The School Committee has voted in favor of a new schedule of sports user fees at Whitman-Hanson Regional High School.
“We still don’t have a budget,” said Superintendent of Schools Jeff Szymaniak, filling in for Athletic Director Bob Rodgers who was away in Las Vegas at a poker tournament that had long been planned, to speak for the Athletics Department.
“I told him, if he wins, he’s going to solve our problems today,” he said.
Szymaniak and Rodgers had been in close contact on the issue all week, and Rodgers had drafted a proposal that is outdated already.
“[That’s] because we worked on a new proposal … to lower that fee structure” between Monday, June 16 and the School Committee meeting on Wednesday, June 18. “It’s higher than it was, but more amenable, I think, in a bad situation.”
To balance the budget, Szymaniak encouraged the School Committee to approve the proposal he and Rodgers drafted that increases sports user fees for this year, with the plea made by Rodgers in a phone call that morning – “if the budget looks better, we want to reduce those fees.”
“I hope,” Symaniak had replied, knowing there are more retirements scheduled for next year, “and, if we can get ahead of the game, we will.”
Hanson’s special Town Meeting was slated for 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, June 25 in the Dr. John F. McEwan Performing Arts Center at WHRHS.
“It’s imperative. Imperative, imperative that we get a quorum and hopefully pass a budget, so [Business Services Manager Stephen Marshall] doesn’t have to fill out umpteen documents for the state before July 1,” Szymaniak said.
“The user fee proposal, although not great, is different from the $500,” he said.
When we were looking at $500 and still reducing the athletics budget by $250,000 … but through some fund-raising and what Mr. Rodgers thinks we can do, based on students, I’m looking at a $375 first sport, $250 for a second and $100 for a third, with a family cap of $1,200.”
Fees are not delineated based on how much or whether they are a money-maker for the school, Szymakiak said.
“That’s not something we’ve done since user fees were enacted, except for the sports that are more expensive – which is hockey,” he said.
Ice hockey will go from $200 to $400 for varsity players only and the “outrageous cost of ice time right now might even still minimize the amount of ice time they can purchase,” Szymaniak said. “That [fee structure] should get him close to that $250,000 without cutting any sports. We won’t really know that until [Athletics First Night] and we can get some enrollment numbers.”
If a certain enrollment in sports is not reached by then, it is up to Rodgers to figure out how the district is going to run certain sport – similar to the way some sports were eliminated from the budget in 2008.
“We don’t want to do that,” Szymaniak said. “I think sports are invaluable. Everything extra curricular in our district is invaluable for our students that don’t love academics – that don’t love coming to school. … We want to minimize the cost, but there has to be an impact felt district-wide due to the lack of an override and the fact that, right now, we’re looking at a $1.75 million deficit from the proposed budget.”
But, Szymaniak warned, if the district goes on a 1/12 budget, all sports are of the table for September.
“I can’t have a football team when I’m going to RIF another 24 teachers,” he said. “I’ve heard, and I’m sure members around this table have heard, ‘You’ll just figure it out anyway, There won’t be any real cuts.’ This is real. $1.7 million is real. Last year was $1 million. We got by – by using some free cash and some different things, but we got by. This year, I can’t get by.”
“I hate this,” said member Glen DiGravio. “This stinks, it absolutely stinks, but it’s the position we’re in. … but, it’s like Hillary said, if we’re going to be the bad guy and do this, we have to be the bad guy the whole way through, because there has to be consequences to pay.”
He said that, if kids think they can get away without paying, no one is going to pay. But he also argued for hardship provisions as well as more fundraising avenues, such as an always open dedicated GoFundMe account.
“As bad as this is, I do think there are ways to get through this,” DiGravio said, adding he was willing to donate right away.
Member Stephanie Blackman also had some suggestions, such as intramural rather than freshman sports, and allowing sponsorships of teams.
Rodgers also wants to establish his own kind of scholarship program for students who can’t afford to pay a user fee or can’t work out a way to work it off. There also some residents who have donated money in the past toward the scoreboard or other needs.
Vice Chair Hillary Kniffen said the district should require that scholarship funds be deposited in an interest-bearing account with students only provided with partial scholarships.
“You’re going to wipe out that scholarship fund,” she said if scholarships paid user fees in full. She also said a payment plan has to be signed off on before a student goes out for a sport.
She also suggested a fee structure that takes into account that sports like football are more expensive than those like cross-country. Szymaniak pointed out that football also brings in revenue for the school and the fee structure takes that into account.
