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As SPS Relations Turn Tense With More Town Groups, Union Contract Negotiations Loom
The Sudbury Combined Facilities Department, established by way of an agreement dating back to 2012, could be on the chopping block. On Monday September 9, the Sudbury Public Schools School Committee discussed a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) that created the shared department between the Town of Sudbury and the Sudbury Public Schools district (SPS). Though residents voiced fears that SPS was gearing up to terminate the agreement with the Town of Sudbury, the committee ultimately resolved to gather more information before taking any action.
How We Got Here
Ahead of the meeting, concerns arose that the committee would vote to terminate the Combined Facilities Memorandum of Agreement (MOA).
The SPS School Committee agenda used vague language to describe the “Combined Facilities MOA” and “(Discussion/Action)” – but concerned residents began writing various boards and committees about a suspected vote to terminate the agreement.
The MOA created the Combined Facilities Director role, and set terms for Sudbury Public Schools and the Town of Sudbury to share the resources and costs of the department. It was broadly seen as an opportunity to create greater efficiency in the cost center budgets by sharing a resource. The arrangement is similar to the way Towns regionalize roles and services to reduce the costs for each town, or improve overall service delivery. The approach is generally recommended by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
During discussion on Monday, Superintendent Brad Crozier and Chair Nicole Burnard acknowledged that most peer districts have a combined facilities director, albeit with a larger supporting staff than Sudbury has in its department.
If SPS were to terminate the MOA, the decision would go into effect at the end of the current fiscal year, which is June 30, 2025. At that point, the Town would either need to have the funding for the full facilities department staff, or make deep cuts.
The SPS School Committee has had multiple discussions about the MOA in recent years, including in 2022 and 2023.
In 2022, after concluding they felt the MOA was outdated, the school committee voted to authorize the Superintendent, the Director of Business and Finance, and then-chair Silvia Nerssessian to “initiate a conversation with the Town of Sudbury about the process to amend the Memorandum of Agreement for the Facilities Director position.” (Minutes here)
During the December 2023 discussions they voiced frustration with their perceived lack of control over the costs of the department, timelines for completion of projects, and other facets of the agreement. The December 2023 minutes of the SPS School Committee state: “Vice Chair Meredith Gerson moves to authorize Silvia Nerssessian, Chair of the Sudbury School Committee, and Brad Crozier, Superintendent, to engage in restructure and renegotiate the MOA for the Facilities Department. Sarah Troiano seconded the motion.” (Minutes here.)
The vote was unanimous both times, but it was unclear what SPS leadership did after either vote, and what conversations may have happened. When asked on Monday, Superintendent Crozier informed the board that he had a conversation with Sudbury Town Manager Andy Sheehan about the arrangement, and they resolved to review the MOA to determine how it could be updated. Crozier then discussed the MOA with SPS legal counsel, and determined that there was no way to update the MOA to meet the needs of SPS, but he did not elaborate other than to say it was very difficult to know if SPS was getting 50% of a facility department employee’s time if they were paying 50% of their salary.
In Search of a Basis
On Monday, the discussion was at times rudderless, in part because very little supporting information was provided to the committee to enable them to make a decision anchored in data. Superintendent Crozier and SPS Director of Business and Finance, Don Sawyer, provided their assessment as leaders of the district live in the meeting.
Crozier focused on a few points. First, he felt the building projects in upcoming years, including all the school roofs, warranted a full-time facilities director in the schools. If they were to terminate the MOA, he felt the approximately $170,000 they pay as part of the MOA could be utilized to pay for a full-time, dedicated director for the schools. But that would leave the Town in a pickle. School Committee member Mandy Sim voiced a desire to more fully understand the impact such a decision would have on the Town.
Sawyer argued that SPS wasn’t getting what it was paying for in the MOA; going so far as to say that the schools get virtually zero services from two supporting members of the Combined Facilities Department (an electrician and an assistant role). He added:
“So we’re left with someone who works 20 hours a week for $170K.”
Don Sawyer, Business and Finance Director, SPS
Discussion about the workload and volume of projects in coming years was a recurring theme throughout the discussion. Committee member Mary Stephens wasn’t satisfied with merely rattling off projects as proof that a full-time hire was needed. She responded: “That’s not data. That’s not figures.”
