Boston Policy Institute and Pioneer Institute Announce Boston DataLabs: New Tool Will Allow for Easy and Powerful Municipal Government Accountability
BOSTON, MA — The Boston Policy Institute together with Pioneer Institute today announced the launch of Boston DataLabs, an online platform designed to empower Boston residents, journalists, researchers, and policymakers with clear, accessible insights into the city’s payroll and budget.
Boston DataLabs continues a proud tradition of promoting transparency and civic engagement through free, public access to government data. While the City of Boston reports a variety of statistics through their Analyze Boston site, it is often reported through spreadsheets or pdfs, a barrier to access that makes it difficult to analyze trends of the city’s operations over time. This new data tool will allow users to easily analyze and visualize the available data all in one place.
“Boston DataLabs empowers taxpayers by providing transparent, comparative payroll data,” said Jim Stergios, Executive Director of Pioneer Institute. “Access to this level of information enables residents to ask informed questions, evaluate how public funds are allocated, and hold city leadership accountable.”
“As Boston’s budget and payroll costs continue to grow significantly while future revenue growth slows, it’s more important than ever for residents to have a clear, accessible way to see where their tax dollars are going,” said Greg Maynard, Executive Director of the Boston Policy Institute. “Boston DataLabs sheds light on rising salaries for the city’s highest-paid employees and tracks how public funds are allocated, helping ensure that city government’s budget decisions are understood by both the press and wider public.”
Boston DataLabs compiles decades of longitudinal data across the last three Boston Mayoral Administrations. The Payroll Dashboard provides access to city employee compensation data dating back to 2011 — allowing users to identify top earners, track how pay has changed over time, filter by department, and view detailed breakdowns of pay categories such as base pay, overtime, and injury compensation. The Budget Dashboard, with data available from 2017 onward, offers a clear view of how Boston’s operating budget is allocated by category, cabinet, and initiative, as well as a breakdown of city revenue sources by type. Together, these tools deliver valuable context for understanding the city’s fiscal priorities, operational trends, and the financial decisions that shape Boston’s communities.
A preliminary review of the data has revealed several important trends of note. Some of the most compelling being:
- In 2023 only 7 city employees made over $400 thousand in inflation adjusted dollars, in 2024 it was 90 city employees – a significant increase.
- The jump in pay for the top earners is further exemplified by where Boston Superintendent Mary Skipper was in the rankings. In 2023 she was the 10th highest paid official in the city, in 2024 she was the 227th highest paid official.
- Nearly 150 city employees made more than $100,000 in overtime in 2024, including several employees who made more in overtime pay than they did in their regular base pay.
- Top overtime recipients, and most of the highest paid employees in the city, were part of the Boston police and fire departments.
- The frequent reorganizing and renaming of cabinets, departments, and offices between and during mayoral administrations limits transparency and makes it more difficult to track spending over time.
Pioneer and Boston Policy Institute will also release original reports and public education campaigns based on the data discoveries made through the platform.
Visit https://pioneerinstitute.org/bostondatalabs/ to explore Boston DataLabs.
