The True Scale of Financial Mismanagement of Framingham City Government Begins To Emerge

The September 22, 2026, City Council Finance Subcommittee meeting was an eye opener for anyone paying attention.

Three major financial problems were brought to light:

1. $6 million in late, uncollected water & sewer (W&S) bill payments
2. Tenant W&S costs double those of homeowners, and
3. A $10 million looming FY28 budget problem, caused by chronic revenue shortfalls

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Thanks for the illumination go to the new CFO, Brian Turbitt, and the new City Council Financial Analyst, Brian Kinahan, who are making a real difference in figuring out what is really going on inside Framingham City Government.

Thanks also go to city rental apartment managers, who are beginning to sound the alarm on high water & sewer bills, just as condo owners did on the same issue back in 2024:

Framingham Mayor Fails To Correct Obvious Water Billing Mistakes (July 26, 2024)

These three problems should add to the concerns the community already has after a contentious FY27 budget cycle delivered many obvious setbacks to city services and finances, including:

1. $1.2 million in painful cuts to the Framingham Public Schools, which damaged both the SAGE program for gifted students, and vital language support for immigrant students.

2. A 10% cut in the Senior Services budget, with its director fired for questionable reasons, as part of a charter-violating departmental reorganization.

3. The new $40 Mary Dennison park set to open in the Fall with no staff to run it. [Since addressed in an unusual post-budget adjustment.]

4. The new charter-mandated position of Chief Officer for Climate & Sustainability unfilled and only partially funded, when it has been obvious for more than a year that such a position could bring millions in utility savings to the city.

5. Canceling city membership in the Massachusetts Municipal Association (MMA) to save $20,000, making Framingham uniquely isolated from the mainstream of municipal governance information, in a state with 350 out of 351 municipalities members of MMA.

As the CFO observed in the September 22 meeting, timely collection of water & sewer bills would have yielded about $2 million more in city revenue.

Water & sewer annual revenue is around $64 million, so $6 million in late, uncollected payments is about a 10% delinquency rate. A more normal delinquency rate is 5 to 6% delinquency rate which translates to $3.3-$3.8 million, around $2 million less than Framingham's $6 million delinquency rate.

In the CFO's words:

"I'm used to having around a 5 to 6% rough delinquency rate in aggregate, so 10% would be a little bit higher than where I would think that I would want it, um, or hope that it would be"

Competent management of collections would have brought $2 million more into the city's coffers. That would have solved all of the FY27 budget problems listed above.

This example adds weight to the argument that the central reason for the problems Framingham is facing is years of past bad financial planning and management. See also:

Framingham's Lack of Strategic Planning Is Highlighted in a Key SIFOC Report (May 5, 2026)

It is quite clear that the CFO, Brian Turbitt, will fix the water & sewer bill payment problem. That is a relatively simple matter. But the other two problems listed at the start present much bigger challenges.

Here are 4 videos from the September 22 meeting, which highlight the difficulties:

Framingham Tenants Hit By $190/month Water Costs - Jim Hausman, from Eagle Rock Properties Explains

High Tenant Water Costs Affirmed by Baystone Development Principal Roy MacDowell

Councilor George King Opposes Discussing Unaffordable Tenant Water Rates

CFO Early Take on FY28 Budget: "It's not very good"

Tenant water & sewer costs being twice those of homeowner is a major policy inequity which punishes lower income residents. Water & sewer costs for each rental apartment run as high as $1,200 more per year than those for a single family home or condo.

Already even discussing the matter has drawn major opposition from George King, City Council Chair.

The question remains as to whether the Mayor and the remaining City Councilors care about fairness and affordability for the 50% of residents across the city who rent.

The final problem is the FY28 budget.

As the CFO makes clear, the use of $10 million in free cash in the FY27 budget is a major headache. That means that before any FY28 budget increases are considered, a $10 million gap has to be filled from somewhere.

The origin of this structural financial problem may be found in the 4 years of 0% tax levy increases, from FY19-FY21, which lost the city $30 million/year in revenue, stalling the tax levy in 2021, and being a major factor in the down-grading of the city bond rating in 2022.

The good news is that the CFO is bringing this problem up early, and plans are already underway to build the FY28 budget much earlier than has been customary in prior years.

In this regard, the city is now moving to adopt the best practices, which the Framingham Public Schools have used for the last 8 years, under the steady hand of Lincoln Lynch, Executive Director of Finance & Operations.

That is a big step forward, and it looks like we are heading for comprehensive reform of the entire city budget process. This was previewed by the CFO earlier this year and reported on:

A Very Interesting Snapshot of the Competence, Experience and Finesse the New CFO Brings To Framingham (July 15, 2026)

Hope springs eternal that change is in the air, and it is encouraging that in the City Council meeting this evening on Tuesday, September 29, 2026, for the first time the Mayor's update includes items of major importance to the future of Framingham,rather than the customary calendar of events.

Further, also for the first time, there are updates from key administration staff members, including one from the CFO on FY28 budget planning.

See the meeting agenda for details.

Note:

Full information on the September 22, 2026, City Council Finance Subcommittee meeting may be found at the YouTube channel: Framingham Government In Action. This channel is dedicated to providing the Framingham community information on meetings of its government bodies. Each meeting video includes in its description a full meeting transcript, and AI generated Summary and Minutes, which are a good way to quickly get the gist of what happened in the meeting. AI (Claude) is quite good at generating summaries and minutes from a transcript.