District 6 Councillor Giovanni Recupero doesn’t like some of the noise he is hearing about a proposed Massport-funded soundproofing program.
Earlier this spring, Recupero and Councillor-At-Large Roy Avellaneda proposed that the City use $300,000 of the $600,000 annual Massport mitigation payment to help provide soundproof windows for residents who deal with the whoosh of jets traveling to and from Logan Airport.
But a letter from City Manager Thomas Ambrosino to the City Council states it might not be that easy to automatically earmark those funds for a soundproofing program.
“I am not opposed to creating some local grant program, operated through our Planning Department, to provide funding for soundproofing to residents adversely impacted by airport related noise,” Ambrosino stated. “Deciding who should qualify for such grants, and how to prioritize areas of the City, might be a bit challenging. But, I feel with some time, we can work out those details together in collaboration with the City Council.”
But Ambrosino said the funding proposed by the Council is problematic, since the annual mitigation payment cannot be directly used for a specific program. The payment is considered a payment in lieu of taxes by the state’s revenue department, making it a general revenue source that is deposited into the City’s general fund.
“If the Council desires to depend upon this Massport payment to help fund a soundproofing program at the level of $300,000 annually, it must appropriate the $300,000 separately,” Ambrosino stated. “It can do that either in an annual Budget line item, or as an isolated appropriation from a source such as Stabilization or Free Cash.”
Ambrosino recommended the City commit to appropriating $300,000 for the soundproofing program from Free Cash whenever it is available, rather than making it a permanent part of the budget.
“I can see what the City Manager is saying, but this money comes to us direct from Massport, we get it all the time, so why do we have to wait and put it in free cash?” Recupero asked. “What kind of guarantee can the City Manager give us? I want the City Manager to give us some kind of guarantee that the money will be used for that purpose, not all of it, but a piece of it.”