Framingham Mayor Signals That City Workers Are Underpaid

SUMMARY

The city is in the midst of a workforce crisis, which the Mayor will not acknowledge.

For 12 years, Framingham has taxed below the levy limit, delivering millions of dollars of unsolicited tax relief to property owners, depleting the city tax revenue stream by a total of $230 million so far and losing a further $40 million each year.

This lack of funds has eroded the city workforce both in head count and in take home pay.

High inflation in recent years has amplified the problem.

City services are operating with skeleton crews, and teachers and their support staff are leaving the Framingham Public Schools in droves.

If the city is to survive, homeowners have to begin investing again in their city by demanding that the Mayor and City Council rebuild Framingham’s workforce by raising city employee pay to combat the devastating damage caused by high inflation.

That means increasing city employee pay with at least a 3% annual Cost of Living Adjustment for the foreseeable future. That can be easily accomplished by raising the tax levy by 3.5% rather than the 2.5% the Mayor has in his FY25 budget plan.

On Tuesday, April 16, 2024, the City Council Finance Subcommittee considered a set of recommendations from the city Community Preservation Committee (CPC) for spending $3,023,250 on 13 projects in 3 categories:

• Community Housing
• Open Space/Outdoor Recreation
• Historic Preservation

The first recommendation was to spend $120,000 on a City of Framingham Rental Subsidy Program. The project description was:

"The funding will be used to implement a City rental assistance program to support very low-income (50% AMI or lower) Framingham residents, with a preference for veterans and City employees. Funds will provide rent support for 10 or more successful eligible applicants of up to $12,000 per household, and with monthly payments from the program being made directly to the landlord." [Emphasis added; AMI = Area Median Income]

The original request submitted by the Mayor’s administration was for $360,000, but CPC members voiced serious discomfort with the preference given to city employees, as this did not seem to comport with Community Preservation Act objectives. They reduced the funding to $120,000 and viewed the project as a pilot.

The City Council Finance Subcommittee members shared the CPC's discomfort regarding the preferential treatment given to city employees, and in the end approved the $120,000, but required an assurance from the Mayor that city employees would not be given any preferential treatment. That was a reasonable outcome.

The remarkable thing is that the Mayor sought to use CPA funds to preferentially help out city employees. He obviously thinks that the city has a category of city workers whose pay is inadequate to such a degree that they cannot afford rent.

Prior to this, the Mayor had not drawn attention to city staff having wages way below market due to the devastating effects of inflation coupled with a very tight-fisted city approach to managing workforce compensation.

He still won’t talk about the problem, but he has acknowledged it by admitting that some city staff need more money to pay rent.

But that is not the end of the story.

The real issue is that the rent problem for low paid city staff is just the tip of the iceberg.

Almost all city staff been hit by devastating inflation and the city has refused to address their needs because the Mayor is under the thumb of 3-4 City Council politicians who like doling out loads of property tax relief to taxpayers, while forgetting about who actually runs all the city services, including education.

Just look at the numbers which show how city tax levy revenue has fallen behind inflation.

There are two major takeaways from this table.

The first is that in the last 6 years, city government has delivered taxpayers an enormous gift of property taxes almost totally shielded from inflation.

The second is that in the last 6 years, city government has delivered city staff enormous financial punishment, as they have been exposed to the full impact of high inflation, and have received no relief from the city at all.

City government has systematically and deliberately favored taxpayers at the expense of city employees.

In the private sector, wages have risen to provide a large offset to inflation, but in Framingham the city is still hanging onto 2% Cost of Living Allowances (COLAs) in union contracts, which has been the standard for years, but is totally out of touch with the harsh economic facts all city staff face.

The Department of Public Works has 80 vacancies which cannot be filled because compensation is too low. The Framingham Public Schools are experiencing an unprecedented rate of staff departures either for better pay or simply taking early retirement. In the latest data provided in the Framingham Public Schools FY25 Budget Book, it is a shock to find that in the last 5 years turnover savings has rocketed from $1.5 million to $5.75 million. Turnover savings is defined in the budget book as:

“Turnover savings results from a number of personnel changes including but not limited to a tenured staff member retiring or resigning with a high salary then replaced with a less tenured staff member with a lower salary. The difference between the high and low salary is considered the turnover savings.”

Further, classroom aides are widely acknowledged as being underpaid. Every year 25% of them leave for better pay elsewhere. Already 30 of them have quit during this school year. With 270 budgeted classroom aide positions, that is more than 10% of the classroom aide workforce!

Classroom aides need a pay boost of about 20%. They are the ones who make a huge difference to classroom management, as they deliver vital support to special needs students and English language learners.

Even in non-union positions, there has been substantial erosion in staff compensation. Witness the City Accountant who quit last summer when his pay was $127,000 but was recently rehired at $150,000. Multiple other administrative positions in the city have been reclassified in recent months to give pay boosts of 15-20% to ensure staff don’t leave, or to hire new staff who won’t sign on for under market wages.

If you don’t keep city staff compensation competitive, they will simply leave for better pay elsewhere and as the workforce declines in headcount and quality, all city services will follow a downward trajectory, including the school system.

The city budget is dominated by staff compensation, so moving the current 2% COLA to 3% would translate into a 1% increase in the tax levy, taking it from the Mayor’s 2.5% increase to a 3.5% increase, to preserve and grow the city workforce. Boosting classroom aide pay would require another $1.6 million which translates to a 0.8% levy increase, for a total tax levy increase of 4.3%.

Those are investments worth making.

If the Mayor can cross the Rubicon with that move, he might as well consider restoring the devastating cuts he made to the city FY25 Capital Improvement plan and thereby start addressing the rising $400 million infrastructure deferred maintenance backlog, also caused by a parlous lack of investment due to the depleted tax revenue stream.

That would push the tax levy increase to 5.3%.

One thing to keep in mind is that if these tax levy increases are not done now, things will be much worse next year.

And that is an election year for both the Mayor and 9 of the 11 City Councilors.

Notes

• All tax levy data is drawn from the Municipal Databank.
• The huge Capital Improvement plan cuts are described in: Framingham Mayor Unexpectedly Slashes FY25 Capital Budget. That article also shows how the cuts could be restored with a 1% tax levy increase.
• The inflation data is taken from: https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/current-inflation-rates/
• In a very rough estimate, there are about 270 classroom aides making about $30,000/year, so the budget cost increase due to boosting classroom aide pay would be about $30,000 * 270 * 20% = $1.6 million.