now a team of, I believe, four people, and my eye can correct me here, that do admin and finance for the rest of the cabinet.

Other current departments still have that those a and f functions and we are looking to centralize as are many other chiefs to ensure that we are being the most effective with our our resources.

Got

it. I guess my concern is when we're pulling from these already small departments Mhmm. And then they're getting another haircut from the administration where you know we're decreasing a lot of the the budgets in the equity cabinet. Right?

We're not taking we're not taking personnel from departments. I'm not sure where you're getting this information from.

Oh, you just said that you took one from Nope. Mayor's office

Women's advancement. Not have the ANF position. We've had we've taken that from we've we've had that in our what I mean by this is we are taking the responsibilities Okay. From the department. Because if they're a small department, we they don't need a whole body for that. So instead they can refocus their work on that. So instead of Haley having to do a and f, we're just taking that responsibility so she can focus on the programming.

Alright. That's good to hear. So no FTEs are moving from department into?

We can speak a little bit on what we're doing with the Human Rights Commission, but that's not the other departments.

Okay. So so it is happening in human rights?

So last fiscal year, counselor, the we took two positions out of the Human Rights Commission to expand our technical assistance work, which Okay. Gets to some of the work that Human Rights Commission does as is. Right. And then what chief is talking about, I would reiterate, is like imagine somebody has a couple of items in their job description. Are removing of those bullets. The position stays, and the department gets to reimagine exactly what that person focuses on on the day to day.

All right. Because I do remember, and I think it's also reflected in the RFIs that Mayor's Office of Women Advancement went from three to two last fiscal year. Then it got bumped up I believe again.

I think it might have been four to three but

Yeah, four to three. It did go down, right? Yes.

We went from five to two and then we Yes. Went to

So yeah. So that shift was what was that shift? That five to two shift?

Five to two shift was to make up for some of the concerns that we had around pay.

Explain? You elaborate? Sorry.

Can I understand where you're trying to go with this line of questioning?

No. I'm just trying to understand how the staffing was moved from here.

I think it's important to acknowledge that not that long ago, there were not that many personnel in the equity cabinet, and now we have more. And the specific example of MOA, which I gave you, you were not asking about MOA, it was five. About three years ago, when Dana comes in, we make a decision to move the ANF position. This is now f y 20. We'd have to look at a couple budget books back. We went to four, and then we went from four to three to make up for a pay equity issue that we had in the cabinet.

Okay. Alright.

Going to the overall budget, when we're talking in previous years you talked about how you worked with OBM and the CFO on creating the budget to make sure that it was equitable. Can you talk like a lot of the work that you know the departments within your cabinet, they issue a lot of grants. Right? A lot of those grants could be direct services. Also it's a good chunk of the grants.

I mean a good chunk of budget. Was there any other I guess recommendations you as the equity chief gave to the administration on other places to look to cut outside of the grants within your cabinet?

Yes. I was a part of multiple conversations and that is why grants are not the only things that are being cut in the entire administration.

Okay. But for your for your departments, were there like any other recommendations? Like, can you give me like some recommendations you provided the Right. I don't know when

you Yeah. When we did when we were requested for the 2% reduction, I'm I'm happy to go back to those documents and share how we expressed the 2% when we came back. When we were request when new information came to us, the grants were one of the things that were part of the discussion.

Okay. Alright. I guess my concern is I'm seeing like a lot of big cuts in some departments. Mhmm. You know some departments get cut within your cabinet like 25% which is a lot more than a 2%. A lot get cut you know even a little bit higher than that. And for me that's a you know a major concern just based off of the work that some of these departments do.

I see. That's a really important thing that I'd like to clarify. The decision was personnel or grants because our budget is personnel or grants, mostly. And for me, it's more important to keep the incredible work that's happening internally with the policy changes, the practices changes, and the programming that our staff directly offer to our residents. And I recognize the impact that that is going to have in FY '27.

Right. And I'll end on this is that I I haven't totaled up the cuts from your cabinets that Mhmm. You know, resulted in grants. But could we have found that dollar amount somewhere else in the budget opposed from taken from the mayor's office of women advancement, immigrant advancement, black male advancement that are doing a lot of that other departments are not doing. So I'll leave it there. Thank you.

Okay. Yeah just a clarifying question. So when we're looking at the cuts of the grants, did we look in the contractual services line item? Is that all of the grants or were there cuts to grants elsewhere?

All of the grants fall under contracted services but there are still dollars in contracted services that are not grants, right? Could just be a contract, things like that. So you'll see that number decrease but in some cases the line stays quite large.

Okay. Okay. Sorry. Councilor Louie Jen, you got seven minutes.

Thank you. Thank you, mister chair. I have a lot of questions. I wanna thank my colleagues for all the questions that they've asked. Addressed some of the the issues that I have. I wanna thank all of you for the work that you do. I think the work of the equity cabinet in a city where we have a lot of equity work to do is important. I think it is also important to remember the recency of this cabinet. The first chief equity officer, my first boss Carolyn Crockett really started this labor of love and I think it's important. It's just an important, like, benchmark for us to remember.

And we're trying to we wanna move so fast because urgency is completely there. Alright. I'm just gonna start with my questions, I guess, for black male advancement. A lot of praise was given as is was due to you, Frank, for your leadership and to the leadership of your department. I wanna also give a big shout out to Tito Jackson who planted the seed way back when for black male advancement.

I have several questions. It looks like the personnel budget for BMA increases slightly from about 1,167,000 in fiscal year twenty six to 1,175,000 in this fiscal year well, the upcoming fiscal year, while non personnel drops from 952,000 to 443,000. Assuming that's mostly all grants, unfortunately. Have you is your cabinet in sort of this structure, have you thought about what programs that you used maybe rely more on external sources do? What are you bringing in house? Like is that a active conversation that you're trying to have?

Yeah. We we are having conversations kind of identifying the gaps through the grants and and what we can continue kind of through the funding we have in contractor services, and then what we have with internal staffing that can kind of help fill some of those voids, but also working with other city departments that are kind of tasked with those direct services to make sure that constituents that reach out to us are getting the support they need.

Thank you. I do think that the grant programs are incredibly important. If for no other reason like are they necessarily some of the grants amounts especially for some of the mini grants are they changing the nature of organizations that were the grants were supposed to do? No. But they are sort of good affirmations from the city of support and alignment, and I think that is really important.

And I think that is really important for this cabinet given sort of when we talk about the recency of the cabinet when you also combine it with sort of like the urgency of the issues for groups that have been traditionally marginalized, excluded intentionally to have that affirmation from the city and that support saying like, hey, we got your back. We're here to support. When you talked about chief Sole Severa, the work that my office did with getting the Boston Foundation to partner and the United Way to partner and do this public private partnership, that was before I even knew that these cuts were even coming down the line. But I do think that it is important for us always in moments of difficulty, but also in all moments to be thinking about private public partnerships because the city can't solve these problems alone. Number one, because the city participated in a lot of these, but when we talk about redlining, when we talk about blockbusting that happened in Mattapan, Roxbury, Dorchester, those were created by private banks.

And so there is a role for our private companies in helping us solve complex problems, there's a role for philanthropy. I'd like to see us do the a lot more of that, identify which of the foundations are could be good partners with different entities to to to bring up how much we're able to support grant funding. But I also the as someone you know, I started here in 2022. The office of returning citizens did not have a grant program. We started that with the office of my office, and we are going to make sure they're able to continue that work because, again, we're talking about populations who often don't have any other place to go to get that assistance.

And so I know that there's difficulties financially, and we have to be fiscally responsible, and we have to make sure that your cabinet continues the important work even in its recency of affirming the work that vulnerable communities are doing. Another question for you, Frank, is the Black Men and Boys Commission made more than 25 policy and budget recommendations in fiscal year twenty How many were accepted, rejected, funded, incorporated into department work plans, or carried forward for future review? I also see the work of your office as incredibly important. Like, how do you embed it into the work that the mayor's office of housing is doing? How do you embed it into the work that the Mayor's of Workforce Development is doing? So if you could talk about how those policy recommendations are embedded into larger city work.

Yeah I can can look into the exact details but our name through the health commission kind of it led to what was recently announced, the $1,000,000 that's focusing on improving life expectancy for black men in the city of Boston. It also led to a funding opportunity for black men's health and so we identified community partners that can be an extension of the work the health commission is doing to provide support for black men's black men's health, as well as fatherhood and mental health for black men through the health commission and through kind of the advocacy of the Black Men and Boys Commission. It also led to kind of the centralization of the Office of Violence Prevention under the Health Commission. That was through kind of the advocacy of the commission as well. Increase in funding for emerging developers in the office of housing, increase of funding for down payment assistance in the office of housing in FY '26, increase of funding in MBK work, in BPS in FY '26, And then those are the, you know, the primary ones that I have kind of in front of me.

I can follow-up with a full list of of the the recommendations that led to results.