Jennifer Roback, 879 Bedford St., Whitman, speaking during the public forum about sports user fees.
“I’m deeply concerned about the recent cuts approved at Town Meeting,” she said. “While I understand the town has spoken, I continue to struggle over the way education is weighed against other departments in this town. Education is not simply another line on the balance sheet, it is the foundation of our children’s future.”
Highly qualified teachers, not software or other “minute-fillers” are decisions of long-term consequences, not short-term inconveniences she said, noting that she is the parent of a special education student as well as one enrolled in the high school’s Pathways Program and a third in elementary school.
“I understand that we all rely on vital services like emergency response and public safety, but cuts to education affect far more than the moment in time that may affect an entire generation of students,” she said, also expressing dismay that $500 user fees per activity are being considered, arguing that such a move puts undue pressure on working families.
“For many students, [sports] are a pathway to scholarships and college opportunities,” she said.
“What’s more troubling is this fee applies only to students attending our district,” Roback said. “While those who attend [South Shore Tech] or the [vocational-agricultural schools] are not asked to make comparable fees. Why is that?” She charged that it not only inequitable, it’s unfair and advocated renegotiating regional agreements with vocational schools is necessary to make sure W-H students “are not placed at a disadvantage simply for staying in our own schools.”
“We risk creating a system, where only families with the means, can afford to let their children thrive,” Roback said.
Asked this week about student fees at South Shore Tech, Superintendent-Director Dr. Thomas J. Hickey said his students already pay for uniforms for classes, exploratory shops and their ultimate shop choice, as well as work boots and some tools – the cost of which is why some unions or employers award tool scholarships to seniors joining their ranks or workplace.
Sports user fees are also under study at SST, “possibly as a proposal in our fiscal ’27 budget, in part because we’ll be entering a time period that we’re going to have increased costs because we’re going to lose access to all of our playing fields [as the new building is constructed],” Hickey said. “We’re going to have to do more off-campus, away travel.”
While it is not a done deal, Hickey said it is something he is looking into. With more towns joining the SST region, it also helps decrease assessments to Whitman and Hanson as their SST enrollment drops a bit – but more towns could also mean more sports participation as the school will be faced with stretching dollars.
“It’s probably going to mean we’re going to need some sort of fee structure to be able to add more programming, or other needs.” he said. “We’ve had costs that are just part of being a vocational student, but now we may need to keep that structure and possibly have a sports fee structure, as well.”
Whitman Finance Committee Chair Kathleen Ottina also spoke during the public forum, thanking them for the difficult work they did in helping come up with a balanced budget for the towns.
“Having grandchildren in the system, I am devastated by the cuts in the classroom, especially the interventionists who have been eliminated,” Ottina said. “I’m also concerned about the user fees, but I want to acknowledge the hard decision that you folks made, whether you voted for or against the budget cuts.”

WHITMAN –The budget is balanced, but the town’s free cash account is a little worse for wear [see related story] after Whitman’s special Town Meeting on Wednesday, June 11. Hanson takes its turn at settling the school budget next – the town budget was already approved, both with and without an override at the May 5 Town Meeting.
Hanson has set its special Town Meeting on the school district assessment for 6:30 p.m., Wednesday, June 25 at Whitman-Hanson Regional High School. The location had to be changed because the Hanson Middle School auditorium has been booked for a dance recital that evening.
Whitman’s special Town Meeting began its business June 11 with 117 voters. A quorum of 100 was required.
Select Board and budget working group member Shawn Kain updated Town Meeting on a discussion held during a meeting of the board before Town Meeting convened.
“I’m unhappy with the way public safety kind of landed with this budget,” he said. “To address that – to try to take the edge off the cuts to both police and fire [as] they are part of our strategic plan, listed as a priority to the town, it was obvious after article 2 came out that we crossed a threshold that they were not comfortable with, for that reason, this was the proposal that we discussed and then voted on.”
Kain noted that, right now, the ambulance account takes in a “healthy amount of money.”
“If we decrease ambulance runs, staffing, then we’ll obviously take in less revenue, which would be foolish,” he said.
Instead, the Select Board is voted to use $150,000 from ambulance revenue toward staffing for both police and fire departments, while working with the Police Department to look at other ways to add to the shifts where they are currently lacking.
“I don’t want to bend the rules of finance, obviously, in a way that’s going to put us in a difficult situation, but this seems to be an obvious solution that’s a compromise, but also in the best interests of public safety, our priorities and financially,” he said.
