Whitman-Hanson Express

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Debt exclusion now, override later

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WHITMAN — Selectmen on Tuesday, April 9 approved the presentation of a debt exclusion question at the Monday, May 6 Town Meeting and on the annual Town Election ballot on Saturday, May 18 — and to wait until the fall to seek an operational override.

The debt exclusion removes the cost of the new police station and renovations made to Town Hall and the fire station from within the levy limit. Selectmen faced an April 13 deadline to approve a ballot question. The planned pre-Town Meeting informational session has been moved to 6 to 8 p.m., Wednesday, April 17.

In an often-contentious joint session with the Finance Committee — attended by a large crowd of department heads, town employees, School committee members, educators and school supporters — the question of whether to seek both financial approaches at the same time or the order in which they should be approached separately.

“We’ve gone through several iterations of budget estimates,” Town Administrator Frank Lynam said. “We’ve had differing opinions on how to proceed, based on at least in part, whether we believe we will get the support we need.” He reminded Selectmen that a long-term capital plan and budget model is in the works, with completion expected at the end of the month. That work would provide an idea what kind of override would be sought in the fall.

Lynam suggested a debt exclusion would be the most effective method to start with the aim being to free up some capital money and to build a long-term plan based on increased revenue from an override.

Free cash and capital stabilization would be used to pay for previous budget commitments, which would leave a balance of $460,000 in free cash and stabilization.

That would fund essential warrant articles through Article 29, include the debt exclusion to fund the bond and adjourn the Town Meeting until June 3, after the Town Election decides on the debt exclusion question, either funding the remaining articles if it passes or making cuts if it does not.

The budget under current consideration by the Finance Committee would include $13,800,992, a 4-percent increase to the W-H school assessment — and a request that Lynam recalculate the remaining lines on Article 2. Lynam countered that his proposal gives the schools a 6.5 percent assessment increase.

Finance Committee Chairman Richard Anderson and Vice Chairman David Codero expressed reservations with the approach taken.

“The day after the Selectmen’s meeting of last week, I sent an email to the members of the board to relay the unanimous concern we have for the newest direction you appear to be taking with respect to a recommendation to Town Meeting,” Anderson said about the new Article 2 based on a meeting called by department heads and to which Selectmen Chairman Dr. Carl Kowalski and Vice Chairman Dan Salvucci were invited. “The biggest concern we have at this point is eliminating the Proposition 2 ½ override as part of the recommendation.”

Anderson said the Finance Committee views an override as a critical component of this year’s budget discussion. Codero was more blunt, while he commended department heads for their budget cuts made to avoid layoffs.

“It’s not a sustainable approach, that’s the headline,” Codero said of the new Article 2 recommendation. “It’s my understanding that the department heads’ Article 2 is reliant on both passing the override and the debt exclusion. It’s a dangerous way to play with the sustainability of our future.”

He also characterized the department heads’ meetings with Kowalski and Salvucci as being done “in the shadows of [the] Open Meeting” law, and that the first such meeting excluded the schools. Lynam vigorously countered that department heads are not governed by that provision.

“The fact that they held a meeting and I wasn’t aware of it and wasn’t invited to attend, does not shake me as being something inappropriate or untoward,” Lynam said. “If they choose to meet that way, then they meet that way. They are not obligated to post meetings, they are not obligated to invite the public, they have an opportunity to sit down and plan together.”

Whether or not the schools were invited was up to the organizers of the meeting and Lynam made sure school representatives were invited to the second department head meeting.

“We had town employees that were fearful of losing their jobs,” said Salvucci, who attended both department head meetings. “They took … your Article 2 and made cuts where they could to save people’s jobs.”

He said they agreed to make additional cuts to bring the school increase up to the 6.5-percent level Hanson is offering.

School Committee member Fred Small vigorously argued that the schools are part of the town, too.

“We’ve got high school students going to school in the black of the dark of morning because we’re able to save $300,000 on busing,” he said. “We have done so many things over the years — cutting, cutting, cutting — the only thing left to cut, for us, is bodies.”

Small also said he understood the 4-percent increase was only intended as a discussion point.

“I certainly never intended the number to be used by department heads to formulate a separate Article 2,” Anderson said. “We’re working on two separate budgets. … This is not the recommendation to Town Meeting. This is a working document for the Finance Committee and the Board of Selectman.”

He said the Selectman and Finance Committee are basically in agreement over what needs to be done, it is just a question of when.

