Councillor Charles Yancey, at left, spoke during a hearing of the Post Audit and Oversight committee that he chairs in the Boston City Council chamber. The hearing, which lasted just 15 minutes, was attended by members of the media.
Weeks before bowing out of the City Council after 32 years in office, District 4 City Councillor Charles Yancey continues to pursue his critique of municipal governance in the areas of spending and diversity.

On Monday, he convened a session of the Post Audit and Oversight meeting that was meant to be another in a long series (as many as 40 over the last two years, according to one councillor) of budget inquisitions where he would grill officials from the police, fire, and public works on their spending in 2014 and 2015.

Instead, the hearing began and ended in 15 minutes with no colleagues and no department heads present in the chamber.

Yancey told reporters after the hearing that he had notified city officials on Nov. 23 by requesting the attendance of Police Commissioner William Evans, Fire Commissioner Joseph Finn, and Public Works interim Commissioner Michael Dennehy at Monday’s hearing.

In papers provided to the Reporter after the hearing, Yancey detailed the subjects of inquiry he had hoped to address. They included a line-by-line budget review for each of the three departments, a review of approved, filled, and vacant positions, demographic make ups of personnel, and an assessment of the top wage earners by race and gender.

“The information did disclose, again, that we have significant disparities, not only in the make up of the workforce for the city of Boston, but even with regard to average salaries,” Yancey said.

Based on information provided by the city, excluding the schools, who, Yancey said, declined to share their data, city employees are 64 percent white, 24 percent black, 9 percent Hispanic, and 3 percent Asian. This is disproportionate to the city’s demographics, he said, adding that the top 525 paid city employees are 83 percent white, 12 percent black, 4 percent Hispanic, and 1 percent Asian.

“The City Council does have a role to play, and even though these are my last few days and weeks on the City Council, I intend to complete the work that we started for this term,” Yancey said. “That’s why I called back those department heads that failed to show at an earlier hearing.”

Bonnie McGilpin, a spokeswoman for Mayor Martin Walsh, said the administration received notification of the hearing on Nov. 24. “Given that notice of the hearing came just before the holiday and the hearing was scheduled the first day after the holiday, the administration did not have time to prepare or schedule the availability of attendees,’’ McGilpin said.

The mayor’s office was not represented on Monday, either, though Yancey said he had invited the mayor. “There are a lot of issues facing the city of Boston, the councilor remarked. “The mayor is very busy doing some very important things. I know we’re lighting some trees today.’’

Yancey said he will reschedule the hearing planned for Monday to another date, with the last possible date around Dec. 15. He said he is hopeful that the commissioners will attend. That the departments did not send any representation in place of the commissioners on Monday was “a great disappointment,” Yancey said. Boston Police and Fire officials declined requests for comment.