WHITMAN – An elderly woman unable to afford false teeth was on the minds of voters on both sides of the Proposition 2.5 override discussion at Town Meeting, on Monday, May 5.
In the end, the 191 registered voters, approved by a 148-66 margin, a one-year, $2 million override to fund town departments as well as the schools, in a consolidated budget – and, in part, to ensure programs and services senior citizens depend on continue, even as those on fixed incomes expressed their worry about affording the override.
Those who voted yes explained why that woman’s plight was as much on their minds as it was for those who voted no because they also lived on fixed incomes, or were allies of those with limited means. Others agreed with her.
“In the grand scheme of things, $2 million doesn’t sound like a lot,” said Ed Winnett of Raynor Avenue. “But I can tell you, when you go to the Council on Aging and you become a senior and you’re on a fixed income, that little amount makes a big difference.”
He recalled one woman at the override forum held there, who rose to say, “‘I have no teeth,’ and she showed us she has no teeth, because she can’t afford it,” he recalled, asking people to consider the lot of others. “Today you may not see it, but I guarantee you. When you hit that age, you’re going to feel the impact.”
School Committee member and former Finance Committee member, Rosemary Hill thanked Winett for his compassion for others and agreed the town should be careful of how money is spent, as she recalled the discussion at the override forum at the Council on Aging.
“What would be the impact if we don’t pass the override and we make these cuts?” she said. “It may not lead to the savings that you think. … Cutting the school budget could risk a financial spiral of sorts.”
She pointed to the $90,000 increase, to $1.5-plus million, that Whitman residents have to pay toward Charter School reimbursements – an increase not approved by our budget, but is a state requirement –which have increased 200 percent over the past seven years. State charter school aid the district receives is temporary, she said.
“[Local public schools at a cost of $18,000 per student] are the best value in education,” Hill said. “We are the most effective, most accountable and most connected to the community, and yet we’re being the ones being told to cut again. When we cut programs, families look elsewhere and every time a student leaves, we send more money out of district.”
The potential cost of cuts to other departments were also pointed out.
Retiree Rick Anderson, who also has 35 years’ experience in municipal finance, said the current crisis was predictable and, for the most part, preventable.
“We stood before you last year and said the override presented at that time was not the best patch forward,” he said of his role as FinCom chair at the 2024 Town Meeting. “More long-term projections and involvement from all town departments was needed to present a financial plan for the future.”
Town Meeting listened and agreed, he said, adding he has watched that collaboration and cooperation happening over the past eight months.
“We are at a time when we have to make the difficult decision to raise our levy capacity to maintain the basic services we all depend upon,” Anderson said, urging support of the override in the best interests of the town’s future.
Some voters asked what guarantee there was that the town would not return in the near future for more overrides or about specific tax impacts on their homes.
Select Board member Justin Evans said that, while projections show a potential gap of $400,000 to $500,000 in fiscal 2027, and “the following year would look a little bit worse,” the town is seeing some light at the end of the tunnel between retirement of the Plymouth County retirement assessment payoff ahead that would open up a lot o capacity in the general fund after 2030.
“It may be necessary for another override to close those 2028-29 years, but there is some light at the end of the tunnel and we’re getting some good news on some of the capital projects as well,” he said.
Finance Chair Kathleen Ottina said there were several compelling reasons why her committee recommended that plan as a way to instill trust with the voters, who would know what to expect from a yes vote and while they know what revenue will be for fiscal 2026, projections for 2027 and 2028 are just that.
Carter explained the $372.66 a year on the average home assessed at $496,000.
Another voter said that change – of about 77 cents per $1,000 of assessed value – would be used to help all town departments including the Council on Aging.
“It’s also going to help pay for the fire department with ambulances, so if you’re an older person, you want those things,” she said. “If you don’t have such a large, expensive home it’s not going to be as dramatic a change for you, but you still want t have those services [the Council on Aging and the police and the fire [departments] and the ambulances – its seems like that’s important for everyone.”
“It’s not just a school override,” said Marshall Ottina of Lazell Street. “Look at the impact across the board – we’re looking at fire shifts lost, police shifts lost, services lost at the Council on Aging, the library, veterans’ service officer – there’s something that impacts almost everyone in this room, probably multiple departments impact everyone in this room.”
