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The Finance Committee met on Monday. It’s not quite budget season, so they’re still discussing their approach to the budget for the next fiscal year.
The main takeaway appears to be a deeper dive on Town department-level budgets. Historically, the committee would hear from the Superintendents of each Sudbury school district, as well as the Town Manager of Sudbury, during the budget review process. Those are typically referred to as the three major “cost centers” in Sudbury.
However, member Eric Poch indicated that he felt they had done less rigorous reviews of the Town budget historically, and he felt the Town budget was less transparent than the school districts.
“There’s enough transparency through the committee meetings that happen naturally for the school committees, I think the Town cost center is a little less transparent or a little less easy to follow and that gives rise to a lot of conversation in the community and different places. And it also gives rise to misunderstanding as well as I think the complexities of the budget. That being said, I think we did a really good job during Covid in particular, pushing, not pushing back, but being a little provocative with the cost center leads and the superintendents in particular, to say: what are your first tier needs, what are your second tier needs, what are your nice to haves? And I don’t know that we’ve ever had the chance to really do that at a department level, for the Town cost center.” (19:44)
The Town Manager presents to the Finance Committee each year, just as the superintendents do. However, school budgets tend to be more dynamic as student needs and enrollment can change significantly throughout the year, frequently prompting transfers that are discussed and approved by the school committees.
The Town budget breaks out the budget in several ways, starting with a budget overview in which departments are lumped into categories, then proceeds to drill into further detail for the budget of each department. Here’s the overview:
Jump to page 34 to dive into departmental detail.
The reported departmental needs have been fairly consistent for several years. Town Manager Andy Sheehan expressed as much during last year’s presentation of the financial condition of the Town, and he also added a couple additional needs, including succession planning. (Page 61)
The Sudbury Public Schools budget book ranks initiatives in two tiers: a priority tier and a development tier:
One key distinction, however, is that Sudbury Public Schools is generally trying to get the initiatives in all tiers funded, whereas the Town hasn’t pursued funding for very many of its identified needs in recent years.
Member Ryan Lynch added that he would like to do a deeper dive on the tiered needs in the Sudbury Public Schools budget. He wanted to see if they could get pricing estimates for those tiered needs so that they could discuss if there’s a way to fund those. “We are in a fortunate position in this community to try to err on the side of making incremental improvements year after year, and you know, I guess I want us to see how we can push that forward.” (22:52)
Funding the SPS FY26 budget needs may not be the only topic of discussion among the Finance Committee in the coming months. The latest meeting agenda for the SPS School Committee was posted this morning, and they’ll be discussing an “FY25 Budget Reset” on Monday, August 19. The meeting is currently listed as in-person only without an option to watch live on Sudbury TV or an option to join remotely. You’ll want to plan on getting to the SPS offices at the Fairbank Community Center if you want to watch it live.