Thank you. I have more questions for you, but I'm gonna move on to a different department. And just I do appreciate the work that you all have been doing at Boston Public Schools. I think that that partnership could deepen, strengthen, and really take root. I have some questions for fair housing. Maya, thanks for being with us. So this was an this is also a big advocacy point for my office. We we had may you rest in peace. Robert Terrell here several times, and he talked about the gold standard for for housing testing, which is payer testing. You have a white applicant and a black applicant or a pregnant woman and a non to go out and to to to do that. Are we seeking vendors that are doing sort of that are able

to do that pair testing? So we the tricky thing about testing here in Boston is there just aren't that many folks doing that work. We are

putting So the university has Yes. A program. Correct. And I know that a lot of it has been discontinued because of federal funding, which is why it's even more important that we are doing fair housing testing because no one is doing it. Precisely. The federal government has relegated their responsibility to do it. Like, we need to be the ones doing it and it's frustrating to not see it happen year after year. Yeah. So it says here that that this the Office of Fair Housing Equity budget will decrease by 24.8%. This decrease is driven by completed research initiatives, understood, and the removal of the

city council amendment for fair housing testers which I find unacceptable. Yeah. So we are using the funds from that you guys did gift us already to begin some of that work, but do have external resources that we have access to that we can also tap into. We spent some time after the amendment from the council last year digging into what a program really should look like and doing some of this research. And the fair housing team just thought we needed more money. And so we have found some of those external resources and are putting, I think the contract

is for two fifty out in the in the end, so

a little bit more than more than double what the council offered. But I think we do have some concerns about, you know, the lack of diversity of vendors. Right? We are hoping that Suffolk will apply and be a great partner to work with, but we also would love to see more testing happening across the the city as well as the county in general. So the RFP does allow for folks that are not currently offering that work to propose system. And yes, peer testing is certainly what we are hoping to look at as a gold standard. The program also is going to run for more than one year, which is part of why we needed more of that funding. I think we think that we'll be able to see some of those trends better over about a three year period. Okay.

I have more questions, I'll save my time. Thank you. Okay.

Thank you. So we've got Councillor Fitzgerald and I have a few questions, and then we'll go to public testimony for anybody who's here. Okay. So, Councillor Fitzgerald, it looks like we've also been joined by Councillor Murphy. Okay.

Thank you, Chair. Thank you, everybody, for all the important work you do here for equity and inclusion for the City Of Boston. To be consistent, I'd ask this to every every department that we've had during this budget season, And just that we know that everyone's taken a haircut. Where are you guys feeling it the most? And what is your confidence level in terms of backfilling, stretching, being able to cover up for what we have lost? And sort of just any specific pain points that you guys are truly feeling. I know from what I've heard from my other colleagues' questions, it's really the grants that's the issue. But I still want to ask the question anyway.

You. Sure. I can start. It's a pretty simple answer for the Fair Housing team. We do not issue grants out of the department. I think our biggest concern is always working with the federal government and if that partnership were ever to falter. But right now, the cuts seem pretty manageable.

Great. And how so where are the cuts specifically happening in care?

Like Counselor Luguen just mentioned, some of those that work around research that we, again, as I mentioned, have made some real

STEPHANIE: progress

on. And then the cut to contracted services around that testing program that we can cover with some of our external VANILA M. Thank you.

My focus making sure that as much as possible we bring services in house and also use our incredibly culturally competent and humble team into the other departments so that they are changing practices and programs as well. So, grants, it's the only thing that we're concerned about.

Great. And go ahead. Sorry.

Yes, forms advancement grants has always been also been our biggest cut.

Yep. So, grants are out.

Grants as well for Office of Black and

Old So in terms of backfilling grants, any any other philanthropic outreach that we're doing or any other ways to to fill these up? Or do you feel like those grants that are gone will be lost this year? Or is there outreach being done to say, look, we can maybe claw back a little bit through alternative methods, I guess you could call it?

I'll take that. And I'll I think in cancellation, I was alluding to this. We a lot of our grants went to were small dollars to a lot of those community based organizations that were not already being considered within our current ecosystem of philanthropy. And so I think a question that we all need to ask ourselves as people with the capital that we have, as as elected officials, as appointed members of the public, is how are we going to encourage the ecosystem to to better fund and support the work that's happening in in the ground that we served as a bridge for even though that was not necessarily happening before our time.

Yeah. Similarly, women's advancement are exploring meetings with funders to talk to them about finding organizations like the Boston Fund that show women receive only 1% of philanthropy dollars and black and brown women being even a lesser percentage. So we're hoping to by educating funders of what that is of what that reality is that they'll reevaluate and distribute their equity more their giving more equitably.

Thank you. To those mini grants, know that this was originally for you Haley, around women's advancement, I guess it could be asked of all the departments here. Is in those mini grants, what was the average amount to each party or each group that you were giving to? And what type of things did those fund? Like, where there's mini grants that are getting cut. Because I saw one of the reasons I asked that question, saw one of the slides. It said $25,000 went to six different parties or, you know, whatever. So, you know, those are, you know, 3,000 I'm I'm assuming. That's why was asking, what what is the average amount to each? And what did that money create?

I mean, $3,000 can be a lot, but also when you're trying to make an impact, sometimes it's like what are we accomplishing with just giving $3,000 right? Because I'm sure so, just a little bit more detail on those.

Yes. So, our max was about $10,000 per grantees, and we gave about three grants based off the applicants that we received.

Okay. So, the of that so, when you say the max was 10?

Yes.

But the average would be around?

A little less than 3.

A little less than 3 to party. And what type of things did that fund in women's advancement? And I might ask some of the other folks that lost grants as well, just as a heads up. But like so what would that $3 who who would it go to and what would they do?

So we have a list of our grantees and the programs that they all executed, and we can absolutely get those back to you.

Yeah, that would be awesome. Please, and thank you. Just want to know what like, who's missing out, right? What services are we losing? What are the things that that's supported, even if it is small dollars? Like, what is it that's no longer there? Because those folks are reaching out to us, as you guys know, and they're saying, well, look, counsel, you can put it back in. And so all of a sudden, my fear is we're gonna be the bad guys if we don't put everything back in. Right? And I'm trying to say, hey. Woah. Woah. Woah. This this we didn't make this budget. Right? Because everybody is everyone's looking to us to do that. But where are we pulling from, right? Any of the other departments around those mini grants, about an average of grant the average mini grant that went out, and any specific of what it helped?

Yeah. So, for the Office of Black Male Advancement, our grants total up to 20,000 per organization, with an average organization probably getting around $10,000 to support the work. And it focused on seven key areas, mentoring and out of school time, youth and young adult pathways, housing mobility, economic inclusion and wealth building, workforce training and development, fatherhood engagement, and mental health and wellness.

Awesome. Thank you.

I think, counselor, just because you may get called on some of these, just want to make sure you also know the Yeah. Cultural the cultural affairs programs also has a mini grant. This summer, we are okay. We will be drafting that, giving the those dollars out for f r for the rest of f r twenty six. But f r twenty seven, we will not have access to that. And that's for, like, cultural programming, festivities, some workshops that the community is doing.

That sucks. Because that was actually I have cultural affairs written down here, I was going to ask you about it because I always have this especially in Dorchester Yeah. Where there's you know, we have the Polish triangle. We have Little Saigon. We have to try to create the the Irish's the Irish High Town, Adams Village. Mhmm. And it's like, you can go around the world just in District 3. Right? But I also want these places to the aesthetics of of these locations to also look the same. So I was looking to cultural affairs to help sort of create that. Like, when you're down when you walk down Hanover Street, you know it's Italy. Right? When you're in Chinatown, you know it's Chinatown. But why isn't it when you're in Fields Corner, do you not know it's Little Saigon? Right?

And and so I want that to be expressed throughout all the different areas and really throughout the city. Last couple questions, they're really just rapid fire answers. Fair Housing, how many intake specialists do we currently have for Fair Housing?

There's one intake specialist but four investigators. So one person you talk to when you walk in the door and four folks that could be assigned your case.

Great. And then final question is, are there any specific effects on the women's safety initiative with any of these cuts?

Be what the question?

Any specific effects to women's safety initiative? I know there's like violence prevention women's safety initiative as I saw on the website and just an area that don't have any young daughter. I'm just saying well it's I want to make sure that that is there's no effect taken to that. I don't know if there is

Do you wanna talk about the gender violence prevention work that you all work with?

Yeah. We do. So I think our policy director can speak more about the grant specifically, but I don't think at this time we can really, like, predict what is gonna happen as we're still in, like, the planning phases of like being creative and how to make sure that that doesn't happen. So we're trying not to think of the worst so soon, but I'll yield to Emily. She's one.

Yeah. Hi, Emily. Thank you. You either bank or phone's fine.

Over here. Yep. Yeah.

So, we did do a grant this year on violence prevention focused on young men and boys. And so, we won't be doing that. But we also work really closely with BPHC has a domestic and sexual and gender based violence prevention initiative and we work very closely with them. We're working with them on actually like a bunch of stuff for the response to FIFA coming in and everything coming in for the summer. And that's like a big campaign. But I think we're gonna rely on kind of policy advocacy and bringing together different groups of women to kind of talk about the issues and highlight things since we won't have any dollars to put out. But I think that work is really growing in the past year. I only foresee it kind of gaining a lot of speed in this next year.

Great. Thank you for all you do and panel thank you for everything that you guys do to help out. Thank you, Chair.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Councilor Murphy, seven minutes.

Thank you. Thank you for being here and for all you do. Just a few questions. One of the first things I realized when I got here into the city hall, like, five years ago is, you know, this city doesn't run if we don't have outside partners partners and and we we don't don't have have grants grants and, you know, funding and non profits that, you know, step up. And some of our departments, like, when we met last year with the, like, the Office of Emergency Management, like, 90% of their budget is funded through grants.

Right? So we are always vulnerable that if those grants don't stay and, you know, we lose those grants that we may not just lose programming or funding, but we could even lose staffing, right, that people could lose their jobs. So it seems that a lot of the cuts that departments took when asked, and it's a tough year, and you never wanna make cuts, especially an office like yours, Frank, where you're growing. And this this body, like, I was proud to be here on this body when we passed it and then continue to help it grow and the good work it does. But that the the cuts were, like, grant funding or others, but now we're seeing that, you know, that's really taking away either from city employees or, you know, residents across the city.