Resident John Galvin, however, cautioned that without seeking a three-year override that was originally proposed, is “not sustainable.”
“I’m in favor of an override, but we need an override that gets the job done,” he said. “This one doesn’t.”
Budget worksheets with detailed breakdowns of each department’s budget were made available, but Town Moderator Michael Seele stressed that the meeting would be voting on the budget and it’s 35 line lines contained in the warrant itself. He also announced his intention to complete work on all 53 articles before adjourning the Town Meeting, and once again achieved that goal.
With the passage of the override article by a vote of 148-68, putting it before the voters at the Saturday, May 17 annual election, Town Administrator Mary Beth Carter moved to take articles 18 and 19 out of order, which allowed the transfer of $200,000 to Plymouth County Retirement [see below] and $140,000 to the town’s OPEB unfunded liability, which were directly related to budget lines in Article 2, to which they moved on, followed by the rest of the articles.
Had the override article failed, Carter said, she was ready to move to take non-financial articles 9 through 14 and 49 through 51 out of order for votes before moving to adjourn Town Meeting until June 11.
Ottina said the budget document was the result of a year of collaboration and communication among all town government parties, beginning last August, with discussions about the potential need for an override to bridge a deficit of just under $2 million spanning one year. The FinCom made that recommendation following an hour-long discussion on March 25.
“The reason for voting the more conservative, one-year override is we believed it maintained transparency and accountability with the Fiscal 2026 funding sources solidly in place, and would have a higher chance of being passed by the voters,” Ottina said.
After all those discussions and three public forums, there were still questions on the minds of some voters, while others voiced their opinions for or against it. But before that happened, former Selectman Brian Bezanson moved to use a secret paper ballot for the vote.
“There may be plenty of people here who may be for it or against it, but they feel intimidated and there are empty seats here, probably for that reason,” Bezanson said in making his motion. A standing counted vote yielded a vote of 134 to 80, against a secret ballot despite the fact that some who eventually voted in favor of the override, also voted against a secret ballot.
Town officials outlined the work ahead and thate they hoped to see during debate at the outset of the Town Meeting.
“For a lot of years … I couldn’t stand the Finance Committee,” Select Board Chair Dr. Carl Kowalski said, looking back on his years of service on both the School Committee and Select Board. “They always seemed to be in the way of how I thought the town should spend its money. The sea change this year, with this Finance Committee and with this Board of Selectmen, they worked together in concert to come up with a plan that we think is going to be the best for the town – or at least give the voters the opportunity to vote what they think is best for the town.
“That’s different,” he said. “It’s different. It’s a good feeling, to know there’s commonality there.”
Kowalski also noted that, through diligent work, the per-pupil budgeting at W-H had climbed from the bottom 10 percent among state school districts in per-pupil spending, to the bottom 20 percent.
He reminded the Town Meeting that a survey of residents as part of the work behind the Madden report on funding town departments sustainably ad determining which departments Whitman residents valued, three – including public schools, public safety and public works – scored high. This year, senior services may have joined them.
You’ll see that we are low, in terms of [our] tax rate, compared to surrounding towns, Kowalski said.
“Hope we keep that in mind,” he said, while reminding them that Whitman voters have always been generous when times were tough.
“This town does it when it has to,” he said. “And that’s the spirit I would like to end with today.”
Carter told the meeting that every vote they cast Monday, and at the ballot box on Saturday, May 17, will help to guide the town’s path forward.
She outlined the new policy for free cash the town is now using.
Besides its traditional use as a source of funding for capital improvements; 10 percent of free cash will now be allocated to the capital stabilization fund; 10 percent of the remaining balance will be allocated to the general stabilization fund to build town reserves; an annual minimum transfer from free cash of $200,000 to Article 2, line 35: Plymouth County Retirement Expense until that unfunded liability is paid in full (within five to seven years); and a minimum of $140,000 annually to Article 2, line 34: other Post-employment Benefits unfunded liability.
The 2025 warrant articles were taken in the order of – following Article 1 and prior year articles – Article 8, the override article, out of order.
