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The Sudbury Public Schools School Committee met Monday and had further discussion on their articles for Special Town Meeting.
We have been following these articles for several weeks. You can read our coverage of their meeting with the Finance Committee here and their meeting with the Select Board here. Here’s the running summary:
- The intent of a couple SPS articles was unclear to other Town officials early in the process. One was deemed entirely unnecessary by the Town Manager and Finance Director. Town Counsel recommended edits to the articles and theSelect Board accepted them, and the SPS School Committee didn’t like that. They resolved to get on the same page by drafting motions with Town Counsel that would address everyone’s concerns. (More detail on the early confusion here.)
- SPS has not disclosed how they would use the funds requested by Article 12. Article 12, per the Town’s Finance Director, would accelerate higher-than-estimated Chapter 70 funding into the budget for the current fiscal year, rather than building that into the budget for the next fiscal year as is typically done.
- The Nixon roof (Article 11) has prompted questions and conversations about long-term planning for replacement of the elementary school buildings. But SPS has been hesitant to engage in those discussions, throwing it back on other groups to lead them. (1:23:12)
On Monday, the SPS School Committee carved out some time to rebut an argument that was never made by any other board or committee about Article 12. In philosophy this is call a “straw man fallacy,” distorting an opposing position into an extreme version of itself and then arguing against that extreme version.
The SPS School Committee created the impression that other boards and committees have argued that higher-than-expected State aid for the schools should not be spent on Sudbury’s students, and suggested other bodies wanted to take funding for students in need and spend it elsewhere, or turn it away. The SPS School Committee Chair argued:
“When the State itself has recognized that the floor was too low, why would this district, this committee choose to turn those funds away? It would be irresponsible for our students, our staff and our families to do that. I have heard so much conversation happening about the way we’ve done things in the past throughout committee meetings and conversations when these articles are being discussed. This is not one of those cases.” (1:08:00)
Sudbury Weekly is unaware of any board or committee member in Sudbury that has made an argument in open meeting to turn away the increased Chapter 70 funds or to spend it elsewhere.
Comments from other boards have been quite supportive of theschools, but those boards have been trying to understand why SPS is taking peculiar and unexplained actions with its budget and budget requests. Here’s an example from Select Board Chair Janie Dretler in last week’s Select Board meeting with SPS administrators. After SPS Superintendent Crozier attempted to paint the Select Board as unsupportive of students, Dretler made it clear why they had questions about the unique manner in which SPS was pursuing the money:
“I have to agree with Charlie. I don’t think that was a fair characterization of what this conversation is. I think we can all go back a year and remember that the Select Board was asking the schools if you were asking for enough money in the override. And the conversations that we heard the schools have was you needed a million and a half dollars, you needed 1.3 million dollars, and it went down to 745,000 dollars using Circuit Breaker. And I understand Brad that you made a comment in one of your recent meetings that by using 300,000 dollars of Circuit Breaker introduced risk into your budget. So all we’re commenting on is what we’ve been hearing in themeetings and we’re just trying to get to a place where we can be supportive. We all have kids in the system, so it’s not as if we’re not supportive. I just want to caution us on how these questions are being characterized.” (2:15:53)
When the SPS School Committee made their comments Monday, the Select Board and Finance Committee had yet to even vote their positions on the SPS articles, so neither body had formulated a recommendation on the articles at all, let alone the specific straw man argument that the money should not be spent on students. Member Troiano characterized discussion about the “mechanics” of the funding as “all noise.” (1:13:05) But the Finance Committee quite literally has a responsibility to review the mechanics. This is from their mission statement:
“The Finance Committee’s mission is to make objective and concise recommendations to Town Meeting on theannual budget and any other finance-related warrant articles. To achieve this mission, the Committee reviews and considers any matter that may have a long or short-term fiscal impact on the Town and communicates with other Town Boards, the Town Manager, the Finance Director, the Superintendents of SPS and LSRHS, and others as needed for the purpose of gathering relevant and accurate information for evaluation, debate and theformulation of a recommendation.”
