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Cambridge City Manager Yi-An Huang today announced the proposed Operating and Capital budgets for fiscal year 2025 (FY25), as well as the FY25-FY29 Operating and Capital Plans, have been formally submitted to the Cambridge City Council.
The submitted FY25 Operating and Capital Budgets reflect the City of Cambridge's commitment to providing exceptional City services, including supporting education, investing in critical infrastructure, and meeting the evolving needs and interests of the community. The Operating Budget of $955,584,350 marks an 8.1% increase from the previous year's budget. The proposed Capital Budget is $74,892,720. A total property tax levy of $629 million will support a large portion of the General Fund Operating and Capital Budgets. This is an increase of $53 million or 9.3%, from the FY24 property tax levy, and reflects significant budget increases related to school department funding, implementing the new Cambridge Preschool Program, and increased debt service costs.
Strong economic performance has allowed Cambridge to make substantial investments in several prioritized areas, including housing and homelessness, early childhood, climate initiatives, sustainability, traffic safety, and anti-racism, equity, and inclusion.
Key highlights of the FY25 Operating and Capital Budget:
The City is preparing for the first year of the Cambridge Preschool Program, which will begin in September 2024. Total FY25 funding is $34 million. This new universal preschool program, open to all four-year-olds and prioritized three-year-olds, will provide access to free, high-quality programming across Cambridge Public Schools (CPS) preschools, Department of Human Services Program (DHSP) preschools, and community programs.
Planning for the Cambridge Preschool Program has been a major effort across the City and Cambridge Public Schools. It includes a universal application, building a strong workforce pipeline, and developing systems and support for quality programs across all participating preschool programs. This significant investment represents one of the largest financial investments across the City’s FY25 Budget.
Major increases to the Operating Budget include $23.3 million in additional funding for the School Department (a 9.5% increase to the CPS budget), which will help support 30 more minutes to the school day, four days per week in the elementary and upper schools, beginning in fall 2024 as well as collaboration time for educators. There will also be an additional five minutes to the school day for students in grades 9 through 12 and additional out of school time for student support sessions and educator collaboration.
Funding for affordable housing (including funds allocated to the Affordable Housing Trust) totals $47 million in FY25.
Through FY24, the City has appropriated more than $358 million to invest in affordable housing initiatives. These funds have been used to preserve or create over 4,000 affordable units to date.
Read more about Cambridge’s ongoing commitment to affordable housing in the latest CityView Newsletter.
Supporting the unhoused community remains an important priority, and the City has once again committed significant funding -- a total of $16 million in FY25.
This includes continued operational funding of $1.2 million to ensure the Salvation Army’s 35-bed shelter will remain open after state funding was discontinued in March 2023.
Per population, Cambridge hosts more individual adult shelter beds than any other municipality in the state and the City continues to explore ways to better support unhoused residents in Cambridge.
The City is also making investments in high intensity case management through the City Manager’s Housing Liaison Office.
To address the global climate crisis, the City is funding $21 million towards Climate Resilience and another $17 million to help address its Climate Net Zero goal.
In response to the growing importance and multifaceted nature of the City’s climate initiatives, the City is introducing a new Chief Climate Officer role in FY25.They will lead the City’s new Office of Sustainability.
FY25 expenditures include $20 million in funding for open space primarily focused on preserving and revitalizing key public spaces, including the public cemetery, Danehy Park, and local parks needing repairs.
Higher funding will also be allocated for Urban Forestry.
Read more about Cambridge’s ongoing climate work in the Cambridge Life magazine.
Total funding for Vision Zero and traffic safety for FY25 is $33 million in FY25. This includes $20 million in total infrastructure projects and $13 million in programs and planning across various City departments.
Several significant projects include River Street, Huron Avenue, the Port, Massachusetts Avenue in Harvard Square and Central Square, and Mass. Ave. Partial Construction.
Project improvements include reconstruction of streets and sidewalks with an emphasis on the City’s commitment to Complete Streets, Vision Zero, and the Urban Forestry Master Plan.
The City has increased funding for anti-racism, equity, and inclusion programs with $7.6 million allocated in FY25. The newly formed Office of Equity and Inclusion – a standalone department -- has made significant investments in employee engagement, improved processes for investigating and addressing complaints, developed clearer formal policies, and established more inclusive governance over its work.
The Office also has a supervisory role for the Human Rights Commission (HRC), the Commission on Immigrant Rights and Citizenship (CIRC), the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Plus (LGBTQ+) Commission, Language Justice, the Women’s Commission, and the Domestic and Gender-Based Violence Prevention Initiative.
The proposed amount for the Capital Budget in FY25 is $74,892,720. This budget includes crucial investments in sewer and stormwater capital repairs ($8 million) and remedial construction ($7 million). It also includes $2,065,000 for eight projects proposed, developed, and voted for by community members through the City's record-setting tenth Participatory Budgeting process.
The City's strong financial standing was further validated after being awarded three AAA ratings for the 25th consecutive year and through its recent bond sale, where $160.2 million in General Obligation Bonds were issued at a true interest cost of 2.6%.
Following ongoing collaborative efforts and discussions between the City Administration and City Council, this year’s budget process included close partnership with Finance Committee Co-Chairs and more public hearings, which covered the operating budget, capital budget, police budget, and updates on federal ARPA funding.
There will be public hearings on the FY25 Budget at the City Council Finance Committee on Tuesday, May 7 at 9 a.m., Wednesday, May 8 at 6 p.m. (School Department), and Tuesday, May 14 at 9 a.m. The anticipated budget adoption date is Monday, June 3, 2024.
For more information on the FY25 Operating and Capital Budgets, please visit https://www.cambridgema.gov/Departments/Budget/fy25submittedbudget.
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