Messy business

Welcome back!

If last week was a light news week, this week was the polar opposite. It’s rare that a Thursday subcommittee meeting generates news, but the SPS Policy Subcommittee did just that this week. Their discussions brought the fundamental role of the school committee into question, and major policy consequences hang in the balance.

This edition has recaps of several key meetings, but don’t forget to scroll down to the SudburyWeekly.com news roundup, as we published several major news stories and features on the website throughout the week.

Here’s what we have for you this week:

1. Sheehan Presents Financial Condition of the Town

2. Finance Committee Deep Dives On Schools, Park & Rec Funding

3. Select Board Lightning Round

4. SudburyWeekly.com News Roundup

Let’s get into it!

Sheehan Presents Financial Condition of the Town

By Kevin LaHaise

At the end of Town Manager Andy Sheehan’s presentation of the financial condition of the Town, several Select Board members thanked him for the level of detail that went into his presentation. Member Dretler was emphatic: “I have to say that I think this has been the best financial condition presentation in my seven years on the select board.” (2:04:00)

The headline is that the Town is headed toward a projected deficit in FY27 and FY28.

Much of the discussion among the Select Board focused on some of the assumptions made in the forecast. Town Manager Sheehan and Finance Director Victor Garofalo had detailed answers on how they made the assumptions. And they cautioned that forecasts get less reliable as you look further out into the future. But there were a few key drivers (1:56:20) that Sheehan emphasized in response to a question from Member Dan Carty about the jump in forecasted costs in FY27 and FY28:

• Rising fixed costs for insurance and employee benefits

• Collective bargaining unit contracts

• An anticipated regional dispatch assessment that could kick in

In short - as the forecasted cost of delivering services increases each year, the forecasted revenue eventually falls short of covering the costs. To maintain a balanced budget, the Town would either need to cut costs or increase revenue. Sheehan presented examples for both scenarios during the presentation. Here’s one where the Town would essentially reduce budget guidance to the cost centers to keep the budget balanced:

Though the guidance is an increase in the total budget, it starts to decline as a percentage of the budget each year moving forward. When costs outpace the budget growth, cuts are required.

And here’s a scenario where an override would cover the shortfall, at least for a little while:

These scenarios focus on sustaining the services the Town and the schools currently provide. But they do not fund identified needs for added positions on Town staff. Those were presented as well:

A good portion of the ensuing Select Board discussion focused on how the budget is doled out between the schools and the Town. Member Carty voiced concern that he felt the schools faced steeper cuts than the Town in the scenarios presented, and suggested doing a “lifeboat” exercise in which a choice is made about which cost center will essentially be thrown out of the boat to drown first.

Finance Director Victor Garofalo objected to the characterization about the Town guidance reductions relative to the schools. But the exchange highlighted the difficulties that the town may face in the years ahead. Tough budget decisions could be made through collaboration and cooperation, or they could look more like a time-honored tradition: ye olde municipal slap-fight.

Town Manager Sheehan continued with last year’s message about approaching the budget challenges as one community, rather than pitting various cost centers or departments against each other for finite resources. Member Janie Dretler doubled down on that theme by pointing out that the Town budget is just as much in service of the schools as it is any other group. She noted that public safety and the department of public works are funded by the town budget, and provide essential services to the schools:

No decisions are made during this presentation each year, but it sets the stage for budget conversations in the months ahead. Sheehan is operating on two fronts here: the Town needs a budget for the next fiscal year, but he’s also trying to lay the foundation for what he calls sustainable operating and capital budgets. If he can build consensus around a solution, it would break the cycle of a budgeting approach that has felt much more like a “one year at a time" exercise for many years in Sudbury.

Finance Committee Dives Deep on School, Park & Rec Funding

By Kevin LaHaise

The Sudbury Finance Committee welcomed several guests on Monday, November 18. Their first guest was a representative from the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) to discuss the ins and outs of the Circuit Breaker special education reimbursement program. Following that, Ben Carmel and Mara Huston presented a financial overview of the Park and Recreation department on behalf of the Park and Recreation Commission. There was also a robust discussion about the Town’s capital plan. Here are the key takeaways from each:

Circuit Breaker

• The DESE representative walked through the history of the Circuit Breaker program and some finer details on how it works. Circuit Breaker is a State reimbursement program for high-cost special education services that are provided to students in a given district.

• Co-chair Mike Joachim, who has a talent for making complex municipal finance concepts easy to grok for the public, explained that Sudbury Public Schools and Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School take different approaches in the way they manage Circuit Breaker funds from the state. He wanted to understand what was appropriate, typical or atypical. The exchange was a highlight of the discussion and quite informative. (33:00)

• The representative didn’t voice a preference for one approach over the other in the meeting, and he empathized with school districts who were just trying to get the most out of their resources. But he did repeatedly emphasize that districts should be transparent with local officials and residents about how they’re managing the funds.

• If this all sounds familiar - the way SPS manages State education funding has been an ongoing conversation since the Sudbury Public Schools override discussions a couple years back, followed by significant confusion surrounding an article at Special Town Meeting in October 2023. More recently, Members of the Select Board were not satisfied with incomplete information about how the school district was funding an HVAC project.

