Framingham Mayor Aims To Make Tenants Pay for the Water Billing Mess
The Mayor is leaning towards charging apartment water use at up to double the rate homeowners pay for water, a giant hit to affordability.
After dragging out the resolution of the water billing fiasco for more than 8 months, the Mayor seems to be headed in entirely the wrong direction.
In an update to the City Council on August 20, 2024, the Mayor gave a progress report in which he signaled strongly that he plans to charge apartment buildings for water at the same high volume rate he tried to lay on the Windsor Green condominium complex.
​In a previous July 26, 2024, article, the penalization of Windsor Green condo owners with enormous water bills was explained:
Framingham Mayor Fails To Correct Obvious Water Billing Mistakes
It is worth recapping that case here, as it provides key insight as to why the Mayor is switching his focus to apartment buildings and tenants.
In the Windsor Green condominium complex, 194 condominiums have just one water meter measuring water usage, as is commonplace for many multi-unit residential complexes, including condominiums and apartment buildings.
Prior to a new meter being installed, the total water usage for that condo complex was divided by 194 to get the average water usage per condo, which is similar to single family houses and runs to about 14 HCF/quarter, where 1 HCF = 100 cubic feet. Water billing was based on that per condo water usage, so, the typical cost for water for the average Windsor Green condo was much the same as that for a single family house, which seems both normal and fair.
[Dividing the total water use of a housing complex by the number of units to figure the average water use by a unit is called using a Multi Unit Dwelling (MUD) factor.]
However, once the new meter was installed, the city inexplicably decided not to apply the MUD factor anymore, and treated Windsor Green as if it was a single user consuming 194 times the average residential volume. That more than doubled the average cost of water for each condo unit.
To understand why requires looking at the quarterly tiered billing approach the city uses, as shown in the following table which is extracted from the city website:
Using the table information, typical residential unit use of 14 HCF/quarter costs: $260.46/quarter, or $1041.84/year.
However, if a single user consumes 194 times that, or 14 x 194 =2716 HCF/quarter, then the cost, comes out to $112,037.54/quarter.
Dividing that by 194 units yields the average bill for a Windsor Green condo owner as $577.51/quarter, or $2,310.05/year.
So, in summary, a typical single family user pays a bit over $1,000 annually for water & sewer, whereas a Windsor Green condo owner was paying a bit over $2,300 annually. For the same water volume used!!!
No wonder the Windsor Green condo owners raised such a ruckus.
In his update the Mayor acknowledged the city’s billing mistake and affirmed that the MUD factor will be applied to the Windsor Green condominium complex, and that a $300,000 refund will be issued to Windsor Green to correct the over-charging.
That is big money, which gives a real indicator of the financial impact of applying the MUD factor or not.
So, it is clear that the Mayor is going to make sure that single family houses and condominiums are charged the same fair rates for water, with the MUD factor being applied to condominium complexes.
Not so for rental apartment buildings.
There his plan is to remove the MUD factor from apartment buildings and shift the financial pain he caused to condo owners to rental units.
It is natural to wonder why the Mayor is engaged in such maneuvers to squeeze money out of water users. The answer is that he has a very daunting financial problem.
The water & sewer system maintenance backlog is north of $300 million. The system is also showing early warning signs that major failures may be ahead. In fact, in the same City Council meeting where the Mayor gave his water billing update, Bob Lewis, the Director of Public Works, described the water & sewer system as ‘a ticking time bomb underground’. For details on that see:
Framingham's Sewer System Is a 'Ticking Time Bomb Underground'
The Mayor had also planned to spend $75 million on FY25 capital projects which include the water & sewer system upgrades, but slashed that budget to $22 million to avoid a fight with George King & Mike Cannon over raising FY25 property taxes by more than 2.5%. He would have had to raise FY25 taxes by 3.5% to fully fund the capital budget and start fixing the water & sewer problem, and he ducked that.
With raising property taxes ditched as a solution, the Mayor looks to pin as much of the cost of fixing the water & sewer system on a group of unwitting victims who are too hard pressed making ends meet to pay attention, who are of lesser means than typical homeowners and who typically vote at low rates in elections.
Tenants.
