Mayor Wu vetoes budget cuts to police and fire.
On Monday, Mayor Michelle Wu vetoed cuts to police and fire budgets less than a week after Boston City Councilors voted 10-3 to make $15 million of changes to Wu’s $4.6 billion proposed city budget, including redistributing nearly $4 million away from police and fire. But the police and fire budgets have been restored thanks to the vetoes, which caused some city councilors, including City Council President Ruthzee Louijeune, to be very annoyed and frustrated.
“The power to amend the budget is a power that the mayor herself voted on back in late 2020, and the residents of Boston agreed in 2021 that the City Council should share budgetary authority with the mayor,” Louijeune told the Globe Monday afternoon. “What we are seeing is my colleagues and I, led by councilor Worrell, who has done a great job as chair of ways and means, simply trying to execute on a mandate given to us by the people of the city of Boston,” Louijeune told the Boston Globe.
Two-thirds of the council, nine of the 13 councilors, would need to vote against the mayor’s returned budget to override her veto. So we shall see.
You can read all the details in the Globe here.
Maureen Dahill is the editor of Caught in Southie and a lifelong resident of South Boston sometimes mistaken for a yuppie. Co-host of Caught Up, storyteller, lover of red wine and binge watching TV series. Mrs. Peter G. Follow her @MaureenCaught.
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