It's Time for a Tax Cut (Part 4)

The CPA surcharge is an additional charge on your tax bill. Towns can opt in to this state program and choose the level of surcharge. Currently Sudbury has a 3% surcharge, but there is a citizen's petition at the upcoming Town Meeting (May 5-6) to reduce this extra charge to 1.5% and subsequently reduce your tax bill.

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While the CPA has been the source of some great projects in town, the town has slipped in the last several years and we are no longer implementing the program responsibly. Timely reporting of project status is an important part of this program and this has not been happening. Furthermore, when submitting projects for CPA funding, the town has not been following the Financial Policies.

According to a policy adopted in 2017, any recipient of CPA funds should submit an Annual Report of activities every year on Oct 15 until all the money has been spent down or the project is deemed final. Here is the policy - https://cdn.sudbury.ma.us/.../CPC-Reporting-Requirement...

I could not find any reports on the CPC website / documents section, so I had to specifically requested them from the Planning Department. This chart shows each project (for the last few years) and the corresponding reports that were due. Blocks in Red indicated reports that were simply not done. And blocks in Yellow indicate reports that are in contradiction with information in the spreadsheet shared by CPC of project status.

Going back just a few years (FY21 thru FY23), 55% of the reports were simply not done. 7.5% were in error. Only 37.5% reports were compete.

Furthermore, it states very specifically in our town Financial Policies that capital projects that are apply for CPA funds should be part of the Town Capital Planning Process. CPA projects approved by the CPC committee in the last couple of years that are capital projects have not been part of the 5 or 15 year Capital Planning Process. As a result, the CPA projects conflict with the Town's Capital Planning process.

Until we restore the accountability and responsible administration of CPA funds (approximately $3 Million dollars per year), I am proposing (with a citizen's petition at the next town meeting) that we reduce the CPA surcharge by half (3% to 1.5%). This will still allow for projects which are administered properly (eg. Restoring water quality at Hop Brook, Historic Resource Inventory Survey), while sending a message that other projects need to shape up and be accountable and follow the Financial Policies.