In some cases, tenants will pay the increased water bills directly, as for example will occur in The Buckley, where although The Buckley residential complex has just one water meter, each of its 200 apartments has a water sub-meter and tenants reimburse The Buckley owners for the water they each use.
In most other apartment buildings, water is included in the rent and the pain for tenants will erupt next summer, when leases renew, and the increased water costs/apartment will be passed on to them.
Right before a significant city election in November 2025.
The level of pain tenants will experience depends on the number of units in their building served by one water meter. Here is the table of pain showing what happens to an apartment building when the MUD factor is not applied.
According to the latest census data for Framingham, there are 25,727 households in Framingham of which 54.8% are owner occupied units and 45.2% are renter occupied units.
A majority of the rental units are in buildings of 10 units or more.
A simple estimate of the impact of removing the MUD factor from apartments may be obtained as follows. Assume, conservatively, that just half of the city rental apartments are in buildings with 10 units or more. The number of rental apartments is 45.2% of 25,727, or 11,629. Half of that is about 5,800. At minimum, the Mayor’s MUD factor removal scheme would generate 5,800 x $600 = $3.48 million/year.
That would finance about $70 million in water & sewer repairs.
The question is whether the Mayor and the City Council will actually pursue the MUD factor removal approach. Will they inflict pain on tenants, or will they recognize that since they make up 45% of city residents, they are worth the same consideration the Mayor and the City Council has customarily given homeowners?
In the past there has always been a lot of grumbling by some City Councilors about a $150 annual increase in property taxes for homeowners. But they don’t seem to realize that if they approve the Mayor’s plan, they will be party to a $600- $1,300 jump in annual rental costs for those in the city, who are much less well off typically than homeowners.
Protect homeowners. Shift the financial burden of solving the city’s infrastructure problems to tenants.
Is that what the City Council wants to be remembered for? Is that what the Mayor wants to be remembered for?
What kind of city does this to its tenant residents?
Further, the Census Bureau made a recent press release which emphasizes the financial plight of tenants:
Nearly Half of Renter Households Are Cost-Burdened, Proportions Differ by Race
Another good reason to stop inflicting more financial pain on renters.
Finally, there is important context for this water billing issue and for that we have to travel back to July 12, 2007.
THE REST OF THE STORY, REACHING BACK TO 2007
Punishment of tenants by inflicting higher water rates on apartments has been Framingham government strategy since 2007, when the first move in that direction was made at a July 12, 2007 Board of Selectmen meeting, with Charlie Sisitsky front and center in the decision making. On that day, for the first time in Framingham history, its government tried to mandate removal of the MUD factor from apartments.
The current water billing controversy resulted from the fact that the application of the MUD factor was never carried out consistently, with half the 3,000 multi-unit building in Framingham having the MUD factor applied and half not. That includes condominium complexes and apartment buildings.
The original intent was to simply punish tenants by increasing their water costs while reducing water costs for everyone else. Hard to believe, but as can be seen in a video of the July 12, 2007, Board of Selectmen, that is exactly the policy which was voted in.
Here is a table reproduced from the presentation made to that meeting by Chief Financial Officer, Mary Ellen Kelley. It is blurry, but sufficiently clear to get the picture. See 9:27 into the video. [Note that the video incorrectly shows the meeting year as 2008, instead of 2007.]
Annual Variance = Increase in annual cost
!!!! NOTE THAT ONLY THE APARTMENT COMPLEX IN THIS GROUP GENERATES ADDITIONAL NEW INCOME !!!!
In the July 12, 2007 meeting, all the talk was about how great this would be for water conservation. Amazingly, in that meeting, the total revenue increase from the new billing scheme was never revealed, nor was there any consideration of the impact on tenants.
From Charlie Sisitsky’s comments in the meeting, noting that the town needed to finance an additional $100 million in state mandated improvements to the water & sewer system, one can infer that the goal of the meeting was to increase water & sewer revenues to cover the bonding cost of that work, which amounts to $5 million/year.
So, the current water billing drama is a replay of that in 2007.
Lots of money is needed to fix a failing water & sewer system.
Full speed ahead on removing the MUD factor from apartment buildings, says the Mayor, only this time it will be done fully and consistently, generating millions of additional dollars to fix the water & sewer system.
Not a single homeowner will have their water costs increased.
Let the renters foot the bill.