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FISCAL RESPONSIBILITIES.
SECTION 56. Establishment of Reserve Fund.
To provide for extraordinary and unforeseen expenditures, the city of Boston shall, prior to the date when the tax rate for a fiscal year is fixed, include in the appropriations for such fiscal year as a segregated reserve fund a sum not less than 2.5% of the preceding year’s appropriations for city and county departments, excepting the school department; provided, however, that the amount required to be appropriated for such reserve fund in any fiscal year may be reduced by the amount, if any, remaining in the reserve fund established for the preceding fiscal year after all transfers have been made therefrom as hereinafter authorized and such remaining amount shall be retained in the reserve fund provided for such fiscal year. The Mayor, with the approval of the city council, may make direct drafts or transfers against such fund before the close of the fiscal year, provided that no such drafts or transfers may be made before June 1st in any fiscal year.
Each transfer recommended by the Mayor to the city council shall be accompanied by written documentation detailing the amount of such transfer and an explanation of the reason for the transfer. If the reserve fund for a fiscal year beginning on or after July 1, 1986 is exhausted through transfer and the city incurs an appropriation or revenue deficit in such fiscal year, the reserve fund appropriation requirement shall increase by 50% for the fiscal year following such fiscal year.
Notwithstanding any general or special law to the contrary, in the city of Boston, the segregated reserve fund established by this section shall be deemed to satisfy the requirement of section fourteen of chapter sixty-four J of the General Laws that a city accepting said chapter sixty-four J shall establish a segregated reserve fund. The reserve fund established pursuant to this section shall become effective for the fiscal year beginning July 1, 1986.
[Acts of 1982, c. 190, s. 17A, amended by Acts of 1986, c. 701, s. 7 and further amended by Acts of 2016, c.166, s.1]
SECTION 57. Requirement of Allotment Schedule from Departments.
On or before August first of each year, or within ten days after the approval of the city council and the mayor of the annual appropriation order for such fiscal year, whichever shall occur later, the city or county officials in charge of departments or agencies, including the superintendent of schools for the school department, shall submit to the city auditor, with a copy to the city clerk, in such form as the city auditor may prescribe, an allotment schedule of the appropriations of all personnel categories included in said budget, indicating the amounts to be expended by the department or agency for such purposes during each of the fiscal quarters of said fiscal year.
The allotment specified by the school department for the first fiscal quarter in each fiscal year may not exceed twenty per cent of the total appropriations of all personnel categories for said fiscal year, and the allotment specified for any one of the remaining three quarters may not exceed in such quarter thirty percent of the total appropriation.
The allotment specified for each of the departments and agencies, except for the school department, for either the first or second fiscal quarter in each fiscal year may not exceed thirty per cent of the total appropriations of all personnel categories in said fiscal year, and the allotment specified for each of the departments and agencies, except for the school department, for both the third and fourth fiscal quarter in each fiscal year may not be less than twenty-one per cent of the total appropriations of all personnel categories in said fiscal year.
Whenever the city auditor determines that any department or agency, including the school department, will exhaust or has exhausted its quarterly allotment and any amounts unexpended in previous quarters, he shall give notice in writing to such effect to the department head, the mayor and the city clerk, who shall transmit the same to city council.
The mayor, within seven days after receiving such notice, shall determine whether to waive or enforce such allotment. If the allotment for such quarter is waived or not enforced by the mayor, as provided above, the department or agency head shall reduce the subsequent quarter’s allotments appropriately and the director of administrative services, within seven days, shall state in writing to the city council and the city clerk what reductions in each subsequent quarter’s allotment will be taken or what reallocations or transfers will be made to support the spending level in each subsequent quarter’s allotment. If the allotment for such quarter is enforced or not waived, thereafter the department shall terminate all personnel expenses for the remainder of the quarter. All actions taken pursuant to this section shall be reported to the city council and the city clerk. All reports provided for in this section shall be transmitted to the city council and the city clerk within seven days.
No personnel expenses earned or accrued, within any department, shall be charged to or paid from such department’s or agency’s allotment of a subsequent quarter without approval by the mayor, except for subsequently determined retroactive compensation adjustments. Approval of a payroll for payment of wages, or salaries or other personnel expenses which would result in an expenditure in excess of the allotment shall be a violation by the department or agency head, including the superintendent of schools and the school committee of section sixteen of chapter four hundred and eighty-six of the acts of nineteen hundred and nine. If the continuation of operations is not approved in a quarter where a department has exhausted the quarterly allotment or allotments as specified above, or, in any event, if a department has exceeded its entire appropriation for a fiscal year, the city shall have no obligation to pay any personnel cost or expense arising after such allotment or appropriation has been exhausted. Notwithstanding the provisions of any general or special law to the contrary, every collective-bargaining agreement entered into by the city, the school department, or the county shall be subject to and shall expressly incorporate the provisions of this section.
To insure that the overall city and county spending program remains in balance, the mayor may reallocate no more than three million dollars of nonpersonnel appropriations other than school appropriations during a fiscal year to other departmental purposes provided that in no department from which appropriations have been reallocated in accordance with this section shall any transfers be made under section three B of chapter four hundred and eighty-six of the acts of nineteen hundred and nine from personal services to non-personal services, except with the approval of a two-thirds vote of the city council, if such transfer would require the layoff of departmental personnel, who have been permanently appointed to a position in the department under the provisions of chapter thirty-one of the General Laws. No reallocation may be made under this section after April fifteenth in any fiscal year. A list of each reallocation made by the mayor shall be transmitted to the city council and the city clerk by the city auditor by April thirtieth in any fiscal year. In each case the report shall state the accounts from which the transferred funds were taken and the accounts to which the funds were reallocated, and the reasons therefor.