Superintendent of Schools Jeffrey Szymaniak echoed Small’s commending of town departments, but said the 6.5 percent assessment would mean the loss of three non-union employees, middle school foreign language, six paraprofessionals, three duty aides, the part-time elementary music teacher, a guidance staff member and 19 teachers — with 4 percent meaning an elementary math curriculum and 23 teachers in addition to the other cuts. Special education costs have run over by $630,000 this year. There are 82 staff members paid through federal grants.

Rosemary Connolly noted the Finance Committee makes decisions based on demographics, rather than a whole town.

“They did it in a bubble,” she said. “It will not be in the best interests of the town … and I hope to not see things like this in the future.”

Kowalski said that, at some point the residents of town will have to agree to spend more money, but that the department head meetings could sustain the town for awhile as they build the budget sustainability by increments.

“There’s a fear that a Proposition 2 ½ override will not pass,” he said.

Selectmen, for a time Tuesday night, seemed close to opting to seek both and override and a debt exclusion at the same time, or to look toward an override first.

“I, for one, am not willing to wait to fix it in the fall,” Anderson said.

Selectman Randy LaMattina said the debt exclusion option works because departments would use it to fill their budgets and he has “seen a budget that works with a debt exclusion.” He has also advocated for the debt exclusion for years.

“The problem with an override is you can’t just ask for a blank number and that’s what I think we’d be doing with an override,” he said. “I have faith that we can pass an override. It needs to be completely detailed where the money’s going.”

LaMattina also said he had concerns after hearing about the first department head meeting, but after attending the second one, he could “only applaud the department heads.”

“I could understand where they are coming from,” he said. “When your back’s against the wall you want to fight your way out of it.”

Whitman Middle School

In other business, Selectmen approved beginning the statement of interest process to the MSBA for a new or renovated grade five to eight Whitman Middle School. The School Committee has already approved the SOI.

Szymaniak said ongoing issues represent challenges for the future health and safety of students and teachers as well as ongoing repair costs.

“This could be a short-term process — probably not — but it could also be a five- or six-year process before they accept us,” Szymaniak said. “It depends on the severity of what they deem is important to our middle school.”

South Shore Tech has been in the queue for five years on a renovation project for which they are seeking MSBA funding.

Facilities Director Ernest Sandland offered a lengthy explanation of the selection process, including the forms that must be submitted to the state. Need outlines, budget process, history of the school and past upgrades, safety concerns such as mold and vermin (termites, bees and mice) problems, and the timeline proposed must all be submitted by April 12. The MSBA Board of Directors will comprise a list of approved projects in December. If Whitman is approved, selecting and creating a schematic design and budget could take about two years more.

“We’re spending so much on repairs over there, that it’s a budget-killer,” Sandland said.

More room to grow in Hanson

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Improvements, including a fence to deter deer, are among the changes coming to the Hanson Community Garden this year. (Photo by Tracy Seelye)

HANSON — There is room for you to grow at Hanson’s Community Garden.

While it has been operated exclusively for Hanson residents up to now, nonresidents can apply for the first time this year, according to Green Hanson members Evelyn Golden and Kathy Gernhardt. Non-residents will be asked to pay a higher fee than residents.

“It’s only fair, but it’s still only $15 a growing season,” Golden said. “They’re going to spend more than that on their water bill if they were to grow their vegetable garden at home.”

The non-resident fee is waived if the application comes in through the Hanson Food Pantry on behalf of a client. A small variety of seeds can also be provided for those growers.

“We’ll provide the dirt and the water and the community — and the seeds — they just have to do the labor,” Golden said.

Applications for the 24-30 potential open garden sites are available in the Selectmen’s office in Town Hall. For more information, visit [email protected].

Golden and Gernhardt said improvements being made, including a fence to deter deer,   to bring more people back to the project. Soil amendments — aged manure and other quality composts — are also planned to encourage better plant growth.

Part of the fence project will include additional compost bins to improve garden sustainability in the future.

“We’ve lost gardeners because the crops were being eaten,” Golden said of the deer problem.

At least two of those who left because of deer damage have pledged to come back after learning about the planned fence. Including Scout and church groups which grew produce for the food pantry, nearly two dozen participants were involved in the Community Garden program last year.

The fence, an Eagle Scout project, will place a five-foot high chain link barrier around the garden. The Scout is still working on approval from the Eagle board, but is hoping to do it by May.

“The thought and the research is that we know you need eight [feet] or more for a deer to not scale it,” Golden said as the two spoke at the Community Garden site adjascent to the Hanson Food Pantry on High Street. “But, where it’s going to be chain-link [the deer] are still going to see all the white poles and it’s going to mess with their optical vision — we hope. That’s what researchers are saying.”

Gernhardt added that the higher and more closed off the fence is, it won’t be as welcoming.