“I encourage respectful discussion and active participation as we work together to ensure that Whitman remains a great place to live,” Carter said.
Whitman has 14,497 residents and 11,997 voters, with only 266 residents in attendance – about 2.2 percent – and only 1,771 residents voted in last year’s town election – about 14.75 percent.
“The major decisions we make as a town, both our annual Town Meeting and our annual Town Election are made by a relatively small number of voters,” Carter said, encouraging residents to vote May 17.

WHITMAN – Residents voiced their questions and concerns about the cost of a Proposition 2.5 override during an informational forum on Wednesday, April 16 in Town Hall Auditorium.
But there was a bit of good news toward the end the meeting, as School Committee and Whitman Middle School Building Committee Chair Beth Stafford announced that the Whitman Middle School building project is now on time – and $15 million under budget. The $135 million project now stands at $120 million.
“That was due a lot to the fact that when we were first getting estimates, it was during COVID, when prices were high, and when the bids came in … not too long ago, everything was under budget,” she said. “It doesn’t matter with the tariffs because this is a signed contract, and we do have contingency money still sitting in there.”
The state will take some of the $15 million because they are reimbursing the project, but it is still multi-million savings for the town.
The impact of the pending project, approved by voters last year, was among the looming project bills coming due over the next few years, which had concerned former Selectman Randy LaMattina.
After criticizing the current Select Board, LaMattina, the former chair of the Budget Override Evaluation Committee that worked with consultant John Madden in 2019, raised the issue of other debts coming due in the next few years.
“The friction of just putting numbers up – of ‘it might be 8 [public safety jobs lost]’ – I don’t think anybody, unless you’ve been in my position, knows the tension and the friction,” LaMattina, a former firefighter said. “These are people that, when we’re three weeks away from Town Meeting [don’t know if their job is on the line].”
He opposes the override because, “It doesn’t fix it.” LaMattina pointed to this year’s $2 million override, saying it will take another $2 million override in fiscal 2027 and another $1 million override in fiscal 2028.
“The plan should have been to fix it,” he said, arguing that at the last joint Select Board/FinCom meeting both public safety chiefs and the superintendent of schools all left the meeting thinking a three-year override was the way the override would go.
“And then a recommending body unanimously votes that they only want a one-year override,” he said. “It seems like they’re now setting policy and that’s not the way it should be. You were elected to be leaders of the town, not make the decisions, but lead in the right direction.”
Down to numbers
Town Administrator Mary Beth Carter, responding to firefighters’ questions about specific potential layoff numbers, said one position will likely be cut, with another to be reduced in hours. For the Police Department, one full-time position and one reduction may be needed there, if the override fails. Two, possibly three positions could be cut at the DPW, she said.
She said she would be giving department heads leeway to make cuts they need to in the best interests of their departments.
Carter also said the debt has been bonded on the DPW project, with the first year of that debt was already figured into the taxes for fiscal 2025. The tax impact for debt exclusion items – the police station, the new DPW building, the high school and the debt on the new WMS building – the difference in fiscal 2025 the difference for the average home valued at $495,736.78 [based on fiscal 2025 valuations] would see an increase of $248.12 without the override. From fiscal 2026-27 the increase without an override would be about $14.25 for the debt exclusions and from 2027-28 it would be an additional $20.17.
The override would cost $372.66 more for that $495,736.78-valued home. Full tax impact information is available on the town website.
“What’s not in these numbers is the remainder of the WMS project, so they’re going out for $30 million, but there will still be $40 million left to bond,” she said. The town will put forward a debt exclusion next year.”
The police station will be rolling off the debt exclusion impact in fiscal 2027. The real debt for the new South Shore Tech building won’t hit until fiscal 2029.
The Select Board in Whitman recently voted to raise the levy limit by $2 million over one year to address the deficit for the coming year only, with the tax impact on an average single-family home valued at $495,736.78 increasing by $375.64 per year, or $31.30 per month. A full breakdown of the impact at various levels of home values as well as comparisons to tax rates in surrounding communities is available on the town’s website Whitman-ma.gov.
