Politics & Government
Framingham Narrowly Avoids Self-Inflicted School Bus Chaos
This crisis illuminates some problematic decisions being made by city government.
In the last several days, the Mayor, City Council and School Committee worked together to avert a school bus drivers’ strike. Credit goes to them for working hard to ensure that mistakes they made in the last several months did not result in a chaotic outcome for students and their families.
Finally, the city understands that school bus driver pay must be increased and that the contract with NRT must be rebid and a new increased pay rate folded in.
Months ago, it became quite clear that school bus drivers’ pay was a big problem and an increase in the hourly rate from $29 to something like $34 would largely solve the problem. That would cost the city $390,445/year for the remaining years of the NRT bus company contract. However, the Mayor would not inject that additional money into the FY24 Framingham Public Schools budget to solve the problem.
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Now, under threat of a strike, comprehension of the problem has arrived in both the Mayor’s office and the City Council chambers.
However, avoiding the strike is just the start, and the proof that things are proceeding in a sound direction will come when the City Council adds that $390,445 or similar amount to the Framingham Public Schools FY24 budget. If that does not happen, it will mean that the Mayor is forcing the school district to squeeze that money out of its educational effort. That would be a poor outcome for the school district.
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This whole crisis was at heart simply a battle over money.
A series of prior articles laid all of this out:
There will be more battles, and the root cause is a shortfall in city property tax revenues. We are entering a period when Framingham will become more and more subject to the unavoidable consequences of, as Moody’s Investors Service put it last July, when they downgraded the city’s bond rating:
“… the recent decline in the [city] financial position due to a greater use of reserves and limited property tax revenue increases that have resulted in a structural operating imbalance.”
What this means, in layperson’s terms, is that the city is running short of money, and Moody’s is warning the city to stop using up reserves and amp up city property tax increases to address the revenue shortfall.
However, in the new city budget, that advice is being ignored and overall, the city is still trying to cut corners and defer payments or investments in every financial situation. It is addicted to giving out tax breaks, no matter what the consequences are.
If you don’t think the city is approaching a period of fiscal and operational crisis, consider these facts.
When Framingham became a city, the City Council unilaterally imposed a 0% annual property tax levy increase policy for 4 years, and for two years after that still throttled back increases to 2% and 1.9% in the last two city budgets, below the typical 2.5% increases most cities and towns employ.
During that period, city property tax revenues stalled. Almost $30 million/year in property tax revenue was lost. Certified cash reserves dropped from $16 million to $6 million. $6 million in COVID relief was used to plug the tax revenue gap, even though the gap was not caused by the pandemic. City borrowing increased by $25 million and annual debt service rose to 4.96% of the annual city budget, just a whisker short of the 5% limit the city imposes on debt service. To hold down the debt, critical operations like road maintenance and roof replacements were deferred. The road maintenance backlog is now $94 million. See an article on that at:
All school roof replacements were deferred for 5 years, starting in 2018. See an article on that at:
We are in fiscal trouble, and thus far that fact has been hidden from the community. Now that the first signs of trouble have appeared, the hope is that the community will engage and pressure its government to address this fundamental fiscal problem. There is still time in the current budget cycle to provide feedback on the matter to the City Council. Simply increasing the property tax levy by 2.5%, rather than 1.9% would be a start.
The next article in this series will address the surprising recent revelation that Mayor is threatening the Sisters of St. Joseph with an eminent domain action to acquire the Bethany property for the planned new southside school. Multiple problems with that will be explored. Again, all are related to a shortage of property tax revenue.
