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Sudbury Town Manager Andy Sheehan’s Budget Working Group spent recent months charting a course to avoid an override request in Fiscal Year 2028 (FY28). Over the last two meetings of the working group, the forecasted budget shortfall was shrinking as good news came in about fixed costs. It looked as though the Town could be dealing with a budget gap smaller than $500,000; assuming the working group’s plans were to be implemented and all cost centers could make do with a 3.5% budget increase in FY28.
That 3.5% model was already less than the 4.48% increase that Sudbury Public Schools (SPS) had previously estimated it would need to maintain level services in FY28. However, the delta between the earlier SPS estimate and the Town model appeared to be manageable. On Friday, October 23, the estimate to maintain level services at SPS soared to 6% in a meeting of the Sudbury Public Schools Budget Subcommittee.
Acting Director of Business and Human Resources Buck Creel told the subcommittee “So this 4.52 [percent] increase that Don [Sawyer] had identified is kind of what they had been working with in the Budget Working Group. Yeah, 4.52, which turns into a 2.2 million dollar increase. And our 6% is 2.9 million. Just to get back to that [4.2% increase] we would have to cut 700,000 dollars. And to get to 3.5% we would have to cut 1.7 million dollars out of the budget, which is a big hunk of money.” (1:31:00 below)
Earlier in the meeting Creel explained 60% of the budget is teachers, and it would take a 5.21% increase to pay for their contractual obligations in FY28. Creel noted “That kind of smacked me in the face for a couple of reasons. Because our budget should advance by the COLA [cost of living adjustment] to a certain extent.” He then added that only 51% of teachers are at the highest “step,” so the other 49% are seeing salary increases larger than just a cost of living adjustment. Every year a teacher works in the district, they advance one step down the schedule, triggering an automatic, pre-negotiated pay increase until they hit the top step. Creel felt 51% was low compared to what he has seen in other districts. “If everybody was in the top step, the increase would be 2.75% and a bit. So what this says is ‘yeah okay 51% are at the top step, but that means that 49% are still moving on steps.'”
Discussion about a potential override ensued, though it was more complicated than just discussing an override. The latest teacher’s contract includes language requiring a 2% market adjustment increase for teachers in the event the Town gets an override approved this year. Member Karyn Jones noted that Director of Business and Human Resources Don Sawyer had told her that the agreement would require two ballot questions, one for an override and one for the 2% increase for teachers. Creel was not certain and advised that the district get an opinion from Town Counsel on the matter, rather than SPS counsel.
The discussion was noteworthy not just because of the substantial increase in funding required for a level service budget, but because Creel provided a level of detail and analysis that subcommittee members Karyn Jones and Betsy Sues had not been provided by the administration in the past. Creel also provided it much earlier than the SPS committee members have seen it in prior years, though it is still a preliminary estimate. Jones and Sues repeatedly voiced gratitude for Creel’s transparency and detailed presentation of the data. While the meeting brought clarity to the budget pressures SPS faces, the data indicated that the pressures aren’t going away anytime soon.
Budget building season is underway in Sudbury, and the SPS School Committee recently issued its communication on the process. To follow along, use the dates and details below.