Fire Chief Timothy Clancy explained that losing two firefighter/EMTs – whether temporarily or permanently – would reduce the second ambulance availability to about half the time. He estimates the department’s ambulances could bring in $1.4 million this year.
“You could see a revenue cut of $700,000 if we only ran one ambulance,” he said. “They came up with a solution of $75,000 to police and fire … there’ll be another revenue source that could possibly of making us whole in another special fall meeting.”
He argued for the second ambulance by reminding the voters of how many lives they save, “and shame on me for not publicizing ig enough.”
“I will tell you, not only as the speaker of this, but they have saved me once and I’ll be forever indebted for that,” he said.
To cut the two positions would not only decrease revenue, but would also increase the department’s reliancce on mutual aid, increasing the wait time in a medical emergencies due to the reliance on mutual aid for many communities in the area.
“It seems like I was just here yesterday, speaking to the same group of people,” said Select Board Chair Dr. Carl Kowalski. “We had a very interesting Town Meeting in which we agreed to fund our departments to the best of our ability by the use of an override. Unfortunately, that override was soundly defeated at the polls, so we’ve had to do some work between that Town Meeting and this special Town Meeting.”
Kowalski said the Finance Committee, Select Board and schools are now “in a position where they all agree on what we need to do tonight.”
“That’s not something that always happens around here,” he said. ”I have to give particular credit to the Superintendent of Schools, Jeff Szymaniak, who’s done something that isn’t done very often also, and that is to agree that the assessment to the town can be lowered some, to make this year one that we can get through, even though it’s going to be difficult.”
Once again, alluding to his days as a student reading the “Wizard of Oz,” as a text to how one handles change and – in particular, Dorothy’s friends who couldn’t feel or couldn’t think or they couldn’t act with any kind of courage, but ultimately learned they had thosee qualities within them all along.
Voters at the Town Meeting of a few weeks ago, remembered a motto, “Use your head and follow your heart, and act with courage,” he said, adding that this Town Meeting would do the same.
“Whitman always does that, and I hope they do it tonight,” Kowalski concluded.
As Town Meeting convened to complete the business of voting the Article 2 budget for fiscal 2026, Town Administrator Mary Beth Carter reminded voters that since that at May 5 Town Meeting, the town faced a $2 million deficit. Since the override failed, she noted that the town has been faced with making several difficult budget reductions.
Carter also thanked Szymaniak, and the School Committee for voting the week before, to certify the reduced operating assessment suggested by the town in the amount of $19,917,569. to lower the assessment by $1,664,730.35 for Whitman to an assessment of $19,917,568.65 – or the 4.086 percentage – and lowering Hanson’s amount by $677,333.92 to $15,775,031.08 – or 5.344. The district budget will now be $64,564,205.55 – or a 2.596 percent increase over last year, and we will need to reduce by $1,742,070.64.
“This reduced assessment, certified by the W-H Regional School Committee, equates to a 4.09 percent increase over last years’ operating assessment to the town,” she said, also thanking other town officials, department heads and members of the budget for their cooperation in presenting a balanced budget to Town Meeting.
“Every budget reduction that was made, was done only after careful consideration and analysis,” Carter said. “After department expense lines were reviewed for possible reductions, we then looked at those positions that had increased from part time to full time in the past several years ro determine which positions could revert to part-time status.”
Salary reductions made were: see list from last week
Whitman now has one administrative position in the assessor’s office unfilled – in a three-person office. In the three-person Town Clerk’s office one position has not been funded. The Police Department budget was cut and two officers’ positions plus another $90,000 or so as currently not funded. Two firefighter positions were not funded and the building inspector was informed that day that his full-time job would now be a part-time job. The DPW was another department where two positions were not funded. The Health Department administrative assistant’s hours were reduced, another part-time clerical position at the Council on Aging was not funded. The Veterans’ Service offcer was also reduced to part time.
By the time the nearly two and half hour meeting was over, however the building inspector position was returned to full-time in the budget as was the Veterans’ officer, based on the assertion that a part-time VSO is a violation of state law.a
“What is being presented this a balannced fiscal 2026 Article 2 budget,” Carter said, noting that both the Select Board and the Finance Committee recommended passage of the article. “I urge you to vote the Article 2 budget as presented this evening.”
Finance Chair Kathleen Ottina $2,053,431 had to be cut from the budget in the wake of the May 17 landslide defeat of the $2 million override sought to fund both town and school budget deficits.
