Are City Council members carry water for Mayor Wu?

When they first ran for Boston City Council, Sharon Durkan, Enrique Pepén, and Henry Santana all had to contend with questions about their independence. All of them had previously worked for Mayor Michelle Wu. Would they be their own person as councilors or just carry water for the mayor?

An answer of sorts came last week, when all three reversed their own previous positions on the city budget to fall in line with Wu. The reversal left other city councilors seething — "This process has honestly been demoralizing," as Councilor Julia Mejia put it — and the three councilors trying to explain how items they voted for just a few weeks ago suddenly became bad ideas.

"We need to put our money where our mouth is, period," Mejia said at last week's marathon session. "The only people that you should be beholden to are the people that live in these streets, the people that we serve, not political power that put you in these seats."

Here's what happened:

In fall 2021, Boston voters approved a ballot question to reform the city's budget process and allow participatory budgeting, giving the City Council and residents a larger role in deciding how tax dollars are spent.

It gave a little more power to the council — on paper anyway.

This year, taking advantage of those new powers, the council approved by a 10-3 majority changes to a "mere 0.33 percent of the overall" budget, according to councilor Brian Worrell , who as chair of the council's Ways and Means Committee presided over the 100 hours of meetings and six working sessions the council devoted to the process.

Among those reallocations were $4.9 million in new housing initiatives, including $1.5 million in housing vouchers and $500,000 for a right-to-counsel pilot program; $800,000 for college readiness and homework help for Boston Public Schools students; and a reallocation of funds away from the police, fire, public works, and transportation departments.

Durkan, Pepén, and Santana all voted for the changes. Only councilors Ed Flynn, Erin Murphy, and Michael Fitzgerald initially voted against the council's amendments.

But Wu vetoed all but roughly $2 million worth of the changes, saying that her budget had already gone through "significant vetting internally."

But the whole point of expanding the council's budget powers — something Wu herself supported when she was a councilor — was so that the mayoral "vetting," no matter how significant, isn't the last word.

The council needed nine votes to fully override the mayor's veto. Six of the councilors voted to override. But by an extraordinary circumstance, the three who used to work for Wu were the ones who changed their minds. Instead of simply overriding the mayor, the council then voted item by item, overriding only some of the mayor's vetoes .

So what happened?

Pepén told me he hadn't fully realized the impact of some of the amendments he had initially voted for.

"About $450,000 [of the cuts] were coming out of transportation department's personnel, $550,000 were coming out of public works department's personnel ... and $339,000 were coming out of parks department's personnel," Pepén said. "When that was brought to my attention, it was quite a bit of money that was coming out of jobs specifically. ... So I said, 'I can't vote to cut these departments' personnel items.' "

If that explanation is to be believed, Pepén is basically acknowledging voting for items before understanding them.

As for Durkan, she told me she initially voted yes because she wanted to send a message that she supported "our ability to have this power." She said she had issues with the actual reallocations, though, and made it clear "in conversations with my colleagues [that] they knew that they only had my support on the first vote because of where they were pulling [funds] from."

Meanwhile, Santana, who teared up during the council meeting last week as he tried to explain why he changed his mind without really saying so, said in a statement that he believes the budget that was passed balances "investments in housing affordability" and youth, as well as ensuring public safety. Santana did not offer a rationale for his vote reversal.

Voters entrusted the City Council with a bigger role in the budget — but like all of the council's powers, it takes fortitude by individual councilors to actually use that power.

"With a strong mayor form of government, the City Council provides important checks and balances on the mayor," said Marty Walz, the interim president of the Boston Municipal Research Bureau, a city watchdog. "The city needs the City Council to truly function as an independent branch of government."

Going by what happened last week, reaching that goal might still be a work in progress.

Marcela García is a Globe columnist. She can be reached at . Follow her and on Instagram .