So how do you see the need in each of your departments to not rely so heavily on outside granting? And if there's a need to shift a lot of that funding right into the operational budget for next year. Like, if if it's vulnerable that, you know, you feel like you can't deliver on the mission, you know, that you were tasked to do, if there's things you would wish could shift over to the operating budget. Anyone can start. Yeah.

I can start. Sure. Good morning. I'm Haley E. Smith. I serve as the deputy director of the mayor's office of women's advancement. We are focusing our on policy advocacy and partnership and using like we talked about a little bit earlier some of the organizations who have the same mission and goals as us to support women and girls in making sure it's a safe and equitable city for them and using that to push policy and legislation that supports them.

I'll say for the office of black bill events but a lot of our grant funding goes to kind of identify gaps that exist. So the work that we're doing now, what we continue to do is through working with the various departments to ensure that they are strengthened to help kind of shore up some of those gaps. And so like we're going to continue that work, continue to identify external partners to make sure that our community partners are receiving additional support. We also have a technical assistance program that each grantee and grant applicants that are not funded are able to get kind of those one on one supports to help them.

Do you have enough staff to help kind of shift that work now to reaching out to more external partners to do that work?

Yeah, I think like we are at a place where we finally have reached kind of the capacity that we were working to achieve, but we're also working with our city departments that are in housing to help us identify and support and collaborate around kind of those gaps, BPS, workers' empowerment, economic opportunity, health commission, so it's not isolated, you know, for the work of black male advancement alone, because ultimately the goal is to make sure that this work is embedded across all city departments. So, we're working towards that.

Thank you. Counselor, can I just add to this piece? I think this is what I was alluding to earlier. You have VMA, you have LCA, you have Moya that have 10 ish staff members, and then you have MoA, three staff members, MoA, I believe five only. And so, this is a little bit of why the centralizing is happening to ensure that everybody has access to this different work. And with the partnerships team led by Steven Chan in the mayor's office, we are also planning to to look at some of these focusing on the needs and strategizing better so that the the the work is happening.

Okay. Thank you. Just thank you for all you do. And as we go through this budget, like you mentioned, your a lot of your work is connected to all of the other city departments. So we're just making sure that if cuts are being made that it's not directly affecting the populations that you're servicing. So thank you for all you do. Thank you, chair.

Okay. Thank you very much. Just a couple questions from the chair, then we'll go to public testimony. So, terms of the grants, again, you know, blackmail advancement, I think it's your budget for like contractual services going from about $950,000 to $400,000 so it's a $500,000 cut. I mean, what does that do to your ability to give grants? What grants are you no longer going to be giving if you haven't said so already? And I guess the community empowerment grants like are you going to you know, is it how much of that is being cut because of the loss of those funds?

A 100%.

Okay. So, there's no community empowerment grants for in the next year? No. Okay. And is that like is that what the $500,000 cut is going to impact the most or are there other things? Yes. Okay. Okay. So, that'll be that when we're talking about what we're losing with that cut, we're talking about the community empowerment grants. Trust me, I mean we're more than halfway through this process.

I've seen these faces many departments that are you know obviously you don't want to lose this ability to make a difference to the grant process. But and then just you know I guess chief so if you look at the overall Cabinet you know fiscal year twenty four it's $11,000,000 budget for the Cabinet then it goes to 14,000,000 in '25, 15,000,000 in '20 and then basically back down to the 'twenty four level. I mean, like so are we is this like what we can expect, like as a cycle? Or are we going be able to provide the same level of and that's for all of the entire cabinet, not just the panelists here. But can we at least provide the same level of services provided in 2024?

How do we look at that sort of Yeah.

You, counselor. Coaster. Yes, it is important to just acknowledge that there is cabinet wide, a 3,000,000 and change difference between f r '26 and '7. I and just wanna reiterate that personnel stays the same. So any programming, any work that is happening done by the staff is not going to stop. Grants is the only thing at this point that is significantly decreasing and in some cases stopping for FY '27. And I cannot speak for FY '28.

Okay. So, women's advancement, you know, I see the contractual services goes from $216,000 this year to it's down $2.00 $3 Do you know what specifically you're not going to be able to offer? Are Or you gonna be able offer any grants next year?

No. We will not be able to offer grants next year.

Okay. And is that the same for black male advancement? Just no? Correct. No grants. Okay. I mean not okay but at least that's clear.

We have a superstar team. We're going to figure things out.

Yeah, no, we I mean, so we all have a lot of tough choices to make in this budget. And so just, you know, if any further money is coming out of your departments that would affect your staffing. Is that

At this point, I am very confident that is what would have to happen. But I can guarantee you that we're gonna be we're gonna have more accomplishments in FY '24. Okay.

And then I'm sorry for fair housing testers like so what is that going to look like next year?

Yep. So we have put out or we're about to put out an RFP for a service. Right? So Suffolk obviously is more than welcome to apply. I hope they are hearing this. We will reach out to them directly. But we are looking to do a program that is codeveloped with that vendor. But essentially, for for folks that are less familiar with testing programs, the vendor will go out and send people to apply to an apartment or seek a loan from a bank. And we are going to be tracking what happens if someone is denied a loan or somebody is denied that apartment, especially after they reveal a characteristic about themselves that is within the protected classes. So this is really common.

We women often do this where they show up first time signed up for the apartment, and then when they return, they return with a child. And we are testing to see that maritals or rather family status is not something that they are being discriminated against with. So we look forward to developing that program really strategically with the vendor. And it is a three year program, so we also are building in a ton of metrics that are gonna help us to track sort of where we're seeing protected classes across the city see that discrimination.

Okay. Have we seen a rise in voucher discrimination and other kinds of housing discrimination in the last few years?

Yeah, the specific rise we actually are seeing at the moment is to the disability protected class. And that is sort of wide ranging, obviously, because there are lots of different kinds of disabilities that are protected. But that seems to be, I think in part because people are aging in place, and you're seeing mobility challenges there. That sort of seems to be the uptick that we are dealing with. And the Fair Housing team partnered with the Disability Commission to sort of do some extra training and to make sure they are understanding sort of where those things could arise.

Okay. And then just so we still have contractual services line items for women's advancement and blackmailing. So what are those funds going to be used for in fiscal year twenty seven? If not so there's no grants. Part

of our funds are going to continue to be used for our technical assistance program that we offer as well as our legal support program for those that have CORI to seal their CORI. A portion of the funds is going to be used for the final kind of payments to complete our equity study as well.

Okay. And yeah.

For women's advancement, we're gonna continue our regular programming. So like women's entrepreneurs Boston, which has four annual events, Extraordinary Women, which is an annual ceremony in March, and Minstrel Equity and other programs to support women and girls.

Okay. And then just just we'll go to public testimony one second. In terms of staff, for grants, do you have staff who work like I don't you're not writing grants, but they're sort of reverse, accepting grant applications and things like that? Are you retaining those staff? Guess what happens if we're not doing grants? And how does that work in the cabinet? Does each, does Black Male Advancement have their own grant person and women's advancement? I don't know if chief if you wanna

We don't have this is part of the larger strategy that I've been referring to, but we don't have any staff whose singular purpose in the administration is to just manage grants. In fact, staff will tell you that they have too many things on their plate, but that is not something that and and we are going to be rethinking the strategies moving forward. But I I'd wanna just hone in on the fact that as you're hearing, programming is not stopping. It's just the grant program, which obviously is one of the ones that get most of the marketing because that's what's exciting, etcetera, but none of the programming is ending.

Okay.

For oh, I wanted to add councilor. Women's advancement, our policy director runs our grants and manages them. So she'll be leaning her work on policy advocacy and would love to support.

Okay. And then I guess are we doing any advance investments in grant writing in terms of getting grants for departments? Know my wife works at a refugee resettlement organization, and investing in those people pays off because there are grants. So, are we doing to

Would love to learn more about what that could look like, but that is not something that, from an equity lens, we are considering at this moment. Okay.

Well, I mean, do think just a good grant writer is worth their weight in gold, probably.

And I think counselor in the afternoon you'll hear a little bit more from departments for whom that is the case but just not from this panel.

Okay. Thank you. So counselor Breen we're about to go to public testimony but you're you're here you had a first round of questions seven minutes.

And

then for folks who are here for public testimony, you will go after

I will talk quickly, seven minutes. Earlier there was a question about the director, the executive director position at the Office of Fair Housing and Equity. The outreach and education director position is also unfilled. Is there a plan to fill that position?

Yeah, my hope is that that is one of the first positions that the executive director will be able to fill. I think there's a lot of work to be done around standards for education and outreach and tracking sort of metrics of what that outreach brings into the office traditionally with HUD funded fair housing offices. So it's something we really want to see strategically put in place by the executive director.

So in terms of and then the executive you're hiring the executive director.

Yes, yes. Sorry, you mentioned this earlier.

I missed that, so No worries. Thank you. Yes, by the fall, councillor. By the fall, so any hope in them that the outreach and education director would Follow shortly after. Shortly after, so by the end of the year, you're thinking? Absolutely, hopefully. Okay. Given the widespread housing discrimination in Boston, how many investigators is the office of Fair Housing currently able to conduct investigations able to conduct a year? Sorry, Are you asking about

the number? Investigation. Investigations. Yeah. So it really ranges year to year. I would have to pull up the previous five years for you, but we can send that over if helpful. Right now, we are a little bit over two dozen is my recollection.

Two dozen by '24 then? '24 plus.

Yeah. And those do range. I think there have been years that we've archived already that are in the hundreds. I think sometimes that indicates that housing discrimination has improved and sometimes it means that it's just a bit more hidden. Okay.

And then the Office of Fair Housing and Equity is responsible for overseeing the city's affordability furthering fair housing implementation and zoning review and compliance reporting. How is the city meeting its obligations with key leadership and investigate of positions vacant. Are we able to do that work? Yes. So the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing

That's a tricky question.