“We had 25 days to develop a new budget,” she said, noting the defeated budget had taken months of work.
While the town cannot impose a cuts on the W-H school district, she said the Finance Committee proceded with a 48-52 percent split on deficit disribution, hoping the School committee would reduce the assessment to the town by just over $1 million, while the town’s share was just under $1 million. She, too, lauded Szymaniak and the School Committee for the “very difficult decision they made” to cooperate with the town’s recommendation.
“You didn’y have to, but we’re between a rock and a hard place and there weren’t any easy choices,” Ottina said.
To pay the $988,665 town deficit, free cash was used to pay its OPEB oblihgations and donation to the Plymouth County Retirement expense. That left $648,000 to cut from the remainder of the town’s line itemsi n Article 2.
Carter and department heads then worked to producea budget that maintains services the residents expect, while minimizing the number of employees who would lose their jobs.

A sometimes heated discussion over how and how much to fund the regional school budget in the wake of failed overrides roiled the School Committee meeting on Wednesday, June 5 – until Superintendent of Schools Jeff Szymaniak recognized Whitman Town Administrator Mary Beth Carter.
“Today was a bad day, but tonight was a bad night here, and it’s difficult for all of us,” Carter said, listing some of the news she had to pass along already, to town employees.
Whitman now has one administrative position in the assessor’s office unfilled – in a three-person office. In the three-person Town Clerk’s office one position has not been funded. The Police Department budget was cut and two officers’ positions plus another $90,000 or so as currently not funded. Two firefighter positions were not funded and the building inspector was informed that day that his full-time job would now be a part-time job. He rejected the cut in hours and began looking for another job and said, “Good luck finding a part-time building inspector,” he told her. “He’s out as of July 1.”
The DPW was another department where two positions were not funded. The Health Department administrative assistant’s hours were reduced, another part-time clerical position at the Council on Aging was not funded.
“Veteran’s service director – I had to contact him at a conference away for the week – he just started with us, doing an excellent job, we just hired recently, I had to call him and tell him I was cutting his hours back as well,” she said. One part-time library technician position will not be funded and she “zeroed out” expenses and salaries for the park and pool, which means the entire Recreation Department is one person. While the director Kathleen Woodward’s salary has been kept, she now going to try funding the pool program with the revolving fund, but will have to cut back or cancel the Fourth of July events and the Easter events, but has already collected money toward six weeks of the summer program, so she’s going to try to manage that with most of the budget cut.
Before opening to the assessment discussion, Szymaniak had noted that it would focus on Town Meeting and election results, and information that had since been relayed to him from both communities and added he had a recommendation for the committee.
“My recommendation for the committee tonight is to lower the assessment by $1,664,730.35 for Whitman to an assessment of $19,917,568.65 – or the 4.086 percentage – and lowering Hanson’s amount by $677,333.92 to $15,775,031.08 – or 5.344. The district budget will now be $64,564,205.55 – or a 2.596 percent increase over last year, and we will need to reduce by $1,742,070.64.”
The board ultimately voted to support the recommendation, 8 to 1, with Hill abstaining.
Carter urged the Committee to support Szymaniak’s recommendation.
“Before I made any of these cuts, I had already gone through the budget,” Carter said. “I had already gone line by line and cut all the other lines to a bare minimum. When I say there is nowhere else to cut and that these will be felt by all – it’s terrible. This is drastic and anything more is going to decimate the town.”
Select Board member Justin Evans agreed, noting that, with anything less than Szymaniak’s recommendation, he said, he sees a hard time passing a budget.
Hanson Select Board Chair Laura FitzGerald Kemmett, while speaking for herself, said her intention is to set a special Town Meeting before the end of the fiscal year, so the district does not end up under a 1/12 budget.
“This is a financial failure on the town’s level, and to keep accepting it is unconscionable,” School Committee member Rosemary Hill protested. “You cannot do this and say that you’re for teachers or education.”
The School Committee was supplied with a list of 23 positions being cut district-wide.
“I did not name names,” Szymaniak said. “I put buildings to those folks, totaling a reduction in force of three people. We’ve done a nice job of trying to do what’s best to eliminate unemployment.”
Thirteen staff members will be transferred to positions now open because of resignations, retirements and non-renewals or that are currently being filled by long-term substitutes. Positions still open for the 2025-26 school year that need to be filled are an ASD program teacher, a PACES program teacher, multiple inclusion teachers, a school psychologist for a year, an occupational therapy, a speech therapy, chemistry, math and English teachers.
