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In what has become something of an annual tradition, Sudbury Public Schools (SPS) opened up budget building season with reports of a massive budget shortfall for the next fiscal year.
During the November 2 meeting of the SPS School Committee, Acting Director of Business and Human Resources Buck Creel told the committee the district was forecasting a shortfall of nearly $1 million, based on Town Manager guidance providing a 3.6% increase for the SPS operating budget.
According to Creel’s presentation, the district would need a 5.53% increase to build a level service budget. A level service budget essentially takes the prior year’s operations and services and continues them into the next fiscal year without much change. In the case of SPS, this means they wouldn’t have the budget to pursue “tiered initiatives” which are new initiatives that the district has identified as priorities.
With the level service target set at a 5.53% increase, the district would need to make a 2% cut, representing nearly $1 million in real dollars.
Creel told the committee “We’ll have to go through a gap closing effort. If 79% of the budget is people and 88% of the budget is payroll, then clearly that gap closing of 2% is going to involve people. I don’t think there’s any way around it.” (3:05:25 below)
The district is currently in the routine procurement process for a bus contract. Creel did note that the budget gap could improve if the bids are unsealed and come in below what he is estimating in the current draft budget.
Chair Jessica McCready questioned why all three cost centers (SPS, the Town, and Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School) had the same guidance. “I don’t know that all three cost centers should be valued equally when, depending on what’s being cut, [it] might impact families that live in this town differently.”
Creel responded, telling McCready that he intends to ask Town Manager Andy Sheehan and Assistant Town Manager Victor Garofalo “How many Town people are going out the door?”
That could set up a series of difficult conversations, as SPS budget management has been a flashpoint for three of the last four fiscal years. Sheehan made 11th-hour adjustments to his guidance to get SPS an extra $200,000 for Fiscal Year 2027 (FY27), and he drummed up an extra $100,000 for SPS late in their budget-building process for FY26.
After getting an override from the voters for FY24, SPS was just a few months into that fiscal year when it opted to pursue a second budget increase at a Fall Town Meeting. In that case SPS used a Chapter 70 maneuver that was conflated with State Aid, but the Finance Committee explained on the floor of Town Meeting that the net effect was actually a tax increase on residents.
With that track record, SPS may have less leverage to negotiate changes to guidance than the Town’s largest cost center typically would. The budget building process will continue to play out in November and December.