“When the Select Board is proposing an override, that doesn’t mean that we’re selling an override,” Kain said. We’re presenting an override for the services that are needed and then it’s up to you to decide whether you do want to support the override or not”
Fiscal history
Select Board Clerk Justin Evans opened the April 16 meeting, introducing town and School Department official attending.
A second public forum will be held Thursday, May 1 at the Whitman Library and Hanson officials planned another session for Wednesday, April 30, after both towns held special morning sessions for seniors at their respective senior centers.
Representatives from select boards and finance committees were joined by either Superintendent of Schools Jeff Szymaniak or a member or two of the School Committee as well as town department heads to explain the possible outcomes for both town services and public education in the event of a failed Proposition 2.5 override at each forum.
Article 2 on the Monday, May 5 Town Meeting warrant is being presented as “entirely a contingent budget” in Whitman, Evans said.
One of the funding sources for Article 2 will say “raise and appropriate contingent on a Prop 2.5 vote.” If Town Meeting votes yes on contingency Article 2, the plan is to adjourn the budget and wait for the ballot results. If Town Meeting votes no, Evans said, the plan would be to adjourn to a future date after the ballot vote, to it’s clear whether the town has that money to spend.
If Article 2 is passed at Town Meeting, but rejected at the ballot box, then the entire Article 2 is rejected, meaning a new budget process would have to start from the beginning.
The School District would have 30 days to reassess the towns and the Select Board would have 45 days to call another Town Meeting to vote on that reassessment.
“For me, the big take-away here is, we won’t be voting on a contingency budget at Town Meeting,” Select Board member Shawn Kain said. “We’ll be voting on the override at Town Meeting.”
A failed override would mean job losses, both for both the town and the School District. Because Whitman’s share is about 60 percent of the schools’ budget, that increases the number of positions lost to 24 – including 14 teachers, at least two administrators and eight paraprofessionals as the school budget would have to be cut by $2 million, Evans explained. The town of Whitman stands to lose six public safety and DPW employees and the general government side will face the loss of eight employees as well as the reduction of hours and services at some departments.
“There’s a lot of things we would have to sort out if it comes to this [town department staffing reduction] process,” Evans said. “There’s a lot of different things at play here.”
Fee increases would be expected in the areas of indirect charges such as senior discounts, for trash removal and license fees from the town and sports and extracurricular activities fees in the schools.
No contingency
budget
“It should be noted, as well, that this is a theoretical exercise,” Kain said. “The School
Committee has not agreed to a contingency budget. The School Committee sets its assessment. Right now, the assessment that they’ve given us is the one that we’re calculating for the override, but they have not gone through the exercise of, ‘If the override fails, this is what we would do.”
While the proposed cuts may shock some voters, the Select Board is not trying to shock voters into supporting an override, Kain told those attending the forum.
“We opted not to do that,” he said. “The principle that’s primarily driving our contingency is that it will have the least impact possible. … It’ll still be felt for sure. It pains me significantly to see all these people up there [on the chart], and they are people – jobs and future and hopes in the town of Whitman – it’s terrible. And it’s terrible to have to make these decisions … but the principle that is driving our decision-making process is to have the least impact possible – not to create shock value.”
LaMattina noted the budget committee that worked with Madden began in early summer of 2019, with all meetings televised.
“A couple of things have been severely misrepresented,” he said indicating he referred to Kain and Evans in their presentation.
“The purpose of the Madden Report in 2019 was to look into one thing – would the town need an override for the next fiscal year?” he said. “What was determined was that the town did not need an override for that fiscal year.”
But Madden did say that, without following specific practices, that within five years the town would need one. But he indicated one major factor in Madden’s report was not even mentioned April 16 – Madden’s findings would significantly change if the assessment method used by the school district changed in Whitman’s favor.
What is driving the structural deficit facing Whitman?
A combination of things: Inflation and supply chains, the labor market fixed costs such as insurance and liability, utility costs and unfunded mandates involving special education, school transportation and the police reform law, Evans said.
Revenue pressures include the Prop 2.5 limit, insurance and pension liability increases, stagnant new growth and utilities.
