Framingham Schools Will Begin Collecting MassBay Rent Directly

FRAMINGHAM, MA — The Framingham School Committee on Wednesday moved to create a new fund that will be used to collect rental revenue — a correction to a city budgeting error, according to Chair Adam Freudberg.

The school district's new revolving fund will collect the approximately $400,000 per year in rent that MassBay Community College pays to lease the former Farley Middle School building along Flagg Drive.

That rent had previously been going straight into the city's general fund, likely being diverted away from the schools for other uses.

"By state law, state regulation and fiscal processes, rent revenue must be deposited into a specific 'separate and apart' account and is only allowed to be used for education during the fiscal year," Freudberg said in a statement early Thursday morning. "Instead, the rent was deposited into the city general fund managed outside of the school district. We have raised this before, and first waited since July for the mayor’s administration to address this. Yet after waiting and waiting without answers or a proposed solution we acted."

Freudberg said the School Committee checked with the state Department of Revenue, among other experts, before creating the revolving fund.

"Rental payments for school buildings should be placed in a revolving fund created by the town for the school district, where then they are available for use without further appropriation. Such fees should be set by vote of the School Committee," Massachusetts Association of School Committees finance director Tracy O’Connell Novick advised Freudberg in an email.

MassBay will lease space in the Farley building until at least June 2023, but possibly longer. The college is planning to build a new $25 million facility near the corner of Mount Wayte Avenue and Franklin Street.