Mayor Menino lauds ’08 budget; Team Unity opposed

Banner Staff

The Boston City Council approved the capital and operating budgets for the 2008 fiscal year last week, approving increases in spending for youth programs, public safety and early education.

The FY08 operating budget totals $2.3 billion, representing a 6.4 percent increase over FY07. Nearly two-thirds of the increase will go toward covering increasing personnel costs, such as rising health care expenses.

The operating budget includes raising the total number of uniformed police officers in the city to 2,235, increasing capacity for the Police Department Forensic Division, installing global positioning system (GPS) devices in Public Works Department vehicles and extending operating hours at Boston’s community centers.

The largest share of the operating budget is $783 million designated for the Boston Public Schools.

Both the capital budget and the operating budget were decided with a unanimous 13-0 vote. The operating budget, which funds all city departments, was approved by a 9-4 vote, with the four opposing ballots cast by members of the voting bloc nicknamed “Team Unity.”

City Councilors Felix D. Arroyo, Sam Yoon, Charles Yancey and Chuck Turner voted against the operating budget, largely because of what they considered “short-term funding and support for youth opportunity programs and combating the youth violence crisis.”

“Although government cannot do this alone, we feel the city should be a primary guarantor of summer youth employment,” Turner said in a statement. ”We must commit to erasing the gap between the number of jobs available and the number of young people who want and are eligible for a summer job.”

The FY08 operating budget includes about $4 million in city operating funding for 2007 summer jobs. The councilors asked for a commitment to increase city operating support for summer jobs by $3 million for FY09, bringing the total city commitment next year to $7.3 million. They also asked the city to extend summer job eligibility to 14-year-olds for next summer.

As approved, the budget reflects a total of more than $10.4 million in appropriations for youth programs from a variety of sources — an increase of $4.2 million over FY07 — and includes additional funds for summer jobs, street workers and grants for community-based organizations.

“I believe this is a great budget with responsible spending on programs and services for all our residents,” Mayor Thomas M. Menino said in a statement.