Chair Beth Stafford said that is a point that is often confusing to people – 23 positions does not necessarily mean 23 people. She pointed to the Superintendent’s explanation, but she added, the positions being cut were ones the district added after COVID to help students achieve.
“It really is, to me, disheartening to see that we’re losing our interventionists and some of the position teachers,” she said. Library aides being cut at the two middle schools was also had because they hadn’t had a librarian for years. The WIN (What I Need) program, too, has been successful at the high school has also helped improve grades.
Member Stephanie Blackman noted that cuts to interventionists will also mean more work for teachers, which she doesn’t see as fair.
“I understand the thought process behind every cut on this piece of paper,” Committee member Christopher Marks said. “I hate every single one of them. … But I also understand that that there’s some level of compromise that’s going to have to happen at some point.”
“There is no good solution here, no matter what,” member Glen DiGravio said.
Kniffen said she is opposed to cutting curriculum and they will have to look elsewhere to cut that $400,000. She also recommended holding to the minimum local contribution the state requires from the towns.
The initial proposed operating assessment to Hanson was a 9.87-percent increase, and for Whitman, 9.65-percent increase. Hanson’s minimum local contribution to the state for fiscal 2026 is 7.5 percent, so W-H’s additional assessment is really about 2 percent, according to Kniffen. Whitman’s increased by 7.1 percent.
“This is not a proposal that’s going to make anybody happy, but I don’t understand how we as a School Committee can propose a budget increase that is less than what the state is telling the towns they minimally need to pay,” she said. “I think that 7 percent number … the state is saying, ‘You must minimally pay this percentage more from what you paid last year,’ then I think that those are numbers we should go with. I think that that’s fair, I think that is not us – the School Committee – but it is going to be turned around to be us, the School Committee … But it’s so important to have the facts out there and these are the facts.”
Because W-H is a hold-harmless district, it’s minimum local contribution thresholds will continue to increase, Kniffen reminded the Committee. But her bigger concern was saving curriculum.
“We cannot cut curriculum that we literally just got,” she said. “Curriculum doesn’t make great teachers, but it makes sure everyone in the third grade [for example] is on the right track and we’re pacing at the same rate.”
Curriculum cuts are also in the works – especially at the elementary grades where the district has lacked programs linked to middle schools for 20 years. They may have to look toward state “free curriculum” which carry a cost for training faculty, so it is not really free.
“I believe we put forth a budget to both communities, we asked the communities to vote on that budget, and they told us where they were at,” Szymaniak said. “I don’t believe that we have a sound educational budget. This reduction takes away a lot of what my administration has done since 2018, but it’s the number I think we need to work with tonight. I fear a 1/12 in the month of July and the month of August and school will be drastically different in September, if we’re still on a 1/12.”
Business Manager Stephen Marshall then calculated two different assessment changes, using Whitman’s numbers and saving curriculum would bring the budget increase to 3 percent variation on a level-service budget, or a 6-percent increase for Hanson ($578,554.23 more) and a 4.89-percent assessment for Whitman ($909,465.23 more) for a level-service budget of $64,488,020.84.
Using Kniffen’s suggestion of basing the town’s increases as in addition to the minimum local contribution thresholds, Hanson would see about a 7-percent increase ($427,252.32 more) and Whitman’s would be an 8.1-percent increase ($671,624.19 more) in a total budget increase of 3.618 percent for a budget of $65,207,398.
Szymaniak said a benchmark of a 3 percent overall annual budget increase has been a district goal for several years.
“Can we vote on that right now,” DiGravio asked, and made a motion to do so for the 3.618-percent increase ($65,207,398) based on Kniffen’s suggestion. He later changed his mind and backed Szymaniak’s recommendation.
“Whitman Select Board member Shawn Kain, a member of the town’s budget working group, agreed the budget confronting the district makes for a difficult conversation.
“Hearing some of the cuts that are going to occur is terrible … terrible, terrible. Over the last 15 years, following the budget pretty closely, this is not good news,” he said. “I think the tension I’m feeling, though, is we could have the same conversation about the police and fire department, or the [other] departments in town and it would be as heart-breaking.”
While the School Committee is confronting a budget that continues to be educationally unsound, Kain noted that Whitman has flaws in public safety that the town must deal with now.
“It’s not something I could support, and I don’t say that lightly,” he said, noting that, if Whitman had to reduce the town budget by $600,000 in addition to what they’re cutting now that the override failed, would be devastating. Right now, $800,000 of the $900,000 Whitman has raised in new revenue is going to the schools.