[Acts of 1982, c. 190, s. 18, amended by Acts of 1986, c. 701, ss. 8, 9]
SECTION 58. Hospitalization and Insurance Accounts.
To further insure that the overall city and county spending program remains in balance, the mayor and city council shall appropriate for the hospitalization and insurance account an amount not less than the average of the past three years actual expenditures from those accounts. The city auditor shall certify, in writing to the board of assessors, that adequate funds are provided in the operating budget for existing collective bargaining contracts. This certification shall be received by the board no later than ten business days before the proposed tax rate is submitted to the department of revenue for approval.
[Acts of 1982, c. 190, s. 18A, amended by Acts of 1986, c. 701, s. 10]
PUBLIC FACILITIES COMMISSION AND SURPLUS PROPERTY.
SECTION 59. Authority of the Public Facilities Commission to Acquire Land for Municipal Purposes.
Without obtaining the consent of any board or officer or further authority than that contained in this act, the public facilities commission, in the name of the city, may acquire by purchase, lease, gift, devise or otherwise for any municipal purpose a fee simple absolute or any lesser interest in any land, public or private, within the limits of the city, including air rights and riparian rights, and may take by eminent domain under chapter seventy-nine or chapter eighty A of the General Laws any such fee or interest except in parks and playgrounds and except also, unless there be express consent, in lands belonging to or covered by contract with the United States, the commonwealth, the Boston Housing Authority, or the Boston Redevelopment Authority. Whenever the price proposed to be paid for any land to be acquired for any municipal purpose is more than twenty-five per cent higher than its average assessed valuation during the previous three years, such land shall not be acquired by purchase, but shall be taken by eminent domain. No land shall be taken until an appropriation by loan or otherwise for the general purpose for which land is needed shall have been made by the mayor and city council by a two- thirds vote of all its members; nor shall a price be paid in excess of the appropriation, unless a larger sum is awarded by a court of competent jurisdiction. Nothing in this section shall affect in any way the powers and duties of the real property board under chapter four hundred and seventy-four of the acts of nineteen hundred and forty-six as now or hereafter amended, or of the public improvement commission as successor in function to the board of street commissioners under chapter four hundred and thirty- seven of the acts of eighteen hundred and ninety-three or chapter four hundred and twenty-six of the acts of eighteen hundred and ninety-seven or chapter three hundred and ninety-three of the acts of nineteen hundred and six, as severally now or hereafter amended, or acts in addition thereto.
[Acts of 1909, c. 486, s. 31; Acts of 1966, c. 642, s. 12; see also Acts of 1983, c. 643, s. 11]
SECTION 60. Authority of the Public Facilities Commission to Shift Municipal Purposes of Land.
Without obtaining the consent of any board or officer other than the mayor, and without interdepartmental payment, the public facilities commission, without further authority, may transfer any land now or hereafter belonging to the city, except parks and playgrounds, but including school lands and land acquired by foreclosure of tax title, from the municipal purpose, if any, to which it is devoted at the time of such transfer to any other specific municipal purpose, and may also transfer the care, custody, management and control of any such land, except parks and playgrounds, but including school land and land acquired by foreclosure of tax title, from such board or officer, including itself, as at the time of such transfer may have the same to such other board or officer, including itself, as it may determine.
[Acts of 1909, c. 486, s. 31; Acts of 1966, c. 642, s. 12]
SECTION 61. Authority of Public Facilities Commission to Lease or Sell Land.
Without obtaining the consent of any board or officer other than the mayor, the public facilities commission, without further authority, may, for such rent or price and upon such terms as said commission may deem appropriate, lease or sublease or sell, grant, and convey any surplus land, as hereinafter defined, to the federal government or any agency thereof, the commonwealth or any political subdivision or authority thereof or, if notice of intent to lease or sell such land or buildings together with a statement of when and where written details of such proposed lease or sale may be examined shall first have been publicly advertised in the City Record once a week for two successive weeks, to any person, firm, corporation or trust. “Surplus land”, as used in this section, shall be deemed to mean land, buildings and real estate now or hereafter belonging to the city and in the care, custody, management and control of said commission (except parks and playgrounds) which at the time of such lease or sale are or have been used for school purposes, or which have been acquired by foreclosure of tax titles or acquired under section eighty of chapter sixty of the General Laws, or which, irrespective of the manner or time of acquisition, are not held by the city for a specific purpose, or which have been transferred to the commission by the city council.
[Acts of 1909, c. 486, s. 31, amended by Acts of 1966, c. 642, s. 12]
SECTION 62. Establishment of the Surplus Property Disposition Fund.
Notwithstanding the provisions of any general or special law to the contrary the proceeds from the disposition of any surplus property other than that acquired through tax title foreclosure shall be deposited in a separate fund which shall be set up on the books of the city and shall be known as the Surplus Property Disposition Fund, and shall be used only as follows:
(1) The amount equivalent to the debt incurred, and interest paid or payable thereon, as a result of the acquisition or improvement from time to time of the property shall be used only for purposes for which the city is authorized to incur debt for a period of ten years or more;
(2) All proceeds in excess of such amount shall be credited to the capital fund of the city unless the city council by a majority vote determines with the approval of the mayor to credit such proceeds to the general fund of the city.
[Acts of 1909, c. 486, s. 3, amended by Acts of 1941, c. 604, s. 1, amended by Acts of 1954, c. 24, amended by Acts of 1982, c. 190, s. 24, and further amended by Acts of 1986, c. 701, s. 4]
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