“We want to make sure we’re presenting a welcoming facility,” she said.

Golden said the important thing is that, when deer don’t see a clear space in which to land, they are not going to jump a fence.

“That’s a really important project that we’re expecting to take place this year,” Gernhardt said.

A lot can be produced in the three-foot square patches based on the square-foot garden growing practice.

“It’s a little bit different from conventional gardening,” Golden said.

Take green beans, for example. Seed packets advise spacing plants two inches apart in a long row, which means 18 plants in a three-foot row. By planting crops by the square foot, you can grow 36 plants.

“It’s a more intensive way of growing,” Gernhardt said. “What we find in square-foot gardening is people tend to be more diverse [in plant selection] per box.”

It also helps deter weeds, and is very big on vertical growing, Golden said, adding that it also makes soil replenishment and crop rotation more important.

Cucumbers grown vertically can make a better crop yield as well as serving as a space-saver, she said.

Green Hanson is sponsoring a cleanup day at the gardens from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., on Saturday, April 20. A new 4-H group, the United Farmers, will also be focusing some of its project work at the gardens, Golden said.

The W-H golf team also selected the garden for its community service project this year, working at the site and donating funds to the project, as well.

“To us it was a huge donation, because anything helps,” Golden said.

Green Hanson is the garden’s umbrella organization through Sustainable South Shore. Working through Green Hanson, the garden received a $500 grant last year, Gernhardt said. After the Community Garden project demonstrates its own growth as an operation and community program, organizers can reapply for the grant.

Exploring the quirks of small towns

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BOOK TALK: Hanson Selectman Wes Blauss discusses his new book ‘Murder at Town Meeting.’  (Photo by Tracy Seelye)

HANSON — The residents of almost every small town, no doubt, are convinced they have the most quirky people on the planet living within their borders — which, perhaps, explains why “The Andy Griffith Show,” was one of the more popular TV shows of the 1960s, or “Newhart” in the 1980s.

This writer can vouch for that.

In my hometown of Northfield, Conn., (a village part of the larger town of Litchfield, really), our nursery school/piano teacher Eleanor Grant would hop on her bicycle for the mile or so to our house each spring to spend the day with my grandmother mapping out Miss Grant’s annual car trip to her dentist in Willimantic.

I doubt the route changed much from year-to-year.

Legend has it my grandmother once tossed a folding chair at the head of a friend during an argument at a Grange meeting.

Our local nature expert Jesse Morse, who lived (*gasp* unmarried) in a cluttered house with a lady named Grace Wheeler, enjoyed carving baskets from cherry pits for necklaces, among his other artsy-crafty hobbies.

Similar characters people Hanson Selectman Wes Blauss’ new novel, “Murder at Town Meeting.”

“We were just creating stereotypes of what people think happens in small New England towns,” he said during a talk Thursday, April 4 at a meeting of the Hanson Historical Society, of which he is a member. “Who are the characters who show up?”

A Hanson native who taught at Hanson Middle School before his retirement, Blauss’ characters live in fictional South Quagmire (just north of East Quagmire) in the novelization of his popular — and thrice staged — eponymous play with characters one might be convinced they recognize.

“There’s not a person in here who’s really identifiable, especially not anymore,” he said. “We won’t go near anybody who really exists. The fire chief will be an arsonist, we’ll have a fire station burn down — don’t think Burrage. We’ll have an abandoned library burn down — don’t think Thomas Hall — so we were not trying to get ourselves into any kind of trouble.”

His book will be available April 30 via Amazon or the Barnes & Noble websites.

“Since this is the Historical Society, I felt that this should not be a reading so much as what’s the story behind this book,” Blauss said.

“Murder at Town Meeting,” is being published by Riverhaven Books of Whitman.

The idea for the play, first staged in 1989, stemmed from the popularity at the time or murder-mystery dinner theater. James Bond creator Ian Fleming, also took an approach to writing that Blauss emulates: “Everything I write is based on precedent.”

One of the audience members on this night was Laura Donovan, was part of Blauss’ drama group in 1989 leading him to reminisce about her performance as a town Treasurer that was a bit too close to the mark.

“The night of dress rehearsal, Laura showed up with no fanfare … but she had taken her pantyhose and stuffed them with cotton batting,” he said recalling a heavyset past Town Hall official the audience immediately recognized. “A whole bunch of people in the audience gasped. … This [woman the character was based on] did have a habit of telling you that you were stupid.”

Most of the Town Hall staff of the time showed up for the performance.

“It became a contest in the course of the night … everybody who worked for Town Hall immediately decided they saw themselves in the play,” he said. While that was not necessarily the case, Blauss maintains, some actual incidents are included. The book includes a fictionalized table-flipping incident and private plane excursions in search of illegal piggeries.

