Framingham City Council Finance Subcommittee Meeting - November 14, 2025
Framingham City Council Finance Subcommittee Meeting - November 14, 2025
The Finance Subcommittee met remotely on November 14, 2025, with Councillors Malik and Cannon present. The agenda included approval of the minutes, funding for a Parks supervisors union contract, and a transfer request from the Disability Commission. The union contract was postponed due to lack of department head attendance, while the Disability Commission request was approved unanimously.
Discussion Items
- Approval of Minutes (10/28/25): Minutes were approved unanimously.
- Parks 1116 Union MOA Funding: The subcommittee considered a memorandum of agreement covering a small supervisors unit (8 positions, will become 9) in the Parks Department. The contract spans FY26-28 with first-year costs of $60,283, plus adjustments for stipends, a paid holiday, personal days, and licensing stipends. Councillor Cannon raised concerns about a 50% increase in the licensing stipend max and the value delivered to the city. He requested the Parks Director be present for detailed discussion, noting the director was not in attendance. The subcommittee agreed to postpone the item to the next meeting.
- Disability Commission Transfer Request: The subcommittee discussed a request to transfer $30,000 to the Police Department for holiday season handicap parking enforcement and $5,000 for the Washekum accessible dock. Councillor Cannon supported the request, emphasizing the importance of council visibility into the commission's work and suggesting the overtime funds be incorporated into the operating budget in the future. It was noted that the enforcement generates approximately $3 in fines for every $1 spent (about $90,000 in fines). The subcommittee also discussed possibly increasing the local fine for handicap parking violations from $300 to $500; this will be researched further.
- Charter Changes and Budget Timeline: The Chair noted that recently passed charter changes are now in effect, altering the budget submission and voting deadlines. The capital budget must be voted by end of February, and the operating budget by end of March. Because the committee is reconstituted in January, the Chair expressed concern about the compressed timeline and noted that departments may need to adjust their schedules.
Key Outcomes
- Parks Union MOA: Postponed to a future meeting; Parks Director will be invited to provide additional detail.
- Disability Commission Transfer: Approved unanimously (3-0) with recommendations to consider permanent budget integration and a fine increase study.
- Next Meeting: Scheduled for Tuesday, November 25, 2025 (in person).
Meeting Transcript
The finance subcommittee of the city council is comprised of five council members and considers any or all questions appropriate for the purpose of considering the budget, including the creation of new positions to the payroll, changes to the employee classification plan, or any matters pertaining to increasing the City of Framingham employee headcount. The following City Council Finance Subcommittee meeting coverage is brought to you by the government channel, a service of the City of Framingham. Welcome to the finance subcommittee meeting of November 13th. We are fully remote due to the brevity of our agenda tonight. And in attendance would be myself, Councillor Malik, Councillor Cannon. Am I missing anybody else? That is, I don't see Councillor Alexander or anything. Council Steiner told me he had another engagement. He would be 50 historians to make it. So the first item on the agenda would be our minutes of 102825. Motion to approve as distributed. Second. Okay. All those in favor, myself, yes. Ms. Malik. Yes. Yes. Okay. So the um next item, one of the two items on our agenda, uh, is approves the funding of the MOA for the parks 1116 union. Uh, this is very similar um to the um contract we approved last night for the DPW, not last night, Monday night at the city council meeting. But uh with Mr. Ticino or Ms. O'Leary, someone would like to address this. So I'll do the financial part. Yeah, go ahead and introduce it. Sure. So this um just for anyone who's not familiar, is the supervisors unit of the parks group. It is a small group. Um, it's eight positions. It will be nine after this uh is ratified if it's ratified. At the time that we negotiated, there were no vacancies. There's currently one. Um there are four employees in this small group who have 20 over 20 years of service, and there are two people in the group who have over 30 years of service. Um, they do represent the three, three of the four full-time staff members for the rink, the arena, um, and then uh the supervisors on both the park maintenance side as well as the recreation and culture side. Um, both the superintendents and then two supervisors each within each of those groups. Um, the supervisors on the maintenance side are the folks responsible for supervising all of the seasonal employees in the summer, and the folks on the recreation and culture side are the folks who are responsible for supervising the beach staff and the folks who provide the recreation activities. Um, so they typically are dealing with a large number of employees, many of them on the younger side, and many of them on the somewhat inexperienced side. So they're being um experienced um is uh a support to all of those uh folks. Um and so in this contract, we were in Jen will go over the numbers, but obviously we were uh looking for a cola that was in line with the other COLAS, and we were also looking to recognize the long-term commitment of um a large number of this group, their institutional knowledge, um, and looking for ways to recognize them while also incentivizing them to do as much training as possible. So there is an increase to their um stipended um max. Um they do get um stipends for various certifications they get, and the reason that's important is because it it is those stipends that help us or help prepare um some of these folks for more responsibility. So um I'll let Jen take over and talk about that finances. Yeah, sure. Thanks. So you have your background material provided for uh the details financially for this group, as Kathy mentioned, it's nine members. It covers three fiscal years beginning in FY26, including 27 and 28. The first year FY26, the total impact is 60,283. And then other um adjustments to various stipends. Um's the classification of the recreation supervisor from the municipal non-union group to the union group.
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