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On Tuesday, Town Manager Andy Sheehan provided an update on one of his major goals to “develop a long-term comprehensive plan to fund and manage the operating and capital budgets.” (Presentation here)
Time was short as the meeting was running late into the evening, so there was not a lot of discussion after the presentation. The board agreed to continue discussion at a later date. But the presentation revealed the tentpoles of the plan that Sheehan is building with Town staff.
Sheehan opened the presentation by setting the stage. He walked the board through the revenues and expenditures, then plainly stated that Sudbury has high taxes. “We’ve got high taxes here. There’s no getting around that.”
He emphasized that the average single family tax bill is in the top 17 in the state. “There are only 17 communities in Massachusetts that have an average single family tax bill above $15,000 and we are one of them.” As a result, he called for a more disciplined approach to the budget, making tough choices and defending them, and he also called out that an override may still become necessary in the future if the town wanted to avoid cuts to certain services.
From there, the framework of his plan began to take shape with a series of recommendations.
For first steps, Sheehan recommended that they look to maximize all revenue sources other than property taxes, including referencing the Municipal Empowerment Act.
From there, a series of cost-cutting measures like automating, outsourcing, privatizing and regionalizing functions wherever possible and appropriate. Next, he called for utilizing enterprise funds like is done in the Park and Recreation department. That basically makes certain operations function similar to a business where they fund themselves with the revenue their programming brings in.
The catch? He recommended that enterprise funds should not get subsidized by the general fund like is currently done with Park and Recreation. That’s going to be tough news for the Park and Recreation Commission, as they have been calling for more support from the Town.
The recommendations got a bit further into the municipal weeds from there:
There were a couple prevailing themes in the presentation. The first was a goal to get more maintenance work out of the capital budget and into the operating budget. That has been a longtime challenge in Sudbury, as evidenced earlier in the meeting when the Board discussed the schools HVAC project.
The second theme was policy, process and procedure. Challenges associated with the existing capital process, and adherence to it, have been on display in recent years. Sheehan also called for evaluating processes used for Town Meeting, which can have significant impact on the budget.
One recent example here is when the Goodnow Library Trustees submitted an article for the 2024 Annual Town Meeting to fund electric vehicle charging stations after the Library Director’s funding request didn’t make the cut during the Town’s capital process.
While the project didn’t make the cut during the capital process, the Town found other funding sources for the project to go forward before Town Meeting. But the Trustees went forward with the article anyway. The explanation provided was that the money could fund the project in the event its existing funding sources fell though. That article was unceremoniously booted out of Town Meeting with a decisive vote to indefinitely postpone, but it highlighted how maneuvers in and around Town Meeting have the potential to significantly impact, or possibly undermine, strategically developed plans for both the operating and capital budgets. (Article 28 and 4:30)
Sheehan’s broader message on Tuesday was that cooler heads need to prevail in order to build a sustainable budget, that it will take time, and collective discipline was a necessary component for success.
Members of the Select Board voiced a desire to see more details in future discussions, but appreciated the framework of the plan, and indicated that there was much work to be done in the years ahead.