Sits with our policy manager, who is still with us. And she has been doing fantastic work across several departments. And you can take a look at some of our slides where I went into this a bit, but we are really, really proud of the work we've done, especially last year on the anti displacement plan, which actually ticks off several boxes of goals we were trying to accomplish. So that work is being done across planning, MOH, BHA, ISD, BPHC, and BPS, and I'm sure I'm forgetting somebody. But it's the partnership is working really well, the monitoring committee is pleased to see the progress that's being made.

And HUD is currently increasing oversight over Boston's fair housing, not because they agree with it necessarily, fair housing compliance, but how is the city preparing to respond to HUD inquiries or enforcement actions given the staff that you have? Are you are you up to fully staffed to the adequate level to meet those inquiries from HUD? Yep.

So in terms of the investigators, absolutely. We have four investigators and then one intake coordinator. That's who you talk to when you come into the office with your first allegations. And we are hiring actively for a director of investigations. The previous person left at the October. Okay.

The previous person left in October? Mhmm. Yeah. So who's doing it now?

Sorry. So that person just oversees the department. There are still four investigators hard at work. Okay.

Then Alston Brighton is a large immigrant and limited English proficiency community. We're just wondering, in terms of having the outreach and education director position as vacant, what targeted outreach is happening in Alston Brighton to ensure that residents understand their rights and are able to know how to report discrimination? I'd have to get back

to you on any sort of in Alston Brighton events that we've done. But we do have our weekly call, which is citywide, for residents to show up and ask questions about their own discrimination potentially. But mostly it's used by lenders and brokers and landlords to ask questions around making sure that they are engaging in proper practice. But we are happy to sort of reach back out and make sure that Olsen Brighton is being touched individually.

And in terms of materials, are we do we have materials that we can share?

Absolutely. We'd be happy to drop some off for your office. We have them in all of the city's most spoken languages. There are sort of pamphlets that are quite, quite helpful, they take you to the website also to file a claim.

Okay. Keep going. Time on the clock here. I'm just also wondering that with all the development, we're still building things Brighton, which is good. How is the Office of Fair Housing and Equity participating in the zoning review for projects in the district in Alston Brighton?

Yep. So a lot of our work is actually on the Article 80 modernization process and making sure that as we are sort of working through cleaning up that process, feeding it up, that the fair housing pieces are not lost. There is a board that sort of looks does some oversight for fair housing. And we not only the fair housing team, but also folks like the disability commission give pretty regular review and feedback on sort of new questions we're asking of developers, for example, around disability displacement. So a lot of the work that is done in the displacement plan that planning has put out was strongly encouraged by the Fair Housing team and those things are being implemented slowly but

surely. The Human Rights Commission has effectively been defunded in the financial year '27 budget book. As I understand, many of these functions will be absorbed by the rest of the equity cabinets department as well with a heavy I'm quoting as a heavy reliance on existing state resources. What sort of details can you provide about which department will be absorbing the work that was guaranteed under the ordinance for the Human Rights Commission?

And obviously there's no perfect science here, but I I think we've we have obviously our our partners in the state, which we understand that there's a backlog in there, but we continue to work with them. Obviously, OPAD has received some of these responsibilities. Our team works really well with the civil rights unit also in the police department. And so while it is not a perfect science, we have learned that this this continues to and the disabilities sorry, disabilities commission as well. We've learned that this meets the need at the moment so that we can refocus our our resources in in the different work that we do.

Okay. My time's up.

Okay. Thank you very much. That wraps up our first round of questions. We're going to hear from public testimony. I have on the sign up sheet, I've got Maddie Good, Ayesha Gaskins, Clifton Braithwaite, John Smith, Saint Cyr, Robert Lewis, and Kathy Brown. I I yeah. A few I think we might go out of order.

Thank you, counsel. Yeah. Thank you, panel. My name is Clifton Braithwaite. Decades of serving our community and this will be the second time that I ask for help.

A lot of these programs I've been in support of, even promoting it on my own time to make sure that we get the information. What I'm about to say is not against anybody, but I feel like I'm being dropped in between the draft where people don't recognize that sometimes even leaders in the community need help. I've gotten a lot of advice which way to go, but fighting through probate when it comes to home ownership. A lot of these programs I hear about housing and things like that, but they never talk about men or women such as myself that come from a family that has property. And as we all know, things can happen if you're not properly trained or have the money to fight the resources.

I did most of the legwork with the layman way that I know how to do stuff as a just as an activist, but I need help. And I wanna know how can we help people such as myself to keep the legacy of what their parents bought for them without losing it. I've been an advocate for a very long time. I'm not complaining. I'm not saying no one's helping me, But I don't know how to help myself without the help of the body and programs like this.

The most I need is a lawyer to help me navigate through the probate. I think a lot of what I'm dealing with personally might be the trauma of what I dealt with losing my mom mom's and family being family's just going through a lot and I pray for them. I'd like to thank the council president for helping me on the quiet. You know, people don't know a lot of y'all in the council, y'all give me a lot of advice, past council president. I need y'all help somehow, some way to help me navigate so I can save my family and and have the legacy what my father left for me.

And I'm not the only one out here like that. I hear these complaints all the time. I really need your help, your services. Because I'm gonna continue what I do for the community, but I gotta learn to also work for myself and do what I need to do. So I'm just applying, asking out to the community and the leadership that's in the community that knows the work that I've been doing.

I really need your help to navigate through this this probate, and to make sure what my mother left, that I can continue to give it back to my family. No matter what we're going through, I am the patriot of this family, and I'm not gonna let anything drop under my watch like I won't let it drop in our community. Thank you everyone for letting me go first. I really need your help. I don't know how to ask anymore. I really need your help to save my family's legacy. Thank you, Boston, And thank you everybody here in this party. I know y'all gonna help. It's whenever we can sit down and get this done. Thank you.

Okay. Yeah. I I I'm sorry. Can we just do you need to go now or you have to leave? Okay. So please step up and introduce yourself and Hi. And then we'll go in order after

Good morning. My name is Antonia Edwards. I came here to learn today. I wasn't gonna testify but my name was mentioned by Chief Mariangeli. I wanna say that I've learned so much today. Things I hadn't even even known and I am highly impressed with the equity inclusion cabinet and the different entities that go out of their way to provide services and programs for our community. I just want the mayor and the city council to please consider expanding the funding for these grants that need to be put together so that they can have this powerful impact in our community and without them it seems like it would just have a highly negative effect in getting stuff done. So I just want to commend you guys and I just want to say thank you and also recommend that we reconsider the budget for the equity inclusion cabinet to extend those fundings so that they can get the work done. And I just want to

say thank you.

Thank you. Okay. So Matt Maddie Good is up next. Sorry.

Hello. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

I'm sorry. Am I missing this? Yeah. Okay. Just go ahead.

No worries, counsel. I wanna first acknowledge the work of the Office of Black Male Advancement. It has been talked about today, but just wanna add a highlight to that. Wanna also acknowledge Richard Clader, who's one of our commissioners, in the audience today focused on public health. Good morning, chair Weber and city councilors.

My name is Madre Goode. I serve as the chair of the Black Men and Boys Commission, and I am testifying on behalf of our commission. The commission on black men and boys was established through a 2021 ordinance and is made up of 21 black males with experience, knowledge, and expertise on issues pertaining to black men and boys in the city of Boston. Of The commission in partnership with the commission in partnership with the office of black male advancement remains committed to advancing the guiding responsibilities laid out in our ordinance. I'd like to go through those with you.

Advising the mayor on issues pertaining to black men and boys, assisting the office of the mayor in determining budget and policy priorities, monitoring and advising city agencies and departments on issues pertaining to black men and boys. Designing projects and programs that promote equity for black men and boys which are not currently being implemented by existing city agencies, performing outreach, communication, and liaison to black men and boys related to community groups and organization, host public commission meetings, produce a yearly report pertaining to the work of the commission and the progress of the city to advance the status of black men and boys. Each year, the Black Men and Boys Commission releases policy and budget recommendations for the upcoming fiscal year. The Black Men and Boys Commission FY '27 budget recommendation seeks to address systematic barriers and improve outcomes for black men and boys in Boston. We remain in full support of the Office of Black Male Advancement's efforts and outstanding progress, persistent challenges, and the actions needed to ensure black men and boys can thrive in every neighborhood of our city.

Over the past several years in partnership with Mayor Michelle Wu, the city council, community partners, and residents, the commission has made meaningful progress. Through the commission's advocacy and leadership, the mayor's office of black male advancement has been codified into law, largely citywide equity study that continues to make progress so far engaging more than 2,000 residents. And in FY twenty six, a 2,100,000 annual budget was secured to support the work of the office of black male advancement. Through the commissioner's annual budget and policy recommendations, additional investments have advanced opportunities across education, housing, public health, workforce development, economic opportunity and community safety. At the same time, persistent challenges remain.

Black men and boys in Boston continue to face entrenched disparities across these priority areas of focus. As the city prepares for hard decisions in the FY '27 budget, given the current economic challenges, the commission requests level funding for FY '27 budget priorities, goals and success indicators for each priority and for city departments to work with black male advancement to gain assistance and outreach. The commission continues to advocate for the following budget priorities. The Office of Black Male Advancement to have level funding, remain fully staffed, continue the equity study phase two, continue community empowerment grants particularly, continue the data dashboard efforts, continue the work of My Brother's Keeper and Project Opportunity, continue providing technical assistance to community based organizations, and continue to support the Black Men and Boys Commission, and most importantly, to continue to support black men and boys throughout the city of Boston. We are also requesting grants administered by workers' empowerment, human services, economic opportunity, housing and blackmail advancement to be level funding.

