A Sound Framingham Schools Budget Illuminates City Fiscal Crisis

In its March 20, 2024, meeting the School Committee discussed the latest version of the Framingham Public Schools FY25 budget. The draft budget book may be viewed here:

Framingham Public Schools Fiscal Year 25 Budget

The Framingham Public Schools budget process is professionally managed by its Superintendent, Bob Tremblay, and Executive Director of Finance & Operations, Lincoln Lynch, and their staff. A regularly updated strategic plan drives that process, which is transparent and comprehensive. The output of the process is the budget book, which is a high quality document, explaining the budget approach, supplying all of the necessary budget details and providing a comprehensive set of historical budget data to provide context for all the budget decisions.

Although not yet final, the budget book provides sufficient detail to provide a good overall picture of school district budget planning, including budget drivers and the budget breakdown into salaries and expenses. Some further adjustments were made in the March 20, 2024, School Committee meeting, to arrive at a FY25 budget increase of around $9.5 million over the FY24 budget figure.

The budget increase of $9.5 million is comprised of two pieces:

1. Salary increases: $3.9 million.
2. Expense increases: $5.6 million.

The salary increases are based on just a 2% COLA (Cost-of-living adjustment), which severely underestimates the impact of inflation on staff compensation over the last several years. All union contracts are currently in renewal negotiations, so it remains to be seen if the unions will accept such a low figure. The current salary increase figure can be reasonable characterized as threadbare.

The expense increases are unusually high, reflecting past bad cityside decision making, which affected the FY24 school district budget special education and transportation expenses. $4 million of recurring expense increases which should have been included in the Framingham Public Schools FY24 budget were left out of that budget and kicked down the road to be included in the FY25 budget. Those were:

1. A $2.2 million/year increase in state mandated costs for out of district special education tuition costs, which for FY24 was paid out of reserves.
2. A $1.8 million/year increase in school bus transportation costs which occurred when the city insisted on an NRT contract rebid, which raised costs but failed to raise bus driver pay enough to have any impact on the driver shortage. No additional money was added from any source to cover this added cost for FY24.

The reason these costs were kicked down the road by the Mayor is simple: fear of the City Council Finance Subcommittee.

Adding $4 million to the Framingham Public Schools FY24 budget would have required an additional 2% increase in the tax levy, bringing the tax levy increase for FY24 to 4%.

The City Council Finance Subcommittee tax cutting troika of King/Cannon/Stefanini delivered an unprecedented verbal assault on Louise Miller, the city Chief Financial Officer in December 2023, when their plan to cut the Mayor’s 2% tax levy increase down to 1% was foiled by new growth revenue estimates coming in at $2.2 million rather than $3.5 million. That fire storm resulted in Louise Miller resigning.

One can only imagine the volcanic eruption which would have ensued if the Mayor had additionally insisted on the sound financial practice of including those genuine special education and transportation cost increases in the Framingham Public Schools FY 24 budget, raising the tax levy by 4%.

It is also worth noting that in FY24, the Mayor cut local funding for the Framingham Public Schools by $5 million, down from $84,821,265 in FY23 to $79,797,048 in FY24. That money could easily have covered the $4 million in costs noted above. But the Mayor used those funds to prop up the cityside part of his FY24 budget, kicking his tax revenue shortage problem to FY25. See the school district budget book at p.30 for a chart showing that drop in local funding.

The bottom line for the Mayor is that this Framingham Public Schools FY25 budget is soundly constructed, and its expense increase includes $4 million/year which should have been funded in the FY24 budget.

The Mayor is in serious financial trouble as he builds the FY25 city budget.

He appears to be planning on having an increase of just $9 million in city revenues, based on a 2.5% FY25 tax levy increase, while the increase in the Framingham Public Schools FY25 budget alone is about $9.5 million. Chapter 70 state education funding is only projected to increase by around $0.9 million, so the city still has to come up with about $8.6 million for the schools.