“We’d have to lay off more people that I couldn’t really justify,” Kain said. “It’s terrible, but that’s the situation we’re in,” Kain said.
The district provided its initial budget, maintaining level services, although not educationally sound, in February, he said of the budget timeline. The School Committee then approved a level-service budget and sent an assessment to each community to support that budget. Both towns had communicated early that they could not support the assessment as presented without the support of a Proposition 2.5 override.
School district administrators and School Committee members were invited to meetings with the select boards and finance committees in both towns. Whitman passed its budget at their May 3 Town Meeting on the contingency of an approved override. Hanson passed its budget Article 4 the same day, however the school budget line was not the figure voted by the School Committee. They passed Article 5, containing the correct assessment number, which was contingent on an override.
Informational meetings about the override were held in both towns to which school officials and committee members were invited. Taxpayers voted on the override in the town elections May 17, overwhelmingly voting against an override.
Whitman is holding a special Town Meeting at 6 p.m., Wednesday, June 11 to see if voters will approve a new article 2, and are waiting to see if the School Committee votes to send the same assessment or to reassess.
Hanson, to date, has not set a new Town Meeting because they have an approved budget in Article 4 from May 5, but the School Committee must approve it since that was not the assessment provided to the town. Hanson’s Select Board planned to take up the assessment discussion again on June 10 and awaited the School Committee’s vote.
Szymaniak circulated in the Committee member’s information packed an email from Hill repeating her comments – with more detail – asserting that the district legally has an approved budget, citing regulations of the Department of Elementary Education (DESE).
If the district does not have an approved budget, the DESE commissioner will place W-H on a 1/12 budget, until a budget is approved by both towns. It would, in effect be a cut of $3.375 million to the proposed operating budget and it reverts back to the district’s fiscal 2025 numbers (last fiscal year).
Calculating the cost of unemployment, the real cut is $3.03 million, and Szymaniak said he would have to administer 48 reduction in force (RIF) notifications.
In Whitman, a 1/12 scenario would increase the district budget by 2.596 percent and assesses Whitman at 4.086 percent and Hanson would see a 5.344 percent. The Hanson scenario and increases the district budget by 1.525 percent, assessing Hanson at 3.594 percent and Whitman at 1.933 percent.
“Tonight, I believe we need to listen to what the taxpayers say and lower the assessment,” Szymaniak said. “I also believe we do not have an approved budget, and we need an approved budget by July 1. To not have a budget only RIFs 48 staff members and I cannot, in good faith, hire for critical vacancies.”
Szymaniak also advised that, if the Committee believes that something illegal or inappropriate had been done by either town in this process, the district would consult legal counsel and take action in the future.
“Any litigation now will stall our process and place us in a 1/12 for an inordinate amount of time and hurt our students,” Szymaniak said.
Hill maintained that, “We have a budget, so there wouldn’t need to be a 1/12 budget,” after Szymaniak’s lengthy explanation to the contrary.
“The towns disregarded the district and school finance document … after trying to do something similar to this last year,” Hill continued, saying she has reviewed multiple towns that challenged a similar budget scenario. “In five different school [districts], the schools were correct. What we voted was a bill … To move forward with this vote means we lost the opportunity to save 24 teachers.”
She accused the towns of tricking the School Committee into moving forward without doublechecking, added that no one from the Committee voted for anyone to negotiate with the towns, anything different, or give a different number than was voted by the School Committee.
“They went rogue,” she said. “This was a rogue behavior.”
Conceding that there are things like capital project that can be done within the budget or delaying staff reductions under a 1/12 budget, Hill said, she argued it would be a choice on the administration’s part.
Vice Chair Hillary Kniffen said she reached out to DESE’s regional governance office about the budget process because she had questions about how the School Committee’s assessment was placed on both town warrants. She said Michele Griffin of that office pointed her to the Prop 2/5 regulations, which states “contingent appropriations may be used for appropriations for operating budgets, capital projects and regional school assessments.”
“Right now, Whitman doesn’t have an appropriated number for the schools, so if we go on a 1/12 budget, Whitman does not have money appropriated to pay that bill,” Kniffen said. “So, if we leave tonight and don’t have a number for Whitman to present at their Town Meeting, Wednesday [June 11], we are in way worse shape than we are right now.”
She termed that a major concern she has, so she advises the committee’s time was better spent discussing the actual budget instead of the process.
Moser agreed that the committee’s time would be better spent evaluating where to go from here.