In closing, through the equity study and data dashboard, we will not only continue to build on the foundation laid these past four years under the leadership of Executive Director Frank Farrell, the BMA staff, Chair Tito Jackson and the inaugural commissioners, but we will have guidance and tools for the office of new commissioners to continue to build on that foundation brick by brick, department by department, neighborhood by neighborhood, through an equity framework, evidence based research and recommendations, tracking data and community voice so that we are able to monitor impact and progress across the cities. These investments and outcomes of black men and boys are a measure of the city's morale and economic health. The Black Men and Boys Commission stands ready to continue this work collaboratively, candidly, and with the urgency our communities deserve. Respectfully, Madre Goode, Chair of the Black Men and Boys Commission. Thank you for your time today.

Okay, thank you. Ayesha Gaskins and then John Smith Saint Cyr, Robert Lewis, Kathy Brown.

Thank you for having me. Just to tell you about the safety on our streets, we have glass on every few couple of steps, and we're constantly having these big places of glass all over the place, which I report to 3 one one, the city of Boston. This is to city council, Mignon Culpepper, from young youth and women's development, Asia Gaskins. I have a small business. The quality of being fair and just especially in the way that takes account of of and seeks to address existing inequalities, issues, black Americans and Latin Americans are not treated equal.

Latin Americans is doing far more business with American than the average black American issue, black American males and females are being targeted for exclusive rights. Issue, fair housing is going towards the elite race, which is Latin Americans. Issue, women's advancement is not including or rapidly advancing black American females as they should. Final issue, there is segregation from the light skinned race and the dark skinned race as well as from the Latin Americans and the black Americans. I have concluded my issues for today's meeting with city council and Nella Chamber.

Thank you for hearing my concerns today, 05/12/2026 at 10AM. Have a wonderful day. Sincerely, Asia Ladon Gaskins. You can reach me at godsnight2020@gmail.com. My phone number is (413) 210-4356. I also have a copy of this form if you would like it.

Yes. We can we can we'll we'll take that for the record. Thank you very much. Yeah. We'll take a copy of that. Okay. John Smith Saint Cyr, then Robert Lewis, then Kathy Brown.

Great. How's everybody doing? My name is John Smith Saint Cyr and I'm the founder of the JL Smith Suicide Prevention Center for Young Black Boys. I want to start by saying I'm genuinely confused. I do not know if cabinet leaders work for the mayor or do they serve the people.

Like is there any balance there? I understand the formal structure, cabinet leaders are appointed within the mayor's administration, they report through the administration and they are expected to carry out the mayor's agenda. But this is a public budget, these are public departments, these are public dollars and the purpose of these offices is supposed to be public service. So when departments responsible for equity are facing cuts, I do not expect their leaders to simply defend the budget they were handed. I expect them to speak clearly about the impact those cuts will have on the people they are supposed to serve.

Because if cabinet leaders can only defend the mayor's budget even when the budget reduces their own ability to serve vulnerable communities then we need to be honest about what that means. That is not independent equity leadership, that is political management and equity cannot be managed into existence. It has to be fought for. So Ruthie, grants are not affirmations. Grant funding is how real programs reach real people.

It supports staff, provides materials, feeds families, mentors young people, and allows grassroot organizations to respond to crisis in real time. My nonprofit received a $7,500 grant through the office of women's advancement to teach young boys about gender based violence. I have since received an email stating that this funding will no longer be available in fiscal year twenty seven. So I'm not speaking in theory. A small cut on paper can mean an entire prevention program disappears in the community.

This speaks to the disconnect between City Hall and the actual people. Inside City Hall, these cuts may look like numbers on a spreadsheet but in the communities these dollars determine whether programs happen or disappear. For some residents that is not symbolic. It is life or death. And I really want to know would there be this level would would there be the same level of silence if these cuts were coming out of salaries?

Would it would there be this little urgency if the reductions affected the people at the top instead of the grassroot organizations and residents at the bottom? The reality is that grassroot organizations are the ones doing their actual work. What impact would the office of black male advancement have without the nonprofit and grassroot organizations it funds? Many residents do not know these offices through City Hall. They know them through us.

They know them through the organizations that bring the resources into the community, organize the programs, hold the events, support the families and make the work visible. Without grassroot organizations, these offices become names on a city website. They become policy language without community reach. They become equity infrastructure with no ground level delivery. That is why cutting grant and partnership funding is so harmful. It weakens the very organizations that make these offices relevant, visible, and effective. So I came here to ask that all funding be restored for fiscal year twenty seven, but now I'm also asking for new department leadership because we need leaders that represent the people and not just the mayor. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you Robert Lewis and then Kathy Brown.

Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. I tell you this ain't this is not easy. I got a call a couple of days ago from my friend that I respect, I care about. He told me about this meeting. And, you know, he mentioned Frank. He mentioned the black advancement, equity, and inclusion. And if it was up to me, I probably wouldn't be standing here. But like I said, I respect them.

You know, I'm a private person. I'm a proud person. You said, Rob, man, you need to tell what's going on with you, man. You tell you tell your story what's going on because probably a lot of people don't know. And if they know, they need to hear your side of it. I respect everybody on this panel. I've I'll probably work with you. I've been this is probably my third time working with City Hall way back from this man's father back in the eighties. This last time I came in at two thirteen with with Marty Walsh. I was terminated November 17.

But I but I gotta back up a little bit. About six years ago, very painful time, my sister got killed. This was after she and I'm not gonna keep you guys long. I'm not. She went to go take care of my father. My mother died. My sister went to go take care of my father. She gets killed, and it was a rough time. Right around that time, I was put on a one year a five it turned out to be a five year last chance agreement. And the reason people say, well what happened?

Like I said, was out for a whole year when I came back, Marty said, hey listen man, know, wanted to fire you. The reason why they fired you, was one of these long days. I had a work car and I let it running for twenty two hours out front of my living in North End and they said, what happened? I said, I really don't know. I was tired and got up the next day, the car was still running. I brought the car back. So, anyway, they like I said, they had even a year investigation for that. And I came back. So this past May so, anyway, I've been on it five years since that time. This past May, I got a letter saying, wow.

You're an investigation again.

Wow. What happened?

And this has been the first incident in five years since I've been on this thing. And long story short, they said, well, there was there was a coffee hour. As you as you many of you guys that go to Mayo's Coffee Hour. One of my positions is it was principal administrative assistant, work with all the city council in the areas around issues of streets. Was working with public works was excuse me, man.

My my heart is racing, man. Work with all the city council on issues they might have around streets and transportation. So I go to all the coffee hours. Just wanna happen to be in the North End this time. Usually, what happens for the last since 2013, if it's a coffee hour on a Thursday, I'll sign in on on Wednesday at 08:00. I'm gonna be at the coffee hour. And by the way, everything that I'm saying, you guys are city councilors, all you have to do is look it up. Everything is transcript, so I'm not even making this up. I thought about writing it up, but you guys can look it up. It's on there.

The number one, like, why I was on this five years for the car running for for twenty two hours. Car wasn't stolen. But anyway, so this past May so this particular coffee hour was in the North End. It starts at 10:00. It was raining. And usually what happens and if it rains, they cancel it or they move it inside. This happened to be the only one that they canceled completely. So I'm walking around trying to find out to get wet. I go home, change my clothes and I come to work. I come to work probably about 12:31 o'clock.

I use my fob to get in and so I need let me push the story forward. They're investigating the fact that one that I I was acute I was accused of violating my last chance agreement by stealing because they they asked me, what did you do from ten to a one because you didn't sign in? And normally and this was on record also. I asked this person. I'm not gonna I I don't wanna accuse anybody right now. It's all in documents, but this was a targeted situation. I have a cohort that everybody knows who it is. Our epic apprentice, we started in 2013. And on record, we usually don't sign in. We usually don't sign in.

He doesn't sign in at all, sometime I do. So they they charged me with violating my last chance agreement because I stole three hours from ten to one. And what my my piece was was this, if I was trying to hide something, one, I wouldn't use my fob to get in because they could track it. Two, I said to them, normally and say, well, you sign in at 08:00 the night before. I said, I've been doing this since 2013.

I came into work that day. So anyway, so we had three different appeals. I'm on my last appeal coming in June. And like I said, you know, and, you know, I share with this person, man, what is coming here telling my story about? You know what I mean? But I'm glad I did. I'm sitting over there. I wanted to go out the door a couple of times. You know, I'm let let me just say this. I'll be 68 in four months.

Never thought in my life that my whole life would be turned upside down like this. I was eight months away from my pension that I don't have. Never thought I'd be struggling like this at this age. You know, I've worked for this city for the last thirty years. I had a youth I had a reentry program, the first one ever ran by a black man in the city of Boston.

Had that for fifteen years. I had a youth program for another eighteen years. So I did a lot for this city and to be treated like this, I just thought that it's a painful thing. And I and the last thing and I just found out last month, like I said, I haven't applied for unemployment November so that's seven months. Haven't received one paycheck.

I find out last month that public works is challenging my unemployment. Why in the world? Why would they challenge my unemployment? I I can't understand it. Thank God, two months ago I just started collecting my social security and that's the only income I had. But anyway, you know, on top of, you know Mister Lewis, sorry.

I'm sorry.

I I apologize. Thank you for coming and giving public testimony. It's it sounds like I what where do you where do you live in the city? In terms of you have a district counselor who can advocate Okay. For you on this, I would reach out. You can reach out to me. Yep. We can definitely take this. We're we're we're here for a a budget hearing with

I know. I know.

Yep. Equity cabinet. I I I'm I'm very sorry to hear about these circumstances.

