The Framingham Mayor's Sparse FY24 Budget Submission

On April 25th, the Mayor delivered his budget to the City Council at one of its regular meetings. The materials comprised 3 Excel spreadsheets and a PDF file detailing the employee compensation schedule. A 25 minute Power Point presentation briefly covered some budget information. The Power Point file is not yet available. Nor are any of these materials currently posted on the city website, although the city charter requires it.
What was missing from the budget materials, was a comprehensive budget document which laid out the strategic planning narrative, including the cost drivers, budget priorities, major challenges, etc., and then provided department by department, a description of each department, including its mission and staffing, what was achieved in FY23, what difficulties were encountered in FY23, what the objectives were for FY24 and what resources were needed to achieve those objectives.
What was provided by the city amounts to what would be an Appendix for a comprehensive professional budget document.
There is nothing for any community member to read that would give them any idea of what the state of the Fire Department is, or the Police Department, or the Department of Public Works with its complex operations covering roads, water & sewer etc.
Contrast this with Natick, which has its comprehensive budget document at:
https://www.natickma.gov/Docum...
250 pages jam packed with information designed to give community members a good idea where the tens of millions of dollars municipal revenue are being invested.
In contrast, we have almost nothing.
The situation is much like going into battle and having a pre-launch briefing in which lists of expenses are handed around, showing the staffing levels of each military unit, their equipment, their ammunition, fuel and food supplies etc., all in great detail. But with no attempt at all to explain the battle plan, the advantages to be exploited, the challenges to be faced, or the objectives to be achieved. Fundamental intelligence is missing.
It’s all an exercise in detailed opacity.
Contrast this also with the Framingham School Committee FY24 budget book, which is also jam packed with useful information and contains all of the major elements a budget book should:
https://www.framingham.k12.ma....
227 pages, which provide everyone a clear view of the complete school district budget plan for FY24. There is also an accompanying presentation, which summarizes all of the major features of the budget document:
https://www.framingham.k12.ma....
Further, accompanying the budget book is a set of projections for the FY23 budget, which provide vital information, which is folded into FY24 planning:
https://www.framingham.k12.ma....
The remarkable thing is that just as the Framingham School Committee is guided by policies which outline what is an acceptable annual budget submission, so is the Mayor guided by clear requirements laid out in the city charter. Here are some charter excerpts from Article VI. Finance & Fiscal Procedures:
“Not later than sixty (60) days before the start of the municipal fiscal year, the mayor shall submit to the council a proposed operating budget for the ensuing fiscal year with an accompanying budget message and supporting documents. The mayor shall simultaneously provide that the entire document be posted on the municipal bulletin board.“
“The budget message of the mayor shall explain the budget for all municipal agencies both in fiscal terms and in terms of work programs.“
“In the presentation of the budget, the mayor shall use modern concepts of fiscal presentation so as to furnish an optimum level of information and the best financial control.“
“The budget shall be arranged to show the actual income and expenditures for the previous three fiscal years and the estimated income and expenditures for the current and ensuing fiscal years and shall indicate in separate sections:
…
iv. Estimated surplus revenue and free cash at the end of the current fiscal year, including estimated balances in any special accounts established for specific purposes.“
Those projections are absent, as they were last year.
It’s clear that the charter requirements need to be adhered to, and some further comprehensive guidance needs to be provided to the Mayor so the community can be properly informed and engaged in the budget discussion.
As allowed by the charter, the City Council can do that by putting together an ordinance which comprehensively details what should be in the Mayor’s budget submission. If that had been done in some prior year, the community would at least have some hope of understanding how $346,226,818 is going to be spent in FY24.