“[Prop] 2.5 increases don’t cover that,” Evans said. “We are eating out of our expenses and salary lines to pay for things that we have to pay.”
Evans presented a slide presentation outlining the timeline of the current fiscal situation.
In 2021 the town adopted a five-year strategic plan intended to provide responsible, sustainable services by “fostering strong community relationships for citizens, future citizens and visitors.”
“That framework is why we are here tonight – to try to explain the decision that is coming before voters in the next couple of weeks,” Evans said.
Shawn Kain said the services currently provided to the town is where the override comes into play.
“Do we want to keep the services that we currently provide and that our citizens expect?” he asked. “If the answer to that question is yes, then the override becomes necessary, because the override is going to give us feedback as to whether those services are still needed and expected by the town, or not – and there’s been some debate about this recently.”
Strategic planning
The strategic plan and priority to provide the services, he said, when the budget is being calculated and they can’t provide those services without a deficit, that’s when the override becomes a question and it’s presented to the voters to decide.
The process to raise the levy limit is to seek a Prop. 2.5 override, but the money must still be appropriated at Town Meeting, included in the tax recap submitted to the state and accounted for when the select board sets the tax rate in the fall, Evans explained.
Whitman’s first 12 attempts at overrides were “rejected throughout,” Evans said. Only two have been passed – in 2012 to fund the school budget and 2017 to increase the Fire Department roster by adding three new firefighter/paramedics, increasing staffing to six firefighters per shift.
The town’s current fiscal situation is due to expenditures exceeding revenues, which resulted in a structural deficit, town officials said.
“Starting back in the fall, we projected a deficit of about $2 million.” Evans said. Last year’s $509,000 structural deficit was filled by a Town Meeting vote to use free cash to fund that deficit, “which actually set us a little bit behind this year because we now have to make up that additional one-time money that was used last year built into the deficit this year,” he added, noting that, over time, expenditures were kept close to revenue.
“Although the tax levy makes up the bulk of how we fund operations here in town, it’s also the only one that’s been growing consistently,” Evans said.
“That was a great, impassioned speech of not using one-time money,” LaMattina later said to Kain, noting that “It would have been great to hear is last year at Town Meeting, when the Select Board was steamrolled by a recommending body. That’s what the Finance Committee is.”
Some recent adjustments have been made in how the town assesses things like the ambulance fund, now treated as a local receipt, but state aid has been relatively flat over the last 22 years. A graph he spoke of that tracked local receipts, however, did not include Chapter 70 funds going to Whitman-Hanson Regional School District or the Chapter 74 funds received by South Shore Tech.
“Our revenues have been covering our expenses,” he said. “But it’s been all on the tax levy.”
Former Duxbury Finance Director John Madden was hired by Whitman as a consultant in 2019 to conduct an evaluation of what Whitman’s expenses and revenues would look like.
“The bottom line for his report was that, with no changes the town would need a $1 million override back in fiscal 2021 that would increase to a $5 million projected deficit in 2025,” he said. The town, making the changes Madden had recommended plus additional changes that we continued to develop as officials looked at best practices at other communities had, did not seek overrides for either amount.
LaMattina noted the budget committee that worked with Madden began in early summer of 2019, with all meetings televised.
“A couple of things have been severely misrepresented,” he said indicating he referred to Kain and Evans in their presentation.
“The purpose of the Madden Report in 2019 was to look into one thing – would the town need an override for the next fiscal year?” he said. “What was determined was that the town did not need an override for that fiscal year.”
But Madden did say that, without following specific practices, that within five years the town would need one. But he indicated one major factor in Madden’s report was not even mentioned April 16 – Madden’s findings would significantly change if the assessment method used by the school district changed in Whitman’s favor.
“That was a $1.9 million uptick to Whitman,” when the schools assessment formula was changed to the statutory method,” he said, adding that the shift in the assessment formula Whitman received significantly changed its five-year path. The recommendations also provided the Select Board with a basic guideline on fiscal policies that, had they adopted would produce a more sustainable budget.
On the plus side of the budget ledger, the shift to the statutory method of calculating school assessments saved Whitman $1.9 million. There has also been a change in the way the cost of non-mandated school busing for students living within 1.5 miles of a Whitman school from a miles-based to per-pupil formula to maximize state reimbursement, reducing the town’s cost by about $180,000 this year.
