Sudbury weighs combining school superintendents' offices

By John M. Guilfoil
Globe Correspondent

A proposal on the floor of the board of selectmen introduced at a meeting Monday calls for Sudbury Public Schools and Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School to combine superintendents' offices, saving a projected $1.05 million to brace for what officials are calling a potentially devastating coming fiscal year.

The proposal would have a single administrator assume responsibility for both the Sudbury K-8 school system and the Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School next year, after current Lincoln-Sudbury superintendent John Ritchie retires.

"We are halfway through a very difficult fiscal ear, we are halfway to what can be a very devastating one," said Sudbury Finance Committee member Robert N. Jacobson.

The two school district's school committees would remain intact and separate under the plan.

The consolidation would form what's called a Superintendency Union, under which two or more school districts operate under agreement with a single top level administrator. Twenty such unions exist in Massachusetts, including Concord-Carlisle and Dover Sherborn.

The proposal would cut 10 total non-teaching jobs from the school systems. The proposal is part of several cuts being discussed by the Sudbury Budget Review Task Force, assembled last spring by town meeting voters to look at ways to make the town's budget more efficient.

John Guilfoil can be reached at jguilfoil@globe.com