Framingham Mayor's School Funding Claims 'Misleading': Column

The following is an opinion column and does not necessarily reflect the views of Framingham Patch

In the next few weeks, voters will decide whether to re-elect Mayor Yvonne Spicer or bring in a fresh approach with Charlie Sisitsky, who would bring many accomplishments and abilities to city leadership.

Mayor Spicer has clearly struggled over the last four years with the basic planning and management demands of her job. While it was taken for granted that she would take some time to settle in, hopes were high on Jan. 1, 2018, that she would succeed, especially in all matters relating to the school system since she was an educator.

It is therefore ironic that the Mayor’s most dramatic failures have been in the area of education — a total reversal of expectations.

Let’s delve into education.

The mayor’s line of argument is that she increased the school district operating budget by $19.4 million in 4 years and, "Consistently provided a robust budget for the school department to ensure there’s resources to maintain quality education in our district."

Nothing could be more misleading.

She did partially agree to the Superintendent and School Committee’s requests to increase the school district operating budget, but she dramatically throttled back the size of the annual increases, compared to the four years before she became mayor. Those cuts have left the school district in much worse financial shape than it was when she took office.

The proof follows.

First, to illuminate the school district budget landscape, we note that the school district budget has two major pieces: aid from the state, called Chapter 70 aid, and the local contribution, funded by the city, and determined specifically by the mayor.

Chapter 70 aid is designed to level the educational playing field for less affluent communities and provide sufficient educational resources for low-income and limited English proficient students. In the last eight years, Chapter 70 state aid has followed a steady trajectory, increasing annually tied to inflation and student numbers in the above categories.

Watch: Framingham Mayor Talks School Funding In Patch Video Interview

The local contribution should also increase annually, following inflation and student enrollment to ensure consistent support for each student. It followed that trajectory in the last four years as a town but then was substantially reduced by the mayor in her term. She disconnected the local contribution from the realities of inflation and student enrollment increases.

Here are the pertinent town and city numbers for the school district budget increases.

For the last four town years, Framingham was a town, the increase was $25.2 million: $10.5 million in Chapter 70 and $14.7 million in local contribution.

For the four-year Spicer term, the increase was $19.4 million: $14.6 million in Chapter 70 and $4.8 million in local contribution.

So, the mayor cut the city’s local contribution increase from $14.7 million to $4.8 million. That $4.8 million increase was built on a local contribution base of $85 million coming into 2018. So, the average annual increase was not only slashed by a factor of 3 but averaged about a 1.4 percent increase in each year of the Mayor’s term, far below the 3.5 percent needed to cover annual inflation (2 percent) and enrollment increases (1.5 percent). If the Mayor had funded the local contribution tied to inflation and student enrollment, it would have increased by $12.4 million in 4 years.

The net result of the mayor choking off the money supply to the school district is that, during her term, the school budget was underfunded by about $8 million.

The amazing thing is that due to the remarkable efforts of the superintendent and his staff, with their zero-based budgeting, tied to a fully developed strategic plan, the actual shortfall in the school district fiscal year 2022 (FY22) budget is not $8 million, but $4.4 million. That is the amount that the school district had to draw from reserves for the FY22 budget. So, in summary, the mayor has created a $4.4 million shortfall in city funding of the current school district operating budget.

The Mayor remains completely blind to this fundamental problem, and remarkably, claims her four-year funding of the school district as an accomplishment. Mayor Spicer has the confidence and situational awareness of the Titanic captain, as we steam at full speed towards a fiscal year 2023 financial iceberg.

And there is a second iceberg.

If the first iceberg were labeled "operating budget," this second one would be labeled "capital budget/school roofs."

Let’s delve into school roofs.

By 2023, roofs on nine schools will come out of their extended warranty period and need to be replaced. In addition, Farley’s roof needs to be replaced immediately. Further by 2027, three more roofs will have to be replaced. Only Fuller, our newest school, has a roof that is not on track to fail.

In 2018 the warranties on many school roofs were extended for 5 years to buy time to plan for their replacement. That presented the incoming new Mayor with plenty of time to work up a solution.

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Nothing was done by the Mayor for all four years. Here are the analytics.

In 2023, 10 school roofs reach their end of life: Barbieri, Brophy, Cameron, Dunning, Farley, Harmony Grove, Hemenway, King, McCarthy(partial), Potter Road. By 2027, all the remaining school roofs, except Fuller, will reach their end of life: Walsh (2025), Framingham High School (2026), Stapleton (2027), McCarthy (2027, partial). Roof replacement costs for the 2023 tranche total up to $30 million if done by 2023. The cost for the rest is $27 million if done by 2027. Replacement costs rise each year, so we have at least a $60 million problem, with an additional $3 million added for each year these projects are deferred.

This was a critical opportunity for the Mayor to advocate for the schools, to address an immediate problem, and avoid the much greater downstream costs of project deferral. But she ignored the problem. She did not weigh in when this was discussed many times in School Committee meetings, and School Committee members consistently raised the alarm. She failed to marshal support for a critical school system need. Four years of deferred action has cost taxpayers at least $12 million and threatened the integrity of almost all our school buildings.

I could go on about the Mayor’s failed attempt in 2019 to divert $700,000 in late-breaking Chapter 70 state aid from the schools, zero solar panels installed at schools in four years, the Bethany property not acquired to secure a site for a southside school, the Perini misadventure, the 1 percent cost of living allowance for teachers in the FY22 school district budget.

It all has been a long sequence of Mayoral mistakes, characterized by a persistent refusal to engage with the simple basics of municipal planning and financial management.

It is up to all Framingham voters to see clearly the untenable situation the Mayor has created for the school district and the city, and vote in Charlie, who understands the importance of planning and sound financial management, based on facts not guessing. He is an expert at municipal infrastructure and knows the importance of environmental action: solar installations, stormwater management. But above all he knows that education is a cornerstone for Framingham, and needs a much higher level of support, investment, and respect.

Anyone interested in examining the data behind the operating budget arguments can go to page 85 at this link with the caveat that the FY22 budget local contribution was finalized at $89.8 million, not the desired School Committee submission of $91.2 million. For the school roof data, visit this link.

Geoffrey Epstein is the District 6 Framingham School Committee member and has been the Chair of the Finance and Operations Subcommittee since 2018.