0 Boston City Council Members - Reject Mayor Walsh's FY17 Budget

UPDATE: According to Boston City Council President Michelle Wu: No BPS or General Boston budget vote today. Budget version 2 will go to committee and there will be a hearing on revisions Monday, June 27 at 11:00 a.m. (Boston City Hall 5th floor). The final vote will be on June 29th.

What does this mean? 

• More time to spread the word and ask family, friends, neighbors, groups and everyone you know to email, call, visit and use social media to demand that our Boston Public Schools be, at the least, level funded! 
• Time to plan our next steps for Monday and next Wednesday!
• Because this will now only allow one vote prior to the June 30th budget deadline, City Council is more likely to pass the budget, so we must take action!

If you are interested in getting involved in next steps since we now have more time, please email me!!

At last night's Citywide Parent Council (CPC) meeting we decided to put together a draft email for all Boston residents to use to ask City Councilors to reject the FY17 Boston budget at today's hearing. Below is everything they need to email the Councilors:

• the email addresses for all City Councilors, 
• a subject line to use (to ensure they are recognized as the same ask) 
• and the template email for folks to personalize before sending. 

Please remember to DELETE items in RED and any of the notes below before sending!

If you have questions, feel free to email me directly.

You will also find below

1. A great graphic created by John Lerner which shows the percent spent by cities and towns on education out of their budgets. This disproves the "Boston spends more than anywhere else on education" mantra by Mayor Walsh et al.
2. List of the City Council Hearings (which I edited to get rid of old meetings) showing the two potentially scheduled city council votes on FY17 budget.

Don't know who your City Councilor is? Find out now!

If you want to watch the hearing and vote you can do so online.

Follow along on Twitter and Facebook. Make sure to follow the city councilors, and those who are always on top of the budget issues:
Kristin Johnson,
Kenny Jervis,
Heshan Weeramuni,
Mary Lewis-Pierce
and me (though my posts will be sporadic)

List of city council members which includes phone numbers - if you have family, friends etc who don't like technology! 

Please:

1) SEND YOUR EMAIL first!!!!

2) SHARE WIDELY! Ask everyone you know to email and call RIGHT NOW and - if possible - stop by city hall in person before or during the hearing which will be held in City Council chambers on the 5th floor of Boston City Hall. 

City Council Email Addresses to copy and paste into your address line:

Michelle Wu
Ayanna.Pressley@boston.gov

Michael.F.Flaherty@boston.gov

A.E.George@boston.gov

Mark.Ciommo@boston.gov

Josh.Zakim@boston.gov

TJackson@boston.gov

matthew.omalley@boston.gov

Timothy.McCarthy@boston.gov

Andrea.Campbell@boston.gov

Frank.Baker@boston.gov

Bill.Linehan@boston.gov

Salvatore.LaMattina@boston.gov

Subject line: Reject Boston’s FY17 Budget Until BPS Funded Correctly

Copy, paste & personalize:

Dear Members of the City Council,

I am a Boston resident who is extremely concerned that our Mayor is devaluing our students and their futures despite the wealth of our city. First, I want to thank you for refusing to pass Mayor Walsh’s FY17 budget at your June 8, 2016 hearing. You clearly heard the voices of all of the students, families and community members regarding the harmful effects the BPS budget cuts will have on our most vital resource: the students who are the future of our city.

Now, as you are no doubt aware, since your vote on June 8^th, Mayor Walsh has added an additional $4.68M to the BPS budget. Unfortunately, though appreciated, with the exception of a small percentage (approximately 36%), the majority of these funds will never reach the school level, our students directly or offset the detrimental and, in some cases, potentially harmful cuts impacting all of our BPS students. Even with this sudden influx of $4.68M, which is still about $25M short of the funds necessary to level-fund our BPS schools, the Mayor is clearly not prioritizing our students or their education.

In the long run, many of the choices now being made for BPS to the tune of “we don’t have the funding” may lead to many costly, and potentially precedent setting, legal cases which will cost the city far more than what we are demanding now.

So today, as you prepare for your second vote on the FY17 budget, I am writing as a resident(, voter, BPS parent and Citywide Parent Council member - Feel free to also insert your school and/or other affiliation or anything else you think important to personalize this AND DELETE THIS COMMENT and anything you do not use!) to ask that YOU prioritize our students and BPS schools by once again rejecting the FY17 budget until Mayor Walsh, at the very least, funds our Boston Public Schools to ensure that we maintain the current level of supports our students had during the 2015-2016 school year. 

I expect every one of you who represent Boston to join me, my fellow residents, BPS students and families to insist that Mayor Walsh again dig into the city’s purse to restore the cuts that are already negatively impacting all of our students, especially those with language and special education needs. Anything less is ethically and morally reprehensible and unacceptable in an elected official.

Thank you.

Sincerely,

Your Name

Address

(Phone Optional)

School or other affiliation

Have questions or just want to see what I am working on? Feel free to email me at karen.kastmcbride@gmail.com or follow me via Twitter: @BPSNightmare.