That means that if the Framingham Public Schools FY25 budget is properly funded, the city side of operations would get only a $0.4 million FY25 budget increase, compared to its $10 million increase in FY24.

That is a fiscal crisis!

For years the city has set tax increases well below inflation increases. For 4 years the tax levy increase was 0%, and the city lost $25 million/year in property tax revenue because of that.

If the Mayor had met the problem head on last year, the tax levy increase for FY24 would have been 4%. Ducking the problem in FY24, means that the FY25 tax levy increase may need to be significantly higher. Note that the only Proposition 2 1/2 constraint on the FY25 tax levy increase is that for Framingham it cannot be larger than about 20%.

Planning panic exists on the cityside of budget planning, and nowhere will it become more evident than in this FY25 budget process, which has already seen the Mayor throw out the standard 5 year capital improvement plan and slash the FY25 capital improvement budget down to $25 million from $72 million in FY24. For details on that see:

Framingham Mayor Unexpectedly Slashes FY25 Capital Budget

However, this year could provide an opportunity for the Mayor to work his way out of his fiscal difficulties.

The balance of power in the City Council has shifted since John Stefanini was defeated in the District 8 City Councilor race in November 2023. The power of the Finance Subcommittee is significantly weakened now that the King/Cannon tax cutters belong to an ‘old guard’ of just 5 City Councilors {King, Cannon, Ottaviani, Leombruno, Alexander} and can no longer depend on an assured 6-5 majority City Council rubber stamping of their budget recommendations, as they did in the past. Further, Noval Alexander is highly inclined to protect the school district budget from damaging cuts.

If the Mayor sees enough community engagement in support of the schools, he may have the nerve to end the tax cutters domination of the City Council and raise the tax levy by significantly more than 2.5%.

No matter what unfolds, the community should recognize that the school district planning is sound, and engage in a vigorous defense of the Framingham Public Schools FY25 budget.

Our teachers, our students, and all of their supporting staff deserve every ounce of support the community can muster to protect the schools and should insist that the Mayor and the City Council get Framingham’s financial house in order.

Property tax increases must be calibrated to keep pace with inflation and ensure that not only the schools are properly funded, but that all of the cityside services, including police, fire, trash & recyclables collection, and vital maintenance for roads, buildings and the water & sewer system be attended to.

In conclusion.

I was alerted by one of my sources that a very compelling email was already sent by a community member to the Mayor and the City Council, advocating for property tax increases which ensure we have the right level of investment in our education system. That email is a public record, and I will quote it here, while protecting the privacy of the sender.

It captures exactly the message which needs to be sent to the Mayor and the City Council.

I encourage all community members to follow this great example, and send an email to the Mayor at: mayorsisitsky@framinghamma.gov, and the City Council at: citycouncil@framinghamma.gov.

Here is the community member email:

“Dear Mayor Sisitsky and City Councilors,

I'm reaching out to you today as your constituent and a Framingham property tax payer to urge you to fully provide for our public schools this budget season. While I wish public education was completely funded state-wide through a truly progressive income tax and fair corporate tax rates, the current reality is that local communities are largely responsible for funding their schools through local tax revenues. Please set tax rates for the upcoming fiscal year which will provide for fulling supporting our students' increasing needs. It's my understanding that an override vote would not be necessary to provide for FPS's proposed budget. You have the ability to do what's right for our children now.

Framingham is a community that benefits greatly from Ch. 70 funding which has increased significantly since the passage of the Student Opportunity Act in 2019. All communities in the state have not benefited from SoA and I am grateful that Framingham has. The last 2 years, we experienced SIGNIFICANT increases in Ch. 70 aid which allowed the city to significantly REDUCE our local contribution to our schools 2 years in a row. This is something that middle-income districts cannot dream of. I work in a community that increases taxes at the levy limit year after year which has still resulted in service cuts to the schools three years in a row. I understand some Framingham taxpayers will not want to see a tax increase that suddenly appears relatively larger, but we managed to save money the last two years and it's only right that we not abandon our young people next year. Please have the courage to stand up for our students this budget season.”