And I apologize if it's off to tell me. Give Frank all the money he needs.

Right.

That's all I know. Does a great job. Equity inclusion. Same thing. So Yeah. Well Thank you.

Okay. Thank thank you very much. We'll figure out who to coordinate with you to get the right district counselor on this. Kathy Brown, and then get back to the second round of questions. Just a reminder, public testimony. Two minutes a person. Try not to cut people off,

but Okay.

I'll I'll try.

If you

hear the buzzer, try to wrap up.

Okay. That that sounds good. Hi. My name is Kathy Brown. I work for the Boston Tenet Coalition, and we anchor the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing AFH Community Advisory Committee and we're also as part of that involved in the monitoring of the city's AFH.

And just, you know, the work of your cabinet is unbelievably important and all the different programs and really support it and really concerned about the cuts because of our work on fair housing. I'm gonna zoom in on that. We are the the office of fair housing and equity is so critical at this time while HUD is attacking Boston, singling out Boston, and we appreciate the city councils fighting back, you know, and the city doing their best to fight back, but this office is more important than ever. Also, the rampant housing discrimination going on across the city. And so we're really concerned that there is a 25% cut against the Office of Fair Housing and Equity.

And we're also, as other counselors have raised, really concerned about the staffing. Amazing, Bob Terrell who passed over a year ago and by the time it sounds like someone will be hired, it will be a year and a half and then there hasn't been an education outreach person which is also critical in terms of training the departments, you know, in terms of the affirmatively furthering fair housing, the BPDA, AFH zoning, you know, all of this work is so critical in terms of Boston's equity. So we just really, we really appreciate the amazing work that Duane and Joyce and folks are doing there, especially with this shrunken department. And so we just really hope there can be more resources because the work is so critical at this time. And again we appreciate the office and we appreciate the city council's support of the AFH and the AFH zoning and all the other work.

Okay.

Thank you very much. Again, we got we yeah, anyway. So second round of questions. Again, we're so we're gonna try to we have another hearing with some of the same panelists on the equity cabinet for 02:00. And so we wanna finish this round by one and give central staff an hour to recover for the 02:00 hearing. So, Councilor Flynn, we're gonna do five minutes.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The questions I asked earlier focused on blackmail advancement and in other departments. Chief and some of my colleagues asked about human rights after I spoke about it. So I want to follow-up on that. How do do we defund an ordinance? What is the process like? Are we legally allowed to do that?

That is not a question for me as a chief of equity to answer. That is a question that I would direct to the law department. But what we are doing is ensuring that the resources that would have come out of the commission are being addressed by the different departments. And I think I wanna just repeat what I said earlier of there's been an an an incredible change in the way that we do business, and our departments are managing a lot case managing a lot of the issues that were coming our way.

So you recommend that I talk to Michael Fairstone?

I think that when it comes to what is legal versus not, that is a conversation for somebody else.

Okay. Whose whose decision was it to defund the Human Rights Commission?

We have not had any staff in that team for about two fiscal years. And maybe Maya can correct me if it's more than that. So in this moment of looking at other things, it was more important that we did not cut staff or other programming.

Was there any issue as it related to the executive director of the Human Rights Commission and or the commissioners?

What do you mean by issues? Personnel issues. There were just no staff in that team for about

eight They weren't hired? No. Okay. Whose decision was it to not hire them?

I was more focused with the departments that were receiving ongoing requests for support and resources as well as our strategic work with other departments.

So you was the mayor did the mayor know that we weren't funding hiring at the Human Rights Commission?

I cannot speak to the the details of that, but I'm that is not something again, it's not been a something that we deal with on a day to day basis. We do not receive concerns on the Human Rights Commission on a day to day basis, but we do receive

would lots of work But you would engage the mayor in what's happening with the with the major department under your jurisdiction. Is that accurate? Yes. Did you speak to the mayor about Human Rights Commission?

I spoke to her her about all the departments and the difficult decisions that we've had to make for f y twenty seven.

So you did speak to her about the Human Rights Commission?

The mayor has proposed a budget.

No, I'm talking about over the last couple years when there was no executive director. Did you ask her or say, Mayor, you know, we don't have a Human Rights Commission executive director here. It might be helpful to have one.

I see. Well, did work with a consulting group called Agency that came back to us with some recommendations, something that we brought to the council a couple of years ago. And one of the recommendations was to just acknowledge the fact that a lot of the work is being done with by other departments.

Yeah. I'm not in support of defunding this program. Defunding this. So the mayor is okay with defunding the Human Rights Commission?

There has not been any programming or staff there in the last two years. I understand that. And nobody in the council has changed that either in the last two years.

But is the mayor okay with defunding the Human Rights Commission?

Councilor, I've answered your questions several

times. Chief, I'm being respectful to you. I'm asking, did the mayors support defunding the Human Rights Commission?

The mayor has submitted the budget that she feels will meet the needs of the f y twenty seven needs.

To defund the Human Rights Commission?

That is language that you are using, not us.

Well tell me the language you you would use as it relates to the executive direct direct position at the human rights and having no staff there.

Yep. This is an ordinance that we did not create. This is not part of our No.

Was in 1980.

So, we have I have not prioritized it in the equity cabinet because a lot of the work that that commission would have done decades ago is already happening in this very different

and up Was to date there any challenges at all with the Human Rights Commissioners? Do they ever express to you about any challenges at the department?

When I was first appointed,

there were some issues that What were the issues?

It's four years Four and a half

years ago. Cannot remember. Were the issues?

You and I can talk offline once I remember but I do not remember. It was four and a half years ago.

Thank you Mr. Chairman.

Hello? Yeah. Sorry. I'm gonna just consult my notes for the right order. Councillor O'Rell,

you're up. I think

it's Councillor Louie Jen. It's me.

Yeah. Have just for everyone. I have Councillor Rowell, Councillor Louie Jen, Councillor Fitzgerald, I believe it's Councillor Murphy, then Braden, then Culpeper. We've been joined by Councillor Culpeper. Thanks. Alright.

Thank you. Investigations. How old are open cases? Like do we have a range of how long open cases stay open for?

Yes. We do track that over time. I think a lot of our open cases are open because we have chosen to really wait on our complainants and our defendant. Not the right term. Sorry. The person who is acute alleging discrimination and the person who is being accused of discrimination. I think the team is working on reassessing how long we need to wait to hear back from people, but that tends to be where we see cases sort of lingering. The HUD requirement for case closure is one hundred days, which is certainly lengthy. And I think to the constituent can feel very long, but that is sort of HUD's baseline requirement.

Awesome. And how many do you know how many are over one hundred days?

I don't off the top of my head count. Have to get

Through the chair can we find out how many are over one hundred days? Do you know how many civil suits related to housing discrimination have been filed by Boston residents in the past year and then civil suits and investigations. Civil suits and investigations are not the same thing so if we know that there are high rates of civil suits going on but low rates of investigation that might indicate that the rates of service being provided does not match the need and so we need to adjust. So I guess the question is one, do we know how many civil suits related to house discrimination and then based on that data is there a need to adjust?

Yep. So the civil suits are something that the Office of Housing Stability would be tracking rather than us. Because civil suits can include things that are outside of the protected classes that I mentioned earlier. And also outside of that time range of six months that I mentioned earlier. So while sometimes, you know, a higher rate of civil suits can be an indicator that things are not going wrong, I'm not sure that's something we've had flagged for us by the Office of Housing Stability quite yet.

Awesome. I guess it'll be a question on housing instability. My last question around I know you mentioned AFFH. I asked this question to the planning department. When does the BIFDIC provide their recommendation to a project?

As in in the process of

Male In the process of Article 80.

They're right in the middle, I believe. I believe it is after the accessibility assessment from the Disability Commission. But I bet your counselor to your left might know a better answer than I would.

All right. I guess my I don't know when the middle is, but I think it will be important for our community in the IAG to be able to review those recommendations. I know in past processes that I have reviewed or been a part of, sometimes it comes at the end, you know, once those IAGs or community conversations have been disbanded. So I just want

Oh, I see what you're saying. So the IAGs meeting without the recommendation Without the recommendations, and so is the community. Right.

I think it'll be important to have that to be earlier on in process so we can see the information. And then I saw that there was like a 2023 outcomes report. Is there any efforts on, you know, doing that same outcome report for the last you know three years?

Yep. I had mentioned in my slides that we're really excited to do a full assessment of the steps we've taken so far. Right. And I should clarify for you Counselor, MOH also runs the BIFDIC process so that might be a question to point in their direction.

Okay. That's good. One of my questions for executive Farrow, the men's league, black men's league, I know we talked about it last year. Any interest in bringing it back? Any efforts on bringing it back?

Yes. So when we came the last kind of fiscal year for the council, we had internal conversations around working with the Office of Civic Organizing to bring it back, but in the interim, through our community empowerment grants, we funded two organizations that provide support for civic organizing and leadership as we identify kind of internal opportunities to bring it in house.

Awesome. Thank you. And this is going to the Chief just kind of going back a few years on the executive order that was signed by then Mayor Walsh, and I know this is some of the work that Doctor. Carolyn Crockett has And also a lot of this kind of speaks to, you know, what, you know, I see as a blueprint. Mhmm.

A blueprint for not only embedding racial equity but the training around it. A lot of this stuff is again is a blueprint and I believe since 2019 what we have seen is whether it's the real training or the mayor's office of resilience racial equity not being moved forward, but also some of the intention around data tracking in this executive order not being followed up on. So I guess my question is how do we take a look at you know the original intention right from the executive order and all the work that you know everyone during that administration took on and move this work forward and then decide on which things we roll back and which things go forward.

