Other protesters concentrated on roads connecting Boston to its northern suburbs. Carrying signs and chanting slogans, they blocked the city's two harbor tunnels and a bridge that connects downtown Boston with Charlestown.

The protests lasted about 90 minutes before the police cleared the demonstrators out of the paths of halted cars. No arrests were made, the police said.

A measure passed by Massachusetts voters last November that limits the amount of money that municipalities can collect through property taxes has been blamed for causing many of the city's financial problems and exaggerating those it did not create.

Because this means a dramatic drop in tax income, Mayor Kevin H. White is refusing to let the school system overspend its budget as it has routinely done in the past because the city would not be able to recoup the loss through higher taxes in the next fiscal year. And the Mayor has warned that Boston will be insolvent by July 1, at the start of the next fiscal year, if nothing is done to help the city. Schools Told to Stay Open

The city's 64,000-student system spent the last of its $210 million budget yesterday, but classes continued after Judge Thomas R. Morse Jr. of Superior Court ordered the city to keep the schools open.