Can anyone explain to me why normal building renovations for town buildings are not included in the budget? Obviously, if a roof of a school needs repair it should be done, but I'm wondering why the need to bond it out as opposed to having funds allocated for normal renovations within the budget.

Because the idea of setting funds aside from each year's budget to pay for the utterly foreseeable depreciation years later, leaving that pile of money untouched for years, is completely foreign to any level of government. Public funds have only political value, and political value inheres only in current expenditures.

I am perplexed. Am I being "lured" along with a small group of friends to vote for this roof? I will now vote NO on this roof. It is too bad people in Town end up insulting neighbors and friends over politics.

Have you been in the school on a rainy day? Have you seen the buckets in the hallway that the kids have to dodge? Whether or not this is the right way to go about it, the school needs a new roof and we should vote Yes. If that were your kid in the school, you wouldn't want them slipping on the water coming in.

Article 5, Capital Budget, appears every year in the warrant for Annual Town Meeting, right after "The Budget", which is Article 4, the Operating Budget.

There is a lot of information in the old town meeting warrants and proceedings about the capital budgets over time.

http://www.town.sudbury.ma.us/services/all_documents.asp#Category_TownMeeting-Proceedings

The Capital Improvement Planning Committee is scheduled to meet on December 12, and will presumably be talking about the FY14 Capital Budget. It would be reasonable to ask them what will be included in the capital budget, whether it's bonded and why.

At some point taxpayers have to take a stand and make the planners accountable. This should not be an override question. This should have been planned for. The town planners/managers find it so easy to just ask for an override for something they didn't PLAN or MANAGE. Many times they get it. The taxpayers are taking the hit on these overrides and are bailing out the planners/managers we pay because they didn't' do their job. Isn't it obvious what the problems are here?

This has to stop!

this question just came to mind for the average Sudbury family...

how high do property taxes have to get for them to be unmanageable for the average resident?

I am not asking this in response to repairing the roof noted in this article, rather wondering how many more overrides can the *average* townsperson support before they can no longer afford to live in town. Seniors, school roof, additional students in school system just to name a few that are being considered currently with no doubt more coming in the future.

I think it is a relevant question to be explored. Then those asking for overrides could have a handle on and better understand how many more times they can come back to the taxpayer before it becomes untenable. With an understanding of the limits they may soon be approaching perhaps we can better come to grips with the need to cut costs and live within our means.

great posts.

Student levels are near the lowest level since the overrides were considered part of the regular budget yet budget increases, particularly with town government have not been adjusted accordingly.

The town has absorbed more and more the capital budget into the operating budget and have shifted the strategy to drag us to the polls and town meeting 3 or 4 times a year. It's as though we're teenagers, if we ask our parents for $10, ten times per month, it's not $100. If they ask us to spend just $30 more per month 5 times per year, it's not $150 more to our property tax.

As to the posts contained above, these are all good questions and can easily be answered once town employees are held accountable. PMOTW - right on!

If I thought our town officials were being fiscally responsible, I might support this roof project. But they are not. Their handling of the Northwood development is a case in point. Of the two possible scenarios, the original plan of an additional 42 midrise units of senior housing would bring in approximately $200,000 per year in property tax revenue. The alternative being pushed by the client of the husband of our town planner is for 19 townhouses, which would bring in only $100,000 per year. And even that would be offset by the expenses from that half of those townhouses open to families with school age children. We should demand better planning and more responsible use of the revenue we have before granting another piecemeal override approval.

For the record, I will vote Yes for the roof. My children attended Nixon; we love(d) Nixon. I voted for the Haynes roof last year (or was it Noyes?). I voted for the new LSRHS. I voted for the new ECMS. I have voted for all of it and have paid/am paying for all of it. I am reaching my limit on this kind of thing but have not yet quite reached it. Still, the disgruntlement over the deliberate refusal of successive town governments to build depreciation into their budgets is entirely appropriate.

What I will likely do is move once my children are out of the schools. The property tax burden is growing too great and I see no reason to suppose it will reverse direction. Prior years' overrides are now essentially built in to the oermanent base. When I move, I will have lived here for 20 years or a bit more. Enough time to raise children and pay the tribute needed to support schools which are good but are unable, along with the town government, to prioritize. A new family will move in to take the place of mine, pay their tribute and send their children through the schools and generally enjoy the nice Sudbury ambience. The cycle will repeat. I expect this is the trajectory of many Sudbury families. I had hoped to remain here for the rest of my life, but I don't think I will be able to afford it. Sudbury has turned itself into a community that people can afford to rent but not to buy. This is the end result of 20+ years of rising taxes.