Framingham Mayor and City Council Converge On Major Demolition of the Framingham Public Schools

In the May 13, 2026, meeting of the City Council Finance Subcommittee, the Mayor unveiled a revised version of his budget. His 4.5% property tax increase was replaced by 3.5%, and $14 million in free cash was replaced by $10 million.

Details of the meeting can be found here:

1. Video

2. Transcript

3. AI generated meeting summary

4. AI generated meeting minutes

Lowering the property tax increase and free cash requires matching cuts to close a budget gap of about $5.4 million, and the Mayor identified $3.1 million in reductions, which included a $2 million cut to the schools.

That $2 million cut to the schools budget, which is the major piece, adds to the $2 million cut the Mayor made in his first budget proposal, for a total budget gap of $4 million!

The School Committee approved $190,457,868.

The Mayor now proposes $186,457,868.

Possible additional Chapter 70 funds amounting to $760,000 may arrive from the state to help, but the budget gap is now at least $3.24 million.

City Councilors King, Cannon, Stefanini and Ottaviani were quite happy to see the cuts in the Mayor’s new budget, and have no concerns about the impact on the schools. They never said a word about the damage that would cause, or how we should protect education in the city.

In fact, education seems to be entirely missing from their political vocabulary.

King and Cannon would like to see more cuts, with the property tax increase going to 2.5% and less free cash used.

They talk, as they always have, about ‘efficiencies’, ‘right-sizing government’ etc. Meaningless generalities. More cuts. More trouble ahead. No solutions.

Stefanini thinks the teachers’ contracts are too expensive, and wants to go after teacher compensation as a way to fix the city’s financial problems.

He seems unaware of school staff salary erosion due to high inflation. The modest contracted increases fall far short of wage recovery for our most valuable employees.

Private sector salaries have bridged the inflation gap, but public sector salaries have not.

It’s John getting it wrong again. He blames the teachers for financial problems he helped create.

Never has it been more clear that we have a Mayor and a majority of City Councilors on the Finance Subcommittee who don’t value education, and have no interest in our kids getting a good start in life with decent schooling.

Parents across the city are starting to realize that the schools are in peril.

The Brophy community just saw a very well respected vice-principal bite the dust. That is the tip of the iceberg, with $4 million in cuts coming, and the schools being cut to the bone.

In all of this, especially King and Stefanini poured scorn on the very viable option of moving out the pension liability payoff date beyond 2030 to provide vital recurring funds to help solve our financial problems. They seem entirely ignorant of the importance of this option, which dozens of cities and towns have used to protect their schools and services. See:

A Way Out of Framingham’s Budget Chaos

The irony is that the very folks who have navigated us into a real financial crisis are showing the same lack of competence in charting a course out of it.

Left to their own devices, the Mayor and City Council will keep on making bad decisions.

Hope remains that parents across the city will begin to engage, and start hammering on the Mayor and City Council to stop savaging the schools.

Public comment at School Committee meetings will help, but real pressure needs to be applied to the City Council and its Finance Subcommittee.

Note that another $2.3 million in cuts are still to be decided on by our rocky elected officials.

In all of this, it should be remembered that simply moving the pension liability payoff date from 2030 to 2036 would solve the city’s FY27 budget problems, with no cuts to the budget which the School Committee already approved, and would provide a year for the city to finally plan and put sound solutions to work.