Committee Member Mandy Sim asked for more information about what peer districts are doing, and that uncovered another piece of context that was not provided to the committee in advance: the vast majority of peer districts have a combined facilities arrangement with their respective Towns. Crozier referred to a survey he had seen indicating that over 80% of respondents had a combined facilities approach. Chair Nicole Burnard later added that she had done some research and found that almost all of SPS’ peer districts had a combined facilities approach, though she reiterated that she found the other towns had much larger facilities departments.
From there, the discussion shifted away from the case for a full-time hire, and towards evaluation of how the current MOA was being administered by Superintendent Crozier and Town Manager Sheehan. Crozier noted that Sheehan had called him earlier that day and he paraphrased the Town Manager as saying: “Can we talk about this more before you blow it up?”
But Crozier went on to tell the committee that they could vote to terminate the MOA that night anyway, and he could continue to have conversations with the Town Manager about how they could work together in the future.
The discussion was filled with recurring questions about communication between the schools and the Town. Superintendent Crozier had argued earlier in the meeting that the supervision piece was well under control because he has weekly meetings with the combined facilities director. However, he felt SPS had no visibility into the compensation and raises the Town was giving to the facilities department. Sawyer echoed those concerns and added:
“We estimate what the salary is going to be for the following year. Even now I don’t know what their salaries are this year.”
Soon after those comments, member Mary Stephens quoted Superintendent Crozier’s 2022 comments voicing support for the combined facilities director approach, and emphasized that she believes there’s a communication problem that needs to be solved. It did not appear based on the comments that either party was abiding by the terms of the MOA.
Concerns about communication bookended the discussion. Stephens asked one of the last questions of the night; wanting to know how frequently Superintendent Crozier, Town Manager Andy Sheehan and the Combined Facilities Director meet to discuss priorities. Superintendent Crozier responded:
“I don’t recall ever.”
The committee provided guidance to the Business and Finance Director to gather more data to help them make a fully-informed decision in the future. That could include more detail on upcoming capital projects, data demonstrating a need for a full-time facilities director, data outlining the benefits and efficiencies of a combined facilities approach, and more.
Tensions Abound
A termination of the MOA would punctuate multiple years of conflict with other Town departments, union groups and committees for SPS.
The start of their Monday meeting was set aside for executive session. They were discussing the school nurses’ contract, which went unsettled for three years. That recently concluded, but it’s now time for the next contract to be negotiated.
The previous contract with the teachers’ union went unsettled for nearly six months after the prior contract expired. The next teachers’ contract will also be negotiated this year.
There have also been public dustups with the Finance Committee and the Select Board in recent years, particularly when those boards asked questions about how SPS was managing its budget. When the committee was building the FY25 budget in December of 2024, members bemoaned the budget guidance provided by the Town Manager, arguing that it would pit departments against each other and was not equitable to SPS.
In June of this year, the committee received public comments from employees expressing frustration over a policy change made earlier in the year, which they felt was not done transparently. The change eliminated the option for support staff to send their children to SPS like their DESE-licensed colleagues.
And on Monday night, the school nurses made public comment calling for pay parity with the teachers, later posting it to social media:
A school nurse is just as critical to the school environment as our teaching colleagues. Did you know that Over 92% of school districts in Massachusetts pay their school nurses on the same scale as their educators? These communities have pay equity between their educators and their school nurses. Included in that 92% is Lincoln-Sudbury High School, but not the Sudbury Public Schools.
The statement went on to add: “We felt under valued when our staffing was reduced from six full-time nurses to 5.8, even after a pandemic that demonstrated the critical need for full-time nurses in our schools. If we had six before COVID-19, why only 5.8 now?”
An Uncertain Future
While the committee is expecting to take this discussion up again in the future, it remains to be seen if the looming threat of terminating the agreement will get all parties working collaboratively or productively.
The discussion on Monday highlighted staffing shortages on the Town side. Termination of the MOA may free the schools up to meet their own needs on their own terms, but doing so could send the Town staffing situation from bad to worse.
SPS, as highlighted by public comment from the school nurses, is also balancing competing priorities in their budget. Negotiations with the unions can be unpredictable, and the track record with the nurses’ contract and teachers’ contract suggest that more tough choices are ahead.
