Remember when the Boston Redevelopment Authority was considered something of a rogue agency that wielded development power like nobody’s business? Under Mayor Walsh’s tenure, the stigma has eroded away – he vowed to shake things up and make the BRA more transparent, firing its director and installing his own economic Development and Industrial Corporation (EDIC) Chief of Staff. Not to mention he appointed John Barros, a staunch Walsh campaigner last fall, as the Economic Development Chief of the City of Boston. He then called for a sweeping audit of the BRA to find out exactly how it operates and why.
Some might’ve forgotten about the audit, and understandably so. The BRA has been involved in a number of civic innovations and public art initiatives as of late and therefore likely not considered to be the all-powerful agency it was, during former Mayor Tom Menino’s 20-year administration.
But not so fast, BRA.
On Thursday, Mayor Walsh’s office released the findings of the BRA audit he commissioned back in March and discovered “troubling deficiencies in organization’s structure, compliance protocols, and personnel policies.” You can read the entire report below.
“We have a lot of work ahead of us to make the Boston Redevelopment Authority a more modern, nimble, transparent, and responsive agency,” Mayor Walsh said in a statement.
This report lays the groundwork for improvements that have already begun and will continue to unfold. There are certain areas within the organization that we need to take a closer look at. However, it’s clear that development is booming in Boston, and I’m hopeful that reforming the BRA will help to make our city an even more attractive place to do business.
The audit begins by noting it obtained a slew of records and documents from the BRA that leads the City of Boston to believe that there’s a startling lack of a “Centralized document repository, Electronically imaged documents, Online document center, Document naming conventions.”
Mayor Walsh is already trying to curtail similar issues with City Hall by hosting a hackathon that would make the entire licensing and permitting process a streamlined and digital affair. This allows him, but moreso Boston residents, to access and analyze certain documents in order to make the entire city run more efficiently.
In terms of leadership and compliance, well that’s noticeably absent within the agency as well. Reads the audit, “We requested a complete listing of all the compliance requirements the BRA/EDIC should be monitoring and adhering to, but no such comprehensive list was available.”
Perhaps most alarming, though, was that certain developers have failed to pay required fees to the City of Boston, despite breaking ground on construction projects.
For example, “a payment of almost $300,000 should have been made by the developer to the City Treasurer when the building permit was issued and another $300,000 payment should have been made one year after the building permit was issued. As of June 1, no developer payments have been made.”
This is just one exemplification of such an occurrence in the past 10 months alone.
Further, the BRA has failed to collect millions of dollars worth of rent for properties it owns and leases to other companies and organizations. It also owns a number of properties and parking areas that the City of Boston has identified as able to generate revenue, though the BRA has done nothing of the sort.
“The report raises many serious and troubling concerns about how the organization has operated over the years,” said Brian Golden, Acting Director of the BRA. “We embrace these findings. This is an opportunity to strengthen the way we do business so that we’re able to serve the public in a more efficient, accountable, and transparent manner. I want to thank KPMG, and Shawn Warren in particular, for their hard work to help us begin to chart a course for the new BRA.”
Mayor Walsh’s office went on to note that the BRA is already in the midst of instituting dramatic changes to all of the aforementioned problems, as well as the rest outlined in the audit, in order to improve all aspects of operation.
For more detailed information on Mayor Walsh’s findings, check out the full details in the audit below.
Featured image via BRA, Screenshots via BRA Audit
