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On Tuesday, both the Sudbury Public Schools (SPS) School Committee and Lincoln-Sudbury (L-S) School Committee discussed possible letters to Town of Sudbury officials regarding the recently-reduced School Resource Officer (SRO) program. In the end, the committees opted to take different approaches.
As previously reported, the SRO program has been temporarily and significantly reduced due to staffing shortages in the Sudbury Police Department.
On Tuesday the L-S School Committee edited a letter to be sent to the Sudbury Select Board, Town Manager and Chief of Police voicing their appreciation and support of the SRO program, while requesting regular updates on efforts to resolve the staffing shortages and return the SRO program back to full capacity. (1:30:00)
The L-S School Committee voted unanimously to support the draft letter after some deliberation about the recipients, tone and key messages.
The SPS School Committee opted not to send a letter after discussing their role and purview. (2:14:40) Chair Nicole Burnard opened the topic by highlighting the fine line between the school committee’s role and the operational activities in other departments. During deliberation it was noted that the committee doesn’t sign the MOU with the Sudbury Police Department, which suggested that the program was an operational matter for the administration to handle.
Conversations about the SRO program were somewhat awkward in both committees. As was pointed out in the SPS School Committee meeting, it’s no secret that all members value school safety, the SRO program, and collaboration with the Sudbury Police Department. Given support for the program was virtually universal across the two committees, some members of each committee questioned what utility or impact a letter would actually have in helping to solve the staffing shortages.
L-S School Committee members Kevin Matthews and Maura Carty made claims that the staffing issues were related to funding and that the Sudbury Town Manager and Select Board had the authority to make staffing and recruiting decisions within the Sudbury Police Department. They did not provide a basis or any additional detail for those assertions. Member Lucy Maulsby pointed out that the L-S School Committee doesn’t actually know the root cause of the staffing shortages, which made it less clear to whom the committee might send a letter:
“It’s unclear to me why we are sending that to the Select Board and why the school committee is involved in negotiating thus with the Select Board rather than expressing our appreciation, and our appreciation to Ravi’s point, of the need to distribute resources, why we’re not expressing that to the Chief of Police?” (1:39:00)
Carty responded: “It’s really the Select Board and the Town Manager that are in charge of this and that they can…”
Maulsby interjected: “But they’re not making decisions about the asset reallocations of the police.”
Carty responded: “Well they can be.”
Matthews jumped in:
“If the force is down 7 out of 24, if that’s the right number. And let’s pretend it is. If there’s that kind of a force reduction, I don’t know how Chief Nix has any choice but to spread everyone a little thinner. And I don’t see how he’s responsible for that, the inability for the Town to fund those seven lines. Or to recruit those seven lines…”
There has been no “force reduction” in the Sudbury Police Department and Sudbury Weekly is unaware of any instance where Town officials claimed that the vacant positions are no longer funded in the budget. Police Chief Scott Nix is on record saying in August that he would soon be down seven officers (partially due to medical leave) on his 30-person force, not down 7 officers on a 24-person force. (6:50) No official statements have been issued regarding the cause of the other vacancies, or even if the number of vacancies is significantly higher or lower than the historic rolling average for the department.
Maulsby concluded:
“So is it a question of funding, or is it a question of some people being on leave, waiting for others to finish their training before coming online? I mean, could the Chair call to find out? The context of the letter in terms of what’s been discussed at the meeting doesn’t really make sense to me.”
On the SPS School Committee meeting, member Karyn Jones pointed out that a letter could be perceived as the SPS School Committee telling other departments how to run their operations, which she likened to telling a business owner how to run their own business. “I would never tell somebody how to run their business. Because it’s theirs. It’s their department. I would think it was odd if Chief Nix was writing us a letter on how to do ELA curriculum.” (2:31:00)
That argument seemed to sway the SPS School Committee, and their discussion ended with some levity from Vice Chair Meredith Gerson regarding getting other committees to stay in their lane, too. (2:35:00)
Whether it was discussed in open meeting or memorialized in a letter, the message coming from the two school committees is largely the same: the school committees are eager to see the SRO program brought back to full force. But their eagerness may not matter given the police staffing woes being reported across the state.
Police recruiting challenges are seemingly universal, and the Massachusetts State Police Academy has seen high levels of dropouts from the academy in recent years. Many dropouts claim the training program was too intense and some reportedly likened it to hazing. Just this week, news broke that a trainee died after sustaining reported broken teeth and a neck fracture during a boxing exercise.
The Town of Sudbury is currently in the midst of negotiations with the police union groups. If compensation packages make Sudbury less appealing than other municipalities for police officers, that may be something the Town can address in a new contract. But any such information is unlikely to become public information until an agreement is reached, and no comparative analysis with other towns has been shared publicly.
