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Sudbury Town Manager Andy Sheehan is building a reputation for speedy completion of contract negotiations with the Town’s union groups. With all union contracts up for negotiation this year, he has already reached agreements with the Supervisory Association and the DPW union.
Today, the Select Board meeting agenda announced an agreement has been reached with the Sudbury Police Sergeants and Sudbury Police Lieutenants.
The amendments include increases to base pay, significant increases to the hourly rate for details, and other adjustments to terms pertaining to grievance procedures, reimbursements, holidays, and drug testing, to name a few.
Lieutenants will see all salary steps increased by 3 percent, effective 7/1/2024. The steps will increase 2 percent in 2025 and 2 percent in 2026. Sergeants received the same step increase, but their steps were also rearranged to remove the bottom step, and in 2026 a new top step will be added for Sergeants who have served 10 years with the Sudbury Police Department.
The speed at which the Town reached agreements came as a bit of a surprise after some residents raised concerns on social media about police staffing levels and turnover in the Sudbury Police Department. The rampant speculation created the perception that the Town and the police unions were headed into difficult negotiations that could drag out for quite some time. The Select Board and Town Manager opted to steer clear of the noise and focused on the negotiating process.
Just a couple months later, two of the police contracts are already resolved and Sheehan’s contract negotiation to-do list is that many items shorter, at least for a couple years. The patrol officers agreement is the last one remaining to be settled.
Sheehan, who is a career-long municipal professional, also inherited an unresolved firefighters contract when he joined as Sudbury’s Town Manager in February of 2023. He was able to reach an agreement and get it funded at a Special Town Meeting in October 2023, long before his one-year anniversary as Sudbury’s Town Manager. (Article 8)