Yeah. I've had the pleasure of speaking with Doctor. Crockett and she was not the first one. We had Doctor. Atia Martin do an incredible work before that. Absolutely. And I've I've

And then shout out also to Lori Nelson.

Yep. So these are all all women that have advised me and, you know, I'm I'm I look I look up to them. And so I think I think everybody who lifts them because they are aware of the work that we are doing. And so I wanna I think, and this is a question that has come up every year, and and the answer remains the same, which is that was an executive order at a different time by a different mayor, different administration. We are we have evolved in some of that.

We have started the work of the E and I Academy, and maybe a way to address that is we can, right, set up some of the workshops with your staff and with you so that you see how that work is incorporated into those workshops and trainings that we do across departments. That was also informed by the feedback that we did receive around the real training. I the real training happened for a couple of months when then that's when the transition happened. And so we cannot I cannot really speak to what was happening back then, but we did get the reports thanks to the work that Lori Nelson was doing then. But that is that is that work is still happening and then some in the academy.

As for the data tracking, I am looking forward to the equity study that comes out of BMA and and for us to understand how those dashboards can continue to inform the work, but this is not and we've had this conversation, counselor, of, like, it it is sometimes adding more layers to the work just makes it slow down. And so I'm looking forward to what comes out of the equity study from BMA to see how those dashboards can can continue to inform the work. But in the meantime, we have technical assistance. When you identify an issue for us, we are able to work with the departments to change it from assistance level.

Right. And just a follow-up comment. Sure. The e the e and I academy, I think one of the major differences from the real training is the real training that was taking place was mandatory. Right?

All city employees had to go through the real training and then when it goes to embedding, this was more of a call for proactive identify prior to an individual having to bring it up so that we are then making policy adjustments you know ever so ever so often and I believe it was you know I think it was three to five years but also that we're catching things prior to it having, you know, a very harmful effect from generation to generation. So, you know, my push will always continue to be to really embed equity through codification. And I think this was a very great first start at it and we're trying to to again push that forward through codifying the cabinet and the work that we believe or I believe should be done in order to identify it and resolve some of these disparities. That's it. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you. Councilor Louie Jen.

Thank you. I wanted to continue on my line of questioning regarding fair housing testers because I wanted to clarify. So we funded a tester program through an amendment, but it was said that the amount was not enough and that it needed multiyear support. Is that can you do can you and will there be an RFP that will be released this spring? Yes. Yes.

So the RFP is coming out this spring. We had our former director of investigations as well as our policy manager dig in to sort of really scope out how we would build our best testing program and did find

But it wasn't via the fair housing testers that the city council will we put forward through an amendment?

Right. So wanted to put that money out. And as we were looking through how the best way to do that, we discovered that a multiyear program, which

would cost more money So nothing has happened

to that money? Nothing has happened to that money. We plan to use like, you know, if we were able to, you know, get a vendor before the end of the fiscal year, we would use some

of the Which is in jobs June,

which is very soon.

And are you gonna are you gonna be able to accomplish that? I'm not sure

we will, counselor. I think

we So what will happen to that money?

That is a a question for the budget. I think the look. Again, I wanna be clear. We do have the resources to put the full set that we plan to put out. I think just with the fiscal both the fiscal and the federal situation we find ourselves in, it was really important that we put this RFP out correctly Mhmm. And that it be strongest program we could possibly form, and that did just take a longer time.

Yeah. And I understand this this administration federal administration is coming after us with the work that we're doing on Boston. They included my name in it. It's, yeah, atrocious. Yep. And we start to continue this work. And so I like we be careful, but we also need to put it out there because it seems as though if money does not spend at the end of the fiscal year just sort of Yeah. Can you clarify where the funding for the testing program is actually coming from if what we put aside was not enough? Yep.

So the fair housing team has external dollars. Some of those do come from HUD, for example. Okay. So those are the funds we will be using.

So CDBG, the community development block grants?

I'd have to double check with you, counselor, where exactly those are coming from. I doubt it

is CDBG. And so what is the scope of the RFP? What is the scope of the RFP? Is it rental testing? I'm sure it's probably not homeownership appraisal discrimination testing, white homeowners versus black homeowners. That isn't in a great space that I'd like to see us be able to enter into because that is a testing that is happening Mhmm. That we see happening. It's it's another form of testing that we wanna happen, but we have to be able to have the rental housing testing down before I think we graduate to doing homeownership testing. Can you tell us what the scope of this RFP

would be?

Yep. I would agree, counselor. I think the the homeownership work is something that the office is aspirationally hoping to look towards, but I do agree that, you know, your baseline is renters. I do believe I would have to double check the RFP is rather long, and we're happy to send that over to you as well.

Can you? And when is the date that you're trying to get the RFP out? It is

in its last stages of review, so hopefully in the next couple of weeks.

Okay. It was okay. It just were odd to me that it like, it's just like you're working under the gun at the fiscal year ends at the June. We put money aside for it last year. Again, I I We're in a budget crunch, but yet there is this money. You know what I mean? So

Yeah. I think part of it is the police overtime funding also that the council had the council has awarded us years ago, and the department hasn't necessarily used. And so we are hoping to tap those funds as well. We we do have some room. So

Okay. I have questions for mayor's office of women's advancement. Thank you for being here. You list domestic violence and trafficking awareness work with BPHC. I've been we've been we're doing work on this council holding hearings on domestic violence.

I've been working with community partners who are doing a lot of work when it comes to beauty professionals. I want to sort of understand the MOA BPHC relationship, how you all decide to work on projects together, and how do we bring in community partners, grassroots organizations that are working. Like, I just spoke last week to an amazing dynamic duo of a doctor and a community advocate that are working with that wanna work do more work with salons to identify signs of domestic violence. And so I wanna understand how Mo Moa works with BPHC to identify who the community partners are. I'm also gonna be talking to doctor Ojukutu about this because I think this is incredibly important, especially for black women. And so I just wanted to get more insight from you.

Absolutely. So we I will identify our partner our relationship as more of a partnership. So we would consider them the industry experts in Being the agency. Correct.

Okay.

And we work closely with Kim and their office around gender based violence specifically, and they were actually who helped us inform and wrap around our grant. And so we are also being creative in our programming and piloting different things to educate different groups of people who aren't normally the target audience, which is why we did the grant for boys, which is why we're working with FIFA on sex trafficking, and why we also did a similar program for beauty industry professionals.

Thank you. What it oh, who did you partner with for the beauty professionals work?

I would have to find the organization's name and get back

to that's the organization that I also spoke to

two

weeks ago, and they're trying to do move beyond the pilot, and I think that is incredible. So I just wanna publicly state my endorsement. I think her name is doctor Charmaine

Yes.

Auguste. I don't know. I I I messed up the last name, and and it was another person. I just wanna publicly endorse that work and the work that they're doing.

Of course.

I'd like to hear a little bit more about the work that y'all are doing with FIFA. And then I had a last question. I but I did see the buzzer go off, but I would love to hear a little bit more about the work that MOA is doing on on on on FIFA around sex trafficking.

So our policy director actually sits on a committee with BPHC, FIFA partners, cultural affairs, and a couple other city offices around making sure that there is a sex trafficking campaign. And I'll pass it over to Emily to share a couple more details about the progress of it.

Yes so we're working with the City of Cambridge as well as obviously the DSG at BPHC and then Jane Doe Inc. And so they've been collecting funds from kind of different we didn't have any to contribute but they're putting out grants to kind of the community partners and base organizations that are like respond to calls around sex trafficking or sexual violence to help them build capacity you know ahead of the FIFA World Cup and also tall ships and everything else that is coming. So it's really about building capacity for the people that are already here and doing this work. And then we're also doing a like awareness campaign. So like Cambridge is putting up some signs.

We're working with Corinne and Nightlife to do some training with our restaurant folks on signs and then hopefully getting some materials into our restaurants and bars around Boston to like inform people. So it's and then we're getting different things kind of up around the city and the different cities. So yes. So it's partially getting money and building up capacity as well as a public awareness campaign.

Thank you. Just like to shout out the work of Shakira Story in addition to, I hear you say, Jane Doe. We have a lot of really great partners. Asian American Task Force Against Violence, a lot of great organizations, women run, women of color run, and the domestic violence groups that I hope that we continue to partner with. I have a question somewhere left in me that I may be able to come back

and ask.

You. Councillor Braden.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'd like to pick up on the blackmail advancement. Blackmail Advancement's annual report requested level funding for financial year '27. Instead, the budget includes a $500,000 cut, which is 23.7%. I'm just curious about what changed between the reports, recommendations and the development of the budget and what programs, grants or partnerships have been reduced or eliminated due to the cuts? And what will how will this affect BMA's ability to actually meet their stated goals? Because you folks have been doing some stellar work, and how will these cuts impact your goals?

Thank you, Councillor President. Yes, as stated our kind of request was for levied funding for the office of black male advancement. I think after we kind of submitted our request there were additional conversations between the mayor, cabinet chiefs, OBM finance leadership and they ultimately kind of made the decision on what the cuts were going to be where the cuts were coming from and so we are like aware of the impact on kind of our communities, we're hearing in the community, and we are working diligently to identify kind of other opportunities to plug those gaps.

I think you're not alone in terms of city departments who are using this money would be for outside funding of grants nonprofits who are working in the space. Think that's across the board, every department. In terms of identifying sources for funding to make up the gap, it's a half $1,000,000. What sort of sources are you like are you working on that already or how's that going?

Yeah, we had some initial conversations and outreach kind of through the chief of our cabinet and then the partnership team in the mayor's office around identifying public private partnerships and other grant funding opportunities. And then through our technical assistance program we are also working to identify kind of separate grant opportunities that may exist from philanthropy, state, federal that we can share with our community partners. But I think the conversations around kind of how do we move forward is going to kind of be led by the partnership team and kind of the mayor's leadership team.

