Boston City Council committee reviews participatory budgeting office's FY27 request as members debate outreach and youth voting

Renata Costello, director of the Office of Participatory Budgeting, told the Boston City Council Committee on Ways & Means on April 23 that the office collected more than 1,200 project ideas citywide and received more than 4,800 votes in the most recent cycle. "We collected over 1,200 ideas from residents across the city," Costello said during a presentation to the committee, describing idea-collection, proposal-development and voting phases designed to give residents a direct say in how part of the city's budget is spent.

The presentation summarized two years of the program: the office contracts with community organizations to run outreach, hosted 31 events and five in-person proposal-development forums, and reported that eight winning proposals from the last ballot received a combined $2.2 million. Costello said two projects from the first cycle are complete, including a youth tenant stabilization fund that supported 54 households, and that procurement is underway for 120 bus-stop benches slated for installation in the fall.

Costello said the office's FY27 recommended operating budget is about $1.88 million and that the proposal represents an approximate 11.4% decrease from FY26. She attributed the reduction primarily to a…