Park and Recreation

• Two members of the Park and Recreation Commission, Chair Ben Carmel and member Mara Huston, presented the financials of the Park and Recreation department.

• This is part of an ongoing conversation about the future funding of the department. Town Manager Sheehan has previously indicated that he would like to gradually shift the department over to a self-funding model.

• There was not much new information presented or discussed, but it was notable that some members of the Finance Committee seemed amenable to assisting the Park and Recreation Commission in exploring ways to get stronger financial support for their operations. (1:02:00)

5 Year Capital Plan

• The committee reviewed the preliminary draft of the 5-year capital plan. They weren’t pleased with the level of detail in the draft, and some members wanted to see more dynamic modeling for various revenue scenarios. (1:47:30)

• Combined Facility Director Sandra Duran joined the meeting to explain that the Town is completing its facility condition assessment and they are inputting data into a new system that will spit out scenarios on a 20 year horizon. That work won’t be ready for near-term conversations because one of the cost centers needed considerably more time to finalize their portion of the assessment according to Duran.

• Duran pointed out that the capital plan they have for this budget cycle is based on the priority items that have already emerged in the facility condition assessment process.

• Duran explained that roofs are a major priority right now. Member Poch interjected and questioned why the Town was spending money on Nixon elementary school. Duran responded: “Why are we spending money on Nixon? Because Nixon is one of our oldest roofs and it is leaking. Similar to Haynes, it’s end of life. Haynes is leaking worse, even though its younger.” (2:04:49)

Select Board Lightning Round

By Kevin LaHaise

Here’s the running summary from the Tuesday, November 19 meeting of the Sudbury Select Board:

American Rescue Plan Act Funds

• Town Manager Sheehan presented a plan to allocate the remainder of Sudbury’s American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds.

• The Select Board asked a variety of questions, but were broadly supportive of the recommended allocations. They voted unanimously to approve them.

• You can review the allocations on page 77.

• That just about wraps up Sudbury’s ARPA story. All the money has been allocated, and they just need to go spend it by the federal deadline at this point.

Kanso Maynard Housing Opposition

• The board reviewed an updated draft of a letter to the Town of Maynard voicing opposition to the Kanso Maynard housing project proposed on the Maynard-Sudbury town line. The buildings are in Maynard but a portion of the land is in Sudbury.

• The letter strongly opposes the project. (Page 44)

• They made some small tweaks to the draft in the packet, voted unanimously to approve the letter and it will be sent off to Maynard.

2025 Annual Town Meeting Articles

• A preliminary list of articles was included in the meeting packet. Most of them were conversation starters for the board. (Page 47)

• It’s pretty dry stuff - bylaw changes, fee updates, stabilization funds and revolving funds. But there are a few that may garner some interest:

  • #4 could establish a rental fee revolving fund for the Fairbank Community Center. For residents eager to rent a space in the new building, that may be a big unlock if it passes. This was largely driven by the multi-purpose room according to Town Manager Andy Sheehan.

  • #5 could make changes to Town Meeting. But Town Manager Sheehan indicated that this was just a conversation starter in the event the board wanted to consider changes to the date, day or start time of Annual Town Meeting.

  • #7 was also a conversation starter. Depending on how things proceed, it could spell the end of the Capital Improvement Advisory Committee, consistent with the recommendations made by the Division of Local Services. But it could also be a chance to increase the thresholds for what qualifies in the Town Managers capital budget.

  • The Board discussed potentially making the annual Town Forum optional for the Select Board in the future. But they didn’t go too deep into deliberation on articles other than to say they should schedule time to discuss them further in future meetings.

Parting Thoughts

We might skip the email newsletter next week on account of the holiday, but will have to wait and see how much news is made first. And there’s actually a chance for some major developments in stories we have been covering.

In addition to an SPS discussion on Monday about subcommittee charges, the school committee is discussing the combined facilities department. They previously discussed potentially terminating the resource-sharing agreement with the Town of Sudbury. After the initial discussion with the SPS School Committee, a Select Board conversation unearthed concerns about SPS management and their alleged lack of adherence to the terms of the agreement. The committee has the item listed for a possible action/vote on Monday. That means they could vote, if the majority wanted, to terminate the agreement while you’re thawing your turkey.

A vote to terminate could put the jobs of the entire department in jeopardy, and might leave the Town in the lurch just a week after Town Manager Sheehan presented on the potential of a budget deficit as soon as FY27.

But that’s not the only major item on the agenda. The first item is the MetroWest Health Study presentation, which will give the district a sense of the wellbeing of students. The results of the last survey are on page 20 here; and those raised some concerns at the time.

So yeah… it may not be the quiet holiday week anyone expects. But is it ever quiet when you’re searching frantically for the meat thermometer at the bottom of a junk drawer in your kitchen, and someone just dropped a bowl of cranberry sauce on the new rug in your foyer?

And why would someone bring all the cranberry sauce into a foyer in the first place????

Onward!