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— News and commentary about elsewhere covered by Quincy Quarry News
From Mayor Koch’s FY 2027 PowerPoint budget presentation
A Quincy Quarry News Photo Recon Team Six image
Quincy Mayor Thomas Koch presented his proposed FY 2027 budget to the City Council on Monday past.
As usual, the council chamber was largely packed with more senior city officials present on a mandatory basis.
Also as usual, the mayor’s budget was fraught with problems.
Most glaring so far is that, the spending increase he proposed for the coming new fiscal year is on the order of 4.3% as opposed to the 2.9% posed by the mayor during his presentation and thus roughly a 50% higher spending increase than claimed by the mayor at Monday’s city council meeting.
He should never try counting with his shoes off …
Image via the Boston Globe
Exposing Mayor Koch’s misrepresentation of a lower spending increase was care of a multi-media joint effort that came to pass when the numbers were found to not duly tic and tie as well as arguably yet again did not duly tick and tie.
Further, the actually 50% higher increase was confirmed by Mayor Koch’s chief of staph.
Then again, his Fiscal Year 2026 budget was unquestionably rubber stamped by a previous City Council line-up a year, only to see the final spending increase increased by a bit more than 50% per mandates imposed by the Massachusetts Department of Revenue when local property tax rates for 2026.
Rubberstamping “Yes”
An istock file photo image
Needless to say, this second year in a row of koching-up big time on the budget by the Mayor Koch is going to see Quincy Quarry’s financial and other affairs deck subject the mayor’s budget to a colonoscopy grade review and so well0infomr its ever-growing legions of loyal readers.
The May 4, 2026 edition of the Quincy Sun has an article regarding the MBTA bus depot on Hancock street. It states the mayor believes the T should give that parcel to the city, for free. The reasoning being is because the T took the old Lowe’s site, a commercial property, off the city’s property tax rolls.
Sort of like the Acapulco’s/John Quincy Adams pocket park site, the former car rental/heritage park at Furnace Brook Parkway and Southern artery (with a new stone wall being built), etc. The mayor is also on the T board of directors so he (should) know the T has a $560 million operating deficit and $11 billion in unfunded capital projects. Truth is stranger than fiction.
ENC
First time homeowners: is the “plan” that residential taxpayers will subsidize these potential first-time buyers? Will those houses also be sold for less than market value to the shall we say lucky few?
Massachusetts has a first-time home buyers program. “They must be first time home buyers, they must be under the asset limit of $75,000 (special rules apply to elderly households), and they must meet the income limits listed for each available unit.” The federal government also has a first-time home buyers program — “If you have a low income and want to buy your first home, the Housing Choice Voucher homeownership program could help. It may also help you pay monthly housing expenses.”
Cash poor, house rich residents to move into over 55 housing — is the “plan” that people in this situation will sell their existing homes below market value just so someone else will get a bargain? Will the “plan” require developers of the new over 55 housing stock to keep the cost of these buildings low so they can be sold below market value norms? Have we not been told many times that the reason Quincy has so little affordable housing is that it is financially difficult to build affordable housing?
John, we both know that in Quincy the rules are more what you’d call “guidelines” than actual rules.
Nothing to see here, move along — just another Flynn Flam steak tips dinner chowing down on taxpayers’ money. These people are truly in a kult. Hell, look at Koch’s OCPF campaign fund reports and see how much his team spends at establishments that serve liquor and food … Yet most of his abettors are nothing but skin and bones. Must be a lot of liquor consumed. I really don’t want to hear Clasby singing but I do wish that he had turned and told the truth instead of plead out. This is just like Dan Flynn and others. The Koch Kult owns these people.
Speaking of campaign account funds spent on meals, surely the big tabs incurred annually on or at least close St Patrick’s Day at a well-known Quincy Point pub known for its steak tips and which are expensed as for such things as discussing local schools are legit.