Moving the Framingham Pension Liability Payoff Date from 2030 to 2031 Would Plug the $5 Million Budget Gap

A commonly used financial strategy would avoid hasty cuts to city services and schools and buy time for better planning for next year

Here is an email I sent to the Mayor and Chief Financial Officer early on Wednesday May 20, 2026, ahead of the evening meeting of the City Council Finance Subcommittee, where the final version of the Mayor’s FY27 city budget was submitted and discussed.

“Shifting the pension liability payoff date to 2031 yields $5 million to plug the budget gap

Geoffrey Epstein <geoffreynepstein@gmail.com>Wed, May 20, 2026, at 9:07 AM

To: “Charles J. Sisitsky” <mayorsisitsky@framinghamma.gov>, bturbitt@framinghamma.gov, mayor@framinghamma.gov

Hi,

The current payoff rate of the pension liability is $25 million/year, with a payoff date of 2030.

Shifting that out by just one year to 2031, keeps the payoff close to its current schedule, but yields about $5 million/year in funds to provide relief to the current budget.

There is a $4 million gap between the proposed FPS budget and that voted by the School Committee, plus another $2 million gap on the cityside.

$5 million plus the $760,000 in added Chapter 70 funds would plug most of the FY27 budget gap.

Teacher morale is collapsing and almost 50% of teaching staff are facing pink slips in June.

That was emphasized by Chris Mulroney last night.

We can fix the school system issues right now and buy time over the next year to solve the structural financial problem we have.

Please make this small move in city financial strategy to solve this budget.

Geoff Epstein”

This is a simple financial move and has been used to great advantage by dozens of cities and towns across Massachusetts, as was explained in:

A Way Out of Framingham’s Budget Chaos

It is especially applicable to our current FY27 budget situation, where early in the year the School Committee was given a target of $189,457,868 by the Mayor, and the School Committee approved a budget of $190,457,868 on March 4, after completing its lengthy, detailed budget process.

With $760,000 in additional Chapter 70 state education funding coming in in recent weeks, the School Committee was $240,000 off the Mayor’s proposed target.

That was a job well done.

But now, almost 3 months later, the Mayor has shifted the goal posts and settled on a budget for the schools of $186,457,868, under heavy pressure from the City Council, especially from George King, Mike Cannon and John Stefanini, who in the last 8 years have never supported providing the schools with a sufficient level of funding to ensure their success.

Suddenly, an additional $3 million has to be cut from the schools!!!

What will happen to the schools, where already hundreds of experienced teachers have left and student performance is in serious decline?

And, $2 million has to be cut from cityside operations.

Who on earth can deal with such a chaotic budgeting process, and such a last minute assault on the schools and city services?

No more leaf collection in the fall, so how can people deal with all the leaves?

No more trash and recycle collection from condominiums, so now another city service bit the dust.

$500,000 in vacant cityside positions are going to be eliminated. More erosion of city services!

City departments are being reorganized to save another $250,000, with no planning to back that up.

The library branches closed on Saturday or Sunday.

As the Strategic Initiative & Financial Oversight Committee (SIFOC) recently confirmed, the city has had virtually no planning for the last 4 years, despite City Charter mandates, and we are reaping the whirlwind of that egregious neglect. See:

Framingham’s Lack of Strategic Planning Is Highlighted in a Key SIFOC Report

Both the Mayor and the City Council, especially its Finance Subcommittee, have been the principal architects of our current financial failures, and now they want to make things worse because they won’t deploy simple strategies to handle the crisis with the least damage to the city.

If the raft of cuts go through, every resident should remember that all of them could have been avoided, with that simple pension liability payoff shift, which could have also bought us a year to solve the city financial problems properly.

Further, unless the Mayor and the City Council completely change their approach to government, the FY28 budget will be another chaotic budget cutting bloodbath.

And Framingham will be going nowhere.