Thanks to everybody for reaching out to share your thoughts on the budget, both before and after it passed, to talk both about the content and the process.
On Tuesday June 16th the Council held our “second reading” on the Fiscal Year 2027 operating budget and voted 6-5 to approve it. (Yes votes: George King, Janet Leombruno, Phil Ottaviani, Leora Mallach, John Stefanini, Tracey Bryant.) Budget documents can be found here.
A motion prior to the final vote to restore some of the school funding (and thus raise the tax levy from 3.5% to 3.9%) had failed by a 5-6 vote (it required a 2/3 majority to be approved, per MA State general law 44 section 32 allowing us to increase the school budget). (Yes votes: Brandon Ward, Mary Kate Feeney, Noval Alexander, Leora Mallach, Tracey Bryant.)
There were also amendments made to recommend utilizing a state grant to restore the Director of Elder Services position and a motion to include 3 staff for Mary Dennison Park opening this August. Both passed.
Our budget timeline this year was different than in years past and mitigating factors made it more so. Here’s a timeline and some of my thoughts.
In November 2025 we, the Framingham voters, approved charter revisions with a new budget timeline that introduced a requirement for the Mayor to convene a joint meeting of the Council, School Committee and SIFOC before the budget is presented to City Council. This new meeting is intended to be a discussion of priorities, while engaging residents early on in the process. For the FY27 budget cycle, that meeting happened on December 30th, 2025. Not an ideal time. In the coming budget cycle, this meeting much be the kick-off of a robust, community conversation about next year’s budget cycle.
On February 3, 2026 the council unanimously voted to declare a state of emergency relative to the FY27 operating budget (as outlined in Article VI in the Charter) to extend the budget timeline for 30 days. Our new Council term had only begun a month earlier. Based in large part of our lack of a CFO (Our CFO resigned on Dec. 30 and we hired a new one on April 22) and therefore a lack of real understanding of our revenue and insight into our financial health. During February the Finance Subcommittee (on which I am a member) began meeting with City department heads to hear their priorities and fiscal and operational realities. The School Department and School Committee discuss their budget regularly at their bi-monthly meetings. By early February they had voted to make reductions, as asked of them by the Mayor.
On February 24 the City Council Finance Subcommittee held a Joint Meeting with School Committee Finance Committee, as has happened the last couple of years.
On March 17 the Council again voted to declare a state of emergency relative to the FY27 operating budget by a vote of 10-1-0. I voted against this second extension as I was concerned about our timeline, and not having received a FY27 budget yet. I felt we needed to engage in the real conversation about numbers and priorities.
At the March 31 Council meeting there was a discussion with the Mayor regarding a rough draft of the FY27 Operating Budget that included discussion of taxing above the 2.5% tax level and amount of free cash spending. At that meeting the Council voted unanimously to recommend to the Mayor a budget with parameters of 3.5% tax levy increase and 7.5 million in free cash usage.
The Mayor presented the following slides for discussion:
On April 27th the Mayor held a public hearing about his budget and then presented it to Council on May 1 (via email). He recommended a $401,771,328 budget which was an increase of 4.9% over FY2026. This proposed 4.5% a tax levy increase and used 14 million in Free Cash. The Council voted 9-1-0 to reject that budget and send it back to the Mayor. I voted against sending it back because I believed the Mayor had done his job of presenting a budget he thought provided for the City, and it was up to the Council to decide if we wanted to make further cuts. The Council can reduce the budget, but are not able to add to it.
The conversations the finance subcommittee then had during May discussed a budget that was not actually on the table. At this point our new CFO had started and was working with the Mayor to reduce the municipal deficit and clearly present that information.
At the May 19 Council meeting it was decided that the Mayor would present his budget directly to the Finance Subcommittee, without the referral from the full council, due to the reduced timeline.
On May 20th the Mayor and CFO discussed with the Finance Subcomiitee these slides that showed closing a 5+ million budget deficit. There was consideration of limiting library hours on weekends, reducing Police and Fire overtime budgets, closing the recycling center on Sundays and reduced hours on Saturday, HOA and Condo’s paying for their own waste hauling, provided both departmental mandated cuts, and proposed TBD departmental consolidations, among other things.
On May 26th there was another joint meeting of the City Council Finance Subcommittee and the School Committee Finance Committee.
Based on the conversations in the Finance Subcommittee in May, on June 2nd the Mayor presented a revised budget to the Finance Subcommittee of $398,170,206, a 3.9% increase over FY26 that included a tax levy increase of 3.5% and using 10 million in Free Cash. The Council meeting, that same evening, was the advertised public hearing on the budget as required per Charter, after the budget had been presented to Council. As the budget was still being discussed in the finance subcommittee and had not been referred back to Council, there was some disagreement among Councilors on process. After comments from residents and discussion among Councilors, the Council voted a few recommendations for consideration to the Mayor and Finance Subcommittee for their continued conversations.
It is the job of the Council to make hard choices and get things done that we believe will move Framingham forward and that is what this budget vote was. On June 16th we needed to vote a budget. While there is a legal framework for starting a new fiscal year with no budget, it was not the way I want to start a year. As we move toward a future with stronger fiscal oversight, we needed to start the fiscal year with a budget in place.
Given the conversations among Councilors at our meeting on June 16, and the one failed vote to increase the school budget, I felt it time to vote the budget. Maybe the conversation could have been tabled for a week and a pathway to increased school funding could have become palatable. I don’t know.
We have an obligation to give people notice if they will not have a job on July 1.
Here we are, now, in fiscal year 2027.
I’m very concerned about balancing our budget in the coming years without further cuts to city services. This year we raised the budget 3.9% and rough estimates for next year already show a 5% increase in budget projections based on contractual obligations and large health insurance increases for the second year in a row) How will we raise our municipal revenue?
In this balancing act of city priorities, there are so many pieces of the conversation. I hear that some residents did not feel heard regarding their concerns and priorities. We can absolutely do better, and also know that not everybody will be happy with the end result.
I appreciate the advocacy of everybody who has engaged in this budget conversation. We’re doing it again for next year! I welcome the opportunity to further discuss the budget, its content or process, with any Framingham resident. I would love to talk about ways to engage with our municipal government year-round and set priorities, not just over the budget.
Further, I invite you to think about what it means for Framingham to raise revenues, not just spend it. Massachusetts municipal finance limits some of what we can do in this regard, and encourages new growth. Here’s a bit of a primer on what that means from the State.
While there are less meetings in the summer, you are always welcome to join a municipal meeting. All meeting agendas can be found on the City’s public meeting calendar. https://framinghamma.gov
All politics is local. Thank you to your commitment to our community.