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While much of the buzz around the upcoming Annual Town Meeting will focus on budgets and capital projects, a quieter but foundational article will ask voters to update the blueprint of the Lincoln-Sudbury Regional School District itself.
Article 22 of the draft 2026 warrant (the number may change on the final warrant) proposes amending the “Agreement between the Towns of Lincoln and Sudbury”—the governing document that established the regional district decades ago.
According to the text of the warrant article and committee discussions in recent months, the proposed changes are largely “technical and administerial.” The goal is to strip out outdated provisions that no longer apply to the district’s operations and to ensure the agreement aligns with current state laws and practices mandated by the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE).
Regional agreements function like a constitution for multi-town school districts, dictating everything from how the School Committee is elected to how costs are split between member towns. Over time, however, these documents can accumulate “legislative cobwebs,” or references to state laws that have been superseded.
The Lincoln-Sudbury Regional School Committee (LSSC) formed a Regional Agreement Review Subcommittee in early 2025 to meticulously review the text. Working with district administration and legal counsel, the subcommittee has nearly finalized a set of revisions intended to modernize the document without fundamentally altering the core partnership between the two towns. The latest presentation from district’s counsel to the subcommittee is here:
Because the agreement involves two municipalities, there are multiple steps to get to Town Meeting in both Lincoln and Sudbury, and then additional steps to get final approval.
For Sudbury, those steps include:
- School Committee Approval: The LSSC must formally vote to recommend the amendments.
- Select Board Position: The article was already added to the warrant for Sudbury’s Annual Town Meeting, but the Select Board will still have an opportunity to take a position on the article in the coming weeks.
- Town Meeting Votes: Both the Lincoln Annual Town Meeting (scheduled for March) and the Sudbury Annual Town Meeting (in May) must approve the amended agreement.
- State Approval: The Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education must sign off on the changes.
Residents can expect to see the full text of the amended agreement in the final warrant report, which will be mailed to households prior to Town Meeting.
Other L-S Articles on the Docket
The agreement update isn’t the only L-S item Sudbury voters will consider in May. The draft warrant also includes:
- Article 3: The FY27 Operating Budget, which includes an assessment for L-S.
- Article 4: A capital budget item of $221,600 in the Town Manager’s Capital Budget for various improvements at the high school.
- Article 30: A capital request for $147,679 (Sudbury’s share) to replace the automated control panel at the high school’s wastewater treatment facility. The current system, installed in 2004, is obsolete and critical for environmental compliance.
The Sudbury Annual Town Meeting kicks off on Monday, May 4, 2026, at 7:00 p.m. in the Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School Auditorium.
You can watch the most recent meeting of the Regional Agreement Review Subcommittee below.