Fundamentally Unsound Behavior of the Framingham City Council

This is the third of a series of articles which addresses behaviors of the Framingham City Council which are unlawful, unsound, or unsustainable:

1. Unlawful behavior includes repeatedly violating the City Charter and violating, or planning to violate, state laws in its approach to ordinances and the school district.

2. Unsound behavior includes systematically delegating its decision making responsibilities to the Finance Subcommittee, effectively eliminating a majority of the City Council from discussion and deliberation on key strategic and tactical issues.

3. Unsustainable behavior includes executing major financial and infrastructure policies, with no community buy in, which have eroded the city’s finances, capital assets, staffing and educational system.

In the first article in this series, published on January 25,2024, the focus was on City Council violations of the City Charter:

Unlawful Behavior of the Framingham City Council: Part 1

In the second article, published on February 16, 2024, the focus shifted to City Council violations of the letter and spirit of state law:

Unlawful Behavior of the Framingham City Council: Part 2

In this third article, the focus will move to fundamentally unsound practices of the City Council, which for 6 years has delegated most of its decision making power to its Finance Subcommittee, and ultimately to the current Chair of that Subcommittee, George King.

City tax policy, infrastructure investment, education investment, climate change action and staff compensation policy, have all largely followed the King playbook. Even access to the Massachusetts Municipal Association resources, vital for city staff to keep current in their jobs, has come under King control in the past two years, as was addressed in a prior article:

Framingham City Councilors King & Cannon Oppose Smarter Government

The Finance Subcommittee of the Framingham City Council has an unusual amount of power, compared to other cities.

It is standard practice for the City Council to refer any matter which has a financial aspect directly to that subcommittee for its consideration. In many cases, this means that even though there are important strategic issues at stake, the City Council does not consider those issues before referral to the Finance Subcommittee.

That means that the Finance Committee often makes recommendations which have a far reaching strategic impacts on the city, and from past observation, the City Council simply rubber stamps those recommendations into final approval without substantive debate.

If the Finance Subcommittee makes a recommendation to the full City Council, it is unlikely to be reversed. Nowhere was that made clearer than by the Mayor in a Finance Subcommittee meeting on January 11, 2024:

Framingham Mayor Explains Finance Subcommittee Power

A better approach would be for the City Council to first discuss any given matter in general terms, making clear its position, and thus providing a framework within which the Finance Subcommittee can work, as it considers the financial aspects of the matter.

The source of this major concentration of decision making power can be traced to the City Charter, which gives the Finance Subcommittee an unusual amount of control in the annual budget process.

From the City Charter, Article VI: Finance and Fiscal Procedures:

“5. ACTION ON THE BUDGET

a) Public Hearing: Immediately upon its receipt of the proposed operating budget, the council shall refer the budget to the council’s Finance subcommittee …”

This is quite unusual.

An examination of multiple other city charters shows that the normal practice is to submit the annual budget to the full City Council for its consideration, with no mandate requiring immediate referral to a Finance Subcommittee. That means that the full City Council in those municipalities is much more engaged, as a body, in financial decision making.

While the Framingham City Charter speaks to the annual budget process, the tone it set there has become the norm for all financial considerations by the City Council. The City Council simply steps aside and sends any matter with even the smallest financial aspect straight to the Finance Subcommittee, and then rubber stamps the Finance Subcommittee decisions.

It is a huge problem that a majority of the City Council never gets to participate in the annual budget review, nor in any of the critical discussions which lead to key strategic decisions.

While Councilor George King has dominated decision making in the Finance Subcommittee, in the last term, he was assisted by Councilors John Stefanini and Mike Cannon, who operated in lock step with him. They formed a 3-2 majority on the 5 member subcommittee, which prevailed on all important issues. In prior terms, it was much the same.

The net effect has been that all major strategic decisions, which hugely affect the trajectory the city follows, have been made by George King with some assistance from two other City Councilors.

These include:

1. Setting property tax increases below inflation increases, eroding the city tax revenue stream by almost $30 million/year in 6 years.
2. Deferring all school roof replacements for 5 years, so the maintenance backlog rose to $100 million.
3. Underfunding road maintenance by about $6 million/year, so the maintenance backlog rose to $100 million.
4. Underfunding water & sewer maintenance, so the maintenance backlog rose to $200 million.
5. Ignoring the rapidly shifting student demographics in the school system and, by financial pressure on the school district, deferring action to expand the pre-K program to manage that change.
6. Sitting on the sidelines as the city bungled adjustments to the school bus transportation contract, which could have largely solved the late bus problem.
7. Taking no action to increase key city staff compensation to fill vacancies, retain valuable staff and combat the effects of inflation and market shortfalls.
8. Playing a major role in the City Accountant and Assistant Accountant vacancy problem, then blaming the Chief Financial Officer for the vacancies, and triggering her resignation.
9. Implementing ‘vacancy factors’, which means that any cityside vacant position is underfunded in the budget, and a hire requires a City Council approved budget transfer, which bogs down hiring.
10. Opposing adopting the Residential Exemption for property taxes which would have provided significant relief to low income homeowners.
11. Trying to interfere with the operation of the school district by using financial pressure to push for city/schools departmental consolidation.
12. Failing to improve the annual budget process by writing an ordinance requiring the Mayor’s annual budget submission to follow an understandable and complete format, such as that used by the school district or the cities of Natick or Newton.
13. Blocking the city from membership in the Massachusetts Municipal Association (MMA).

That is a long list, and it could be made even longer, but what is impressive about the list is that none of these items were discussed in a sound manner by the full City Council, until recently, where the lone issue of the MMA membership was finally discussed, and the King/Stefanini/Cannon block removed.

The remedy for this giant problem is to return strategic discussion to the full City Council, where it belongs, and confine the Finance Subcommittee to considering financial aspects, after it has been given overall direction by the City Council.

The City Council Chair and Vice Chair also have to engage in a major overhaul of City Council agendas to ensure that all these topics are thoroughly discussed by the City Council, prior to hand off to the Finance Subcommittee.

Further, the City Council needs to review the entire annual budget process and rescue it from its current impoverished informational debacle, to ensure that it is driven by a city strategy to achieve major city goals, and not just reduced to a cost cutting spreadsheet exercise.

The City of Framingham desperately needs a comprehensive, well-organized annual budget book similar to that produced for the school district budget. That budget book would not only fully describe the budget goals, drivers, past progress, future plans etc. for every department, but would provide vital historical data which provides essential context for the annual budget process. This can be formalized by ordinance, and any annual budget submission by the Mayor forced to comply.

It is pathetic, but true, that if you go to the city website, you cannot even find what any of the final approved annual city budgets were for the last 5 fiscal years. That information should be in the annual city budget book.

Finally, the Charter Review Committee should recommend that the City Charter be changed to command the Mayor to submit his annual budget to the City Council but remove the charter directive for referral to the Finance Subcommittee.

The City Council can figure out how best to review the budget.

With the defeat of John Stefanini in the November 2023, District 8 City Councilor election, a path has opened up for a power balance shift in the City Council, so the era of dominance of the Finance Subcommittee in all decision making can be brought to a close.

All it takes is a commitment from all City Councilors that their vote matters, and they must ALL be involved in every major decision in the City Council. No more automatic referrals to the Finance Subcommittee without discussion. No more rubber stamping Finance Subcommittee recommendations.

It’s time to end imperial rule in Framingham.