I think somebody mentioned it earlier, but you know we're switching from being grant makers to being folks who want to go out and look for grants, do we have the infrastructure in place to be really aggressive and successful in identifying external grant opportunities and winning those grants in a competitive field? Do we have the staff and the folks with the expertise to keep on top of it and all the reporting requirements of it's not just about getting the money, it's actually reporting back and saying yes, you give us $200,000 and this is we spent it on that sort of thing. Yeah. Do we have that infrastructure?

The equity cabinet does not. I know that our part our colleagues at the partnerships teams has different ways that they've done this already under our administration. We work really well with our procurement team. So, again, this is just a moment for us to think about the resources that we do have and get creative. But currently, no. To answer the question earlier, we do not have grant writers or people that can do that level of work. That's not been the priority.

So in terms of workflow, are you feeding requests to the partnerships department? Like, are they they working on that? Like, I think they're probably gonna be asked by every every department across the city to help with grants. So I think it

seems a big lift. That will be coming. I think right now I'm I as the chief, I'm more focused on the resources that we do have. And so public health commission has some grants that were already discussed. I'm already talking to the commissioner about to ensure that we are part of the selection process. There's more dollars there than there are currently in the equity cabinet even within FY '26. And so I am keeping my options open so that the perspective experience of our staff and the residents that we work with are being represented in those selection committees. Workforce empowerment also has their own work. You know, there's different ways in which we're tapping into other pools of dollars that are much bigger than the equity and inclusion cabinet current pool.

Outside of Citi and quasi public organizations.

We're not there at the moment. I am focused on what the resources that do currently exist for FY '27 in other agencies. Yeah. Yeah.

I reserve a healthy skepticism. I wish you well and a healthily skepticism about how effective that's going to be. Because I think we are in a bit of a crunch. Let's see.

Time's It is your time.

Sit by the bell. Okay.

Thank very much. Councillor Culpepper, I'm gonna give you seven minutes and then we'll if we have a well, yeah. Well, Okay. You go go compromise. I think I'll give you eight minutes, and then we'll do have a quick last round if anybody has any other questions.

How many did everyone else get? Every

everyone got thirty five minutes. Yeah. Everyone got seven. And five.

And five. So why am I getting eight?

Because you were not here for the first round. Here you go. Eight minutes.

I got a few more questions for you. Let me just say this. Thank you, Mr. Chair, for holding this hearing. Thank you, panelists, for coming.

You know, we got the office of equity inclusion confused last week with the office of inclusion and opportunity. And when it says office of inclusion, you you would think that the focus would be on expanding and building and gotta credit Blackmail Advancement for all the work they've been doing. They've probably been asked this question already with regard to grant funding, but how much money was actually taken from the community grant funding? How much was that?

$587,200

Not the $501,000

$587 So we normally do kind of one round which is $500,000 and then closer around the summer we have an additional smaller grant that's closer to 100,000.

Frank what were those grants for? Can you tell us who's not gonna get grants this year?

So organizations that focused on mentoring and out of school time, youth and young adult pathways, housing mobility, economic inclusion and wealth building, workforce training and development, fatherhood engagement, and mental health and wellness.

So none of them are gonna get grants this year

from the black? They they will not get community empowerment grants. Will they get anything? We are having conversations. We actually started conversations around kind of grants, fundings, and and and identifying external partners before we were

But as of now, they're not going to get anything? Correct. And many of them depend on that grant for their programs?

I think there's a number of them that kind of, through our grant programs, are kind of we're one of the only departments that

can you give us the specific names you don't have to give them all now but so we'll have them all. The other thing is on the equity study it's not completed right? Correct. And there was cuts to the equity study,

to the personnel that was doing the equity study? So the cuts were like it was originally supposed to be kind of we had funding for two years. And as you go through the equity study,

one of

the things we worked on was assuring that everybody kind of involved in the equity study, internal departments, the commission, the community partners were informed and aware counselors were formed and aware kind of what the results were for phase one

Right.

Before we launched phase one phase

two. Have the funds been cut for phase two?

So the funds for phase two were not included in FY twenty seven.

So they were cut?

They were cut, correct. Okay. Phase two is starting in is is currently underway in f y twenty six. So we'll we'll have to identify kind of

fund Additional money Correct. Complete. To to complete it. Okay. And and let me ask you something with regard to my brother's keeper programming. There was money transferred to blackmail advancement? Correct. So How much was that?

That was 250,000.

Okay. And who what program was my brother Keeper under?

So my brother's Keeper is under the, office of black male advancement, but when I came into my role there was funds prior to me coming into my role there were funds that were moved over to BPS to support the work

To the Boston Public Schools.

And the Boston Public And so we are it's been like a two year process.

So is that money coming back?

The 250,000 is coming back, but the FTE is remaining with BPS. So we'll have funds for programming which will plug some of the gap for youth related MBK focused work.

And so for the black VMA equity study, once it's completed and it's not completed, what would be used to implement the findings in the study? Is there nothing for the implementation phase? Funding? Yeah. So you do the study right and you have findings right And you you implement the findings, right? Mhmm. There's no money in the budget to implement the findings? Correct. No. And I wanna just move over to

What I will name, think the findings, the implementation process will probably be more we're looking at FY '28.

But you need money to finish the fiscal year '26 And equity if you don't get the funding, then it just sits in limbo?

Oh, no. We're identifying kind of other opportunities to fund. But you don't have it yet?

Correct. Okay. I want to just talk a little bit about fair housing equity, Chief Severo. And last, we met when I first got here, probably the first month, and you told me that hiring a fair housing director was in the process. Have we hired one yet?

No. But we are very close to posting the position, finally.

What's it gonna take to post a position? I mean we met, I've been over here over a 100

And you and I missed each other last night, sorry. Were I supposed to

but I just here's my concern. My concern is that something as significant at the Fair Housing Commission should have had there should not have been a gap in terms of the Fair Housing work going on in this city. And so it's pretty much without any leadership in terms of the Fair Housing. And so we're looking at that. We're looking at that because I think it's a shame that we don't have a fair housing director. How long has it been?

Bob passed away May. Year and a half ish.

And so when you look at the Fair Housing Commission, that's a substantial equivalency agency, isn't it?

Yes, sir.

Thank you.

And there's reporting to HUD, isn't there? And the reports to HUD concerning the executive director, is the money in the budget for the executive director?

Yes, counselor. It's on the operating side. I I know you know lot about this. On the operating side. That that position is funding on operating.

The money for the Human Rights Commission that council Flynn was talking about has been there's no funding for fiscal year twenty seven in the Human Rights Commission. Human rights. Correct. So so we won't have a Human Rights

Commission? The for the last two years, that office has not engaged won't in any work. It has not had any staff as well.

But it had funding? Yes. And so the funding is still there?

Will not be there for f I twenty seven. That is the proposed budget.

But it's still there right now? Correct. And help me understand why we don't have a functioning human rights commission.

Commission. I think what I can say at this point is that as I became don't the functioning leader of this cabinet and as I worked with other agencies across the departments, we wanted to better understand where were the gaps and where did we really need to step up and think about programming, which again programming and staffing is not being touched. That will continue in f y twenty seven.

For the

for the rest of the cabinet, we were noticing that a lot of the incoming requests were things that our departments could already manage. So I prefer, and that is where what we're proposing to you, that we allocate our resources into the work that is already happening rather than funding something that has not done has not been funded sorry. Has not had any staff or hasn't done any work in the last two years.

So we're gonna defund the Human Rights Commission. We're gonna hopefully hire Fair Housing Direct. We don't have one. Mhmm. We cut black male advancement. We cut the rep reparations task force. Women advancement is being cut by 01/7871, and that's tied to mini grants? Yes. Who who were those mini grants going to?

I can read the program partners. So in 2025, we had the Vietnamese American Community of Massachusetts in Solidarity, Detriminate Divas for Black Girls Inc, The Modern Mentor. For 2026, we had SIO US Inc.

Can you provide that list to me of the many grand cuts? And what about the community based programming? What about what what grants were involved in the community based programming or was that the office programming?

Office programming. And our programming hasn't been affected.

Okay. And I'll wait for affirmative leave for the new fair housing for my second round.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. We're so we are we're trying to finish this at one so we can give people time to prepare for 02:00. There's gonna be a Culpeper round. Are you sure? Okay. Well, I guess just the other thing is where to find these grants. Mean you know I don't know if they were provided. I've been referred to the list of contracts. Don't think anything that I've heard is in that list. I think there's five things or six things for women's advancement, and they most of those the contracts terminated two, three years ago. So, Maya, we can work on that off line.

Yes, can work that together.

Okay.

I guess just one quick question on the equity study. Like how much would need to be in the budget for FY 2017? Did you cover that? I can't I apologize. Okay.

Think we're projecting that it's probably going be somewhere around 50,000 to complete for FY '27.

So if you had 50,000 in addition to what you have right now, you could do the complete phase two? Correct. Thank you. So, Councillor Culpepper, I'm going to give you three minutes. You will have more time. Well, not less time. No, no, because Councilor Worrell has a question. You get you're going to get three minutes, and then we'll going to go to Councilor Worrell.

I wanted to get to the affirmatively furthering fair housing. And who's doing that work now?

The fair housing team. So our policy manager, Joyce.

What with regard to the fair housing and the affirmatively furthering fair housing information that you submitted to HUD and the goals. Where are we with regard to the affirmatively fair housing? And how has the lack of a director had an impact on actually doing what the city told her they would do in Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing.

Yeah. So I'm gonna answer backwards