The first recreational cannabis dispensary also received its provisional license in January and expect to open “any time within the next couple of months, when they get final approval from the Cannabis Control Commission,” Evans said. The town will receive community impact fees from the business.
Trying to avoid it
“We’ve been doing a lot to prevent an override,” Kain said about how closely the town has followed Madden’s recommendations. “We’ve been going out of our way and really digging into some of these [Madden Report] initiatives to really find a way to make sure that we can get by without bringing an override to the town, and I think we’ve done a really good job. Some things that were beyond our control, like COVID, obviously threw some [costs] into the mix that we didn’t expect … but we did follow a lot of the recommendations, and we have been able to hold off an override until we got to this point.”
Finance Committee Chair Kathleen Ottina said last year’s Town Meeting vote on three budget options was confusing.
“We didn’t want another confusing fiscal year,” she said. “It’s going to be a tough enough sell, in terms of the budget to explain things to people. We didn’t need the Finance Committee and the Select Board at odds.”
A budget group of Ottina, Kain and Town Administrator Mary Beth Carter began meeting as a budget working group to discuss their different perspectives on the budget since August 2024.
“These were not closed-door, behind the scenes deals,” she said, and noted that she and Kain were often 180 degrees apart on some things. “But we respected each other, we listened to each other.”
The Finance Committee itself has met 15 times, virtually every Tuesday night, since Nov. 19 with all the budget department heads to present their budget proposals. The FinCom took notes to calculate the reasons for increases, then met in join session with the Select Board in February and March. They sent 25 specific questions to Carter on the town budget and 35 such questions to the School Committee for detailed answers.
“We’re going into Town Meeting, having had time as a committee to review Article 2, to understand why the increases were requested, and we supported them.”
All capital requests will be able to be funded by free cash, this year. Ottina added.
Where it will hurt
Szymaniak thanked the Finance Committee and Select Board for putting together joint meetings where he was invited to “actually sit at the table” and see what has transpired.
“This budget that we presented, I think, gives our students the best opportunity to be successful,” he said. “Is it more expensive than last year? Absolutely. … Things are more expensive this year – costs are up.”
And state reimbursements for special education, transporting special needs student referred to out-of-district placements, to name a few.
Police Chief Timothy Hanlon said his department is not currently fully funded, as far as services go, so that every year they have to decide which services the department will be able not fill.
“The problem is, everyone is vying for a piece of the pie here, as far as loss of personnel should the override fail.”
He said that, depending on the nature of the situation. Every officer who goes out short-handed is not able to fully able to do their job on any given day, and when extra people have to be called in to manage any emergency situation the costs are incredible and drive up the budget. When that happens the department sometimes has to come back looking for extra money.
“Last year, it was $90,000,” Hanlon said.
Sending new officers to the academy is not an annual request, but in coming years it will be more common, driving up police department costs.
“This has been very concerning this year,” Fire Chief Timothy Clancy said. “The members of Whitman Fire have a long history of protecting the citizens of this community.”
There have been two fires in the last couple of weeks – one of which was the home of the parents of one of the firefighters working that shift.
“I don’t think there’s anything worse than responding to something at one of your family members’ house for a fire or medical emergency,” he said. In both cases, one of the department’s ambulances was on duty at the hospital, decreasing availability to four firefighters to respond to a house fire.
“We were fortunate that those ambulances were able to clear and respond, and the members did an outstanding job, acting with professionalism and minimized damage to the homes,” Clancy said. He also said members of his department routinely respond while off duty.
“We do not know the numbers yet,” he said. “We’ve heard a few different numbers of what we’ll reduce our staffing by.” That will not only reduce the number calls will cost ambulance response and, revenue. Loss of the firefighter positions added by the 2017 override will also take the department back to an antiquated response capability that dates back to the 1970s.
“There is no fluff in the fire department budget,” he said.
The DPW is also concerned about a loss of manpower due to budget cuts after having seen staff cuts in the past few years, and hiring those new people was not easy in the current job market.