Election Guide: Selectmen Candidates on Ways Framingham Can Be Better Efficient or Save Money

Lee: Framingham was recently awarded Green Community status. As part of this effort we are committed to reducing our energy usage by 20%. For the past two years we have been working with a local corporation, Amerisco, an energy service company to develop a town-wide Energy Reduction Plan involving major changes and improvements to municipal and school buildings, altering our energy use and consumption and costs. This reduction in energy costs will pay for all capital improvements. This spring we will be bringing this service contract to Town Meeting for approval.

Developing solar energy initiatives is the next step in the energy reduction plan. The Board has been able to take advantage of purchasing cheaper energy through local solar initiatives, saving significant dollars, but the next phase is to examine developing our own solar options.

The last few years we have had success in collaborating with the schools on sharing administrative and building service functions which has also resulted in savings to the Town. This effort needs to and will continue.

Tull Stoll: 1) We should review open positions before they are automatically refilled to make sure that they are still needed or if the job description needs to change to better fit current times and possibly save us money. We should also explore whether or not there is a technological option that would be less expensive than adding personnel.

2) Framingham has some very talented people with professional expertise who would like to volunteer their services; however due to time constraints, travel schedules or childcare responsibilities, aren’t able to commit to meeting every Tuesday or to attend 18 nights of Town Meeting each year. They would, however, be interested in working on a project basis, and could bring some very valuable skills to town government, helping us with some of our thornier problems without our having to hire expensive consultants.

3) I would also like further exploration regarding putting the Birch Road wells online. We’ve invested a lot of money in these wells and need to have serious negotiations with the MWRA to put them on line to save the town and our rate-payers money. The savings would be long-term, but would be very significant.

Butler: To freeze and/or reduce residential property taxes from $16.94 to $6.30 per thousand Framingham must:

1. Eliminate 2 Billion dollars in “special discounts” granted each year to properties in Framingham which leaves the rest of the taxpayers holding the bag;

Gagne: Did not respond to this question by the deadline.

Freeman: First, I’d ask to examine areas where Town operations can be consolidated. Presently there is a sharing of resources between Town building and grounds and the school side. This should be looked at carefully to see if there can be a further consolidation of the two separate departments so that they can be managed and run more efficiently. 

Second, I’ll ask for a detailed accounting of Town spending from enterprise funds like the water & sewer fund. These funds are not subject to the same level of scrutiny as funds expended in the regular Town budget. I believe that closer examination of equipment purchase policies and other expense categories would yield the potential to save money.    

Third, I’d look for a report on funds paid to the Town from developers that were originally collected as mitigation money. These funds are sometimes overlooked or go unused. There needs to be an evaluation of how much money remains in these coffers to determine what their final disposition should be.

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On Thursday, Framingham Patch asked the Selectmen candidates where do you stand on the town's budget? Would you support a 1%, 1.5%, 2% or 2.5% increase? Click here for their responses.

On Wednesday, Framingham Patch published the candidates' answers to the question - what is the biggest issue facing Framingham? Click here to read their responses.