"Iceberg, right ahead!"

December 05, 2025

Welcome back!

If you like municipal finance, boy do we have an edition for you.

Excited Schitts Creek GIF by CBC

If you don’t, there’s plenty of other good stuff for you too.

Here’s what we have for you this week:

  1. Special Town Meeting Results

  2. Vote Dec. 16 in Special Town Election To Replace School Roofs

  3. November Chill

  4. L-S Reports A Manageable Shortfall In Preliminary Budget

  5. Select Board Raises Concerns About SPS Administration and Budget

  6. SPS Budget Conversation Yields Few Answers On Deficit Surprise

  7. Worker Airlifted to Boston Following Industrial Accident in Sudbury

  8. Legal Notice: Next of Kin

  9. Events

  10. Opinion

Let’s get into it!

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Special Town Meeting Results

NEWS
By Kevin LaHaise

Sudbury’s Special Town Meeting started on time on Monday, December 1. Attendance wasn’t exactly massive, but there was a solid quorum of 130 after a test of the clickers, with more residents trickling in after that. Based on the vote tallies, there were roughly 170 residents present at the peak.

Vote Dec. 16 in Special Town Election To Replace School Roofs

NEWS
By The League of Women Voters

A special town election to exempt the cost of borrowing funds for replacing and repairing the roofs at Haynes and Nixon elementary schools from the Proposition 2 ½ limit will be held Tuesday, Dec. 16.

The warrant articles to fund those two projects were approved at the Dec. 1 special town meeting, but they must also be voted on in a townwide election.

A specimen ballot is available here, showing the two ballot questions. A special town election warrant giving the pro and con arguments for the two questions was included in the special town meeting warrant and is posted here.

November Chill

FEATURES
By John Palmieri

Sudbury weather for November continued with a cooling to colder trend with fairly frequent precipitation. We had 9 rain events but unfortunately the rainfall values were mostly light to moderate. Thus we continue with below normal rainfall for 2025. Some of the weather highlights include the following:

November monthly rainfall: 2.19 in.
2025 year to date: 38.12 in.
2024 year to date: 41.15 in.
2023 year to date: 54.26 in.

High temp for the month: 61 degrees
Low temp for the month: 22 degrees
Dipped to freezing or below: 22 days
Reached 50 degrees or above: 13 days

As we move into winter the last few years snowfall in December was very minimal, if any. Most storms were rain and wind.

L-S Reports A Manageable Shortfall In Preliminary Budget

NEWS
By Kevin LaHaise

The Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School (LSRHS) preliminary budget for Fiscal Year 2027 (FY27) shows a shortfall of of $158,224.

While presenting to the LSRHS School Committee, Superintendent Andrew Stephens explained that this is just a preliminary number, and the administration would be working in the weeks ahead to bring that number down to zero. That might include making adjustments to some of the assumptions made in the budget, cutting expenses from the budget, or generating additional revenue.

Select Board Raises Concerns About SPS Administration and Budget

NEWS
By Kevin LaHaise

Following a surprise reveal of a forecasted $1.6 million deficit for Fiscal Year 2027 (FY27) at Sudbury Public Schools (SPS), the Sudbury Select Board has raised concerns about transparency and communication coming from Sudbury’s K-8 school district administration including Superintendent Brad Crozier and Director of Business and Human Resources Don Sawyer.

During the December 2 meeting of the Select Board, multiple members voiced their disappointment in the SPS administration for their failure to inform the Town Manager of an apparent (and large) structural deficit in their budget until after the Town Manager presented the Financial Condition of the Town on November 18.

SPS Budget Conversation Yields Few Answers On Deficit Surprise

NEWS
By Kevin LaHaise

The December 4 meeting of the Sudbury Public Schools School (SPS) Committee meeting featured a multi-hour discussion about the Fiscal Year 2027 (FY27) budget and school finance. The committee pressed repeatedly to understand how the initial budget forecast could unexpectedly show a $1.6M deficit for the next fiscal year, but the SPS administration insisted the numbers only came together very recently and that this was a normal part of their budget building process.

Town Manager Andy Sheehan and Assistant Town Manager/Finance Director Victor Garofalo were in attendance for the discussion, and also presented information about Chapter 70 State aid, free cash, and all the costs carried by the Town on behalf of the school district. They also pressed on some of the budget drivers presented by SPS Superintendent Brad Crozier and Director of Business and Human Resources, Don Sawyer.

Worker Airlifted to Boston Following Industrial Accident in Sudbury

Image Credit: Sudbury Fire Department

NEWS
By Kevin LaHaise

A worker was seriously injured in an industrial accident in Sudbury on Tuesday, December 1, prompting a coordinated emergency response that culminated in a medical airlift to a Boston trauma center.

According to the Sudbury Fire Department, crews were dispatched to the scene of an industrial accident. Upon arrival, first responders began immediate treatment of the patient. First responders quickly determined that the severity of the worker’s injuries warranted level-one trauma care not available locally.

The Holbrook Regional Emergency Communications Center (HRECC) immediately notified Boston MedFlight. The coordination resulted in a rapid arrival, with the medical helicopter touching down in Sudbury approximately 10 minutes after the request was made.

Parting Thoughts

The vacancy on the Sudbury Public Schools School Committee will likely be filled on Tuesday during a joint meeting with the Sudbury Select Board. That’s a big deal because whomever gets the gig is going to join in the middle of budget season and in the middle of contract negotiations with the teachers and other union groups.

Scared Homer Simpson GIF by reactionseditor

But it’s actually a good reminder of the sacrifices made by those who step up to serve their community, all following a week when nearly 200 residents turned out to legislate at Special Town Meeting. (Soon residents will have another chance to participate in the process by way of a Special Election!)

It’s also a reminder that government isn’t some nebulous “other” entity. Government is, on some level, just a bunch of people who serve other people either professionally, or as volunteers, or as citizen legislators. Some of them are administering flu vaccines, others are deliberating on committees and boards, others are repairing culverts, and yet others are developing massive financial reports to assist the rest of the government in making critical decisions.

As they say… it takes a village.

Speaking of villages…

With snow falling this week, Sudbury’s Holiday Village promises to be a winter wonderland tomorrow, December 6, at the Fairbank Community Center. Details here. That’s yet another enormous lift for the Town, and something of a tradition that keeps getting bigger by the year. Don’t forget to stop by the Hosmer House Holiday Open House and Sudbury History Center and Museum Open House.

Onward!