SPS Vice-Chair Gerson insinuated that the Town would spend theState aid for schools elsewhere if they didn’t get it for the schools:
“I don’t know any school committee that would say no thank you, we’ll just let the Town spend it on whatever, whatever they think would be a better cause.” (1:11:00)
That’s a claim that has been directly refuted by Sudbury’s Finance Director weeks ago, and he proved it with simple arithmetic:
“You can look back over history, to say that the Chapter 70 money… it all flows to the schools. You can look at it as a percentage of budget over the last 15 years and it’s actually declined as a percentage of budget versus increased. Right, so in 2010 Chapter 70 funded 12% of the budget and I think we’re down to about 10.3% of thebudget. So I mean, the argument that SPS isn’t receiving everything that’s being allocated to them I think is not true.” (2:39:36)
In other words, the Town has been increasing the total funding for the schools to the point that increasing State aid is becoming a smaller and smaller percentage of the SPS budget. Whatever theState aid increased by historically, the Town’s increased contributions have outpaced it. So SPS is getting the benefit of State aid increases and then some. To assert that State aid is being diverted away from the schools is inaccurate and misleading. Sudbury Weekly has previously covered thorough explanations from Town officials on how the Chapter 70 money gets to the schools and why municipalities manage it in that manner.
The SPS School Committee members repeatedly noted that it is their job to advocate for the students, but the history on the FY24 override budget raises additional questions.
Override: Part Two
Some residents may be surprised to learn that the schools need more funding in a year when they received an override. It’s evident based on Superintendent Crozier’s comments in recent meetings and ahead of the override vote that student needs have been increasing, and that’s what the SPS School Committee has argued repeatedly as well. But the SPS School Committee itself opted to pursue a level-service budget with the override rather than seeking to account for increasing and alarming student needs following the pandemic. And they achieved level-service with some maneuvers that added risk to the budget for future years.
In short, the cost of delivering existing services increased, and they only asked for enough money to keep paying for the existing services. (Page 32)
This was made clear to the entire school committee on December 19, 2022 when Chair Nerssessian stated:
“And the 5.05 is just level service. So that’s the 732,000 dollar gap.” (2:49:20)
At the time they were discussing a $1.2 million gap between SPS’s needs for FY24 and the guidance form the Town. The $1.2 million included tier 1 initiatives like an ELA curriculum update. (Page 35)
The final override request came in at just $745K in part because theschool committee worked with the administration to find ways to reduce the override request of taxpayers as much as possible. That effort happened primarily in a December 22, 2022 meeting in which the Superintendent presented “additional considerations” to “reduce the gap.” (0:15:00)
During that meeting they had a long discussion to get the resulting override request down by using Circuit Breaker special educations funds for the operating budget, paying for the ELA curriculum update with free cash, and other means. With regards to dipping into Circuit Breaker funds, the committee was warned by the Director of Business and Human Resources, Don Sawyer, that it put SPS in a position where they might have to come back for more money in the middle of FY24:
“Don’t be surprised if we come back.” (32:00)
In summary:
- In December 2022 SPS reported a need for an additional $1.2 million in FY24 to maintain level service in the schools and fund their tier 1 initiatives.
- The SPS School Committee provided guidance to theadministration to close the $1.2M gap by dipping into Circuit Breaker special education funds for the operating budget and to fund a curriculum update with free cash, which pushed that cost outside their operating budget.
- The SPS School Committee ultimately pursued a $745K override that was only enough to fund a level-service budget, and only in combination with Circuit Breaker and the ELA curriculum maneuvers.
- Committee members were told this approach would add risk to the budget, they were told that it could have ramifications in future fiscal years, and they talked about it extensively.
- SPS now says they need more money to meet increasing student needs, but won’t say what the money will be used for if they get it.
On Monday, the SPS School Committee lamented that other boards and committees asked questions about their budget, even calling the conversations “nonsense.” Members repeatedly claimed they were only motivated by a sincere desire to support students, and insinuated that others in the community don’t support students. (1:13:55)
However, the SPS School Committee itself pushed for the level-service budget earlier this year, and they did it while theSuperintendent was reporting increasing (not level) student needs in academics and alarming needs in social/emotion wellbeing.
At the time, the Select Board raised concerns about the Circuit Breaker maneuver. But they also asked the SPS School Committee a rather poignant question: Are you sure you’re asking for enough?
During a January 2023 joint meeting with the SPS School Committee, now-Select Board Chair Dretler stated:
“I just want to make sure that you have what you need for the schools and I support those needs.” She later added: “If you need to increase the request, I would ask you to consider that.” (0:18:50)
Now-Select Board Vice-Chair Kouchakdjian voiced concerns about dipping into Circuit Breaker funds, noted that it’s a short-term solution, and contrasted that with what she expected to be long-term needs of the students that she felt were evidenced by concerning data from the MetroWest Adolescent Health Survey. (Slide 18) She closed those comments by saying:
“I just want to make sure that you all are asking for the amount of money that you really need.” (0:23:00)
Mere months later the Select Board and the town have their answer.