“No one cared at all who killed anyone,” he laughed. “They were not the slightest bit interested in the mystery.”

A fellow teacher from Hingham who saw the play was equally convinced of the characters’ familiarity.

“When it was over, she simply said, ‘Oh my gosh, I know every one of those people. They are all in Hingham,’” he recalled.

He spoke of town meetings of the 1970s — the story is set in the Bicentennial year 1976 — being three-day ordeals, rather than the one-night sessions they have become.

The story has also been brought up-to-date in a more serious vein.

Blauss brings into the book a glimpse of the racial attitudes of the community in the 1970s that is timely for today’s racial issues nationally.

“I drew a group [in the play] that was totally white-bread,” he said, as opposed to his days at WHRHS when there were more Cape Verdeans living in Hanson in the 1950s and ’60s. “When I was writing the book I felt it needed another depth to it. When I grew up, Hanson was really diverse.”

Research on Cape Verde residents of Hanson at the time, revealed a rainbow of racial designations, often for the same person, on birth, marriage and death certificates.

Town Clerk Elizabeth Sloan edited the book and helped with research, along with Blauss’ childhood friend and Health Board Chairman Arlene Dias.

“There were people who were born black, when they married [they were recorded as] white,” he said. “There were people who, with the exact same parents, he was black, but six years later she was born white.”

They found one Cape Verdean friend was recorded as being white, another black and — strangely — another had “Portuguese” listed under the race heading.

“I never, ever heard the N-word uttered in Hanson,” he said, but students didn’t cross the color line when dating, either. “That was Hanson in the ’60s.”

Years later, Blauss’s great-aunt Ruth mentioned to him in a discussion of town and family history that the Ku Klux Klan once held meetings in the town’s Grange Hall during its national resurgence in the 1920s. The audience gasped at that revelation. He could find no records to verify the Grange Hall meetings.

“When I was writing ‘Murder at Town Meeting’ I felt I really wanted that race component in it, because I think it would be unfair to deal with the ’70s without doing so,” he said. “I think this race component is as big a part of our history as anything else.”

Budget ‘what-ifs’ reflect hard choices

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WHITMAN — When the Board of Selectmen and Finance Committee meet again in joint session on Tuesday, April 9, they will be discussing a “what-if” budget scenario in which the W-H school assessment would increase by 4 percent and other departments — while making cuts — would skirt layoffs. The School Committee approved a 15-percent assessment increase last month.

The school budget in Whitman would still be $500,000 higher than fiscal 2019 Selectmen Chairman Dr. Carl Kowalski noted.

“It’s not what they say they need,” Kowalski said. “But at this stage of the game, there’s nothing we can do as a town to satisfy [that need].”

Town Administrator Frank Lynam said the proposal, drafted during a meeting between town department heads, Kowalski and vice chair Dan Salvucci Tuesday, April 2, is aimed at creating a budget worksheet — and should not be considered a budget projection.

“The casualty in this budget, if you can call it that, is the request for W-H vs. what we proposed to fund,” he said. “But, in this scenario, every other department goes back to 2019 and subtracts from it, rather than adding to it. Of all the options we’ve looked at, this is the one that I’d like to bring to the Finance Committee.”

That worksheet, if adopted as a budget, would hinge on getting the current bond debt approved as a debt exclusion, which could free up $1 million, according to Lynam. He also expects to have the first draft of a capital plan completed by the end of April and a final plan by late summer.

Resident Shawn Kain asked if there was a timeline for a financial policy and strategic plan. Lynam replied that the financial policy is part of the capital plan process, but the strategic plan has not yet begun.

“I feel like this stuff is important and timelines are becoming really urgent,” Kain said. “I think having them implemented sooner, rather than later, would be very helpful to people at home — or for you, even — to decide whether an override or a debt exclusion would be appropriate.”

Kain and Selectman Randy LaMattina questioned the transparency of the department head meeting with members of the Board of Selectmen.

Kowalski countered that it was a strategy session and to call it a closed-door meeting was “insulting.”’

LaMattina, who said he agreed with a large portion of the “what if” scenario, said there was also a large risk of almost $1 million in capital funds.

“I don’t view it as a great success,” LaMattina said, asking for the board’s liaison from the Finance Committee David Codero step into the meeting. “We have an Article 2 coming out every other week. … If I don’t know what’s going on, how is the public to know what’s going on?”

Lynam countered that the Finance Committee has not prepared any of the budgets yet, but when the Finance Committee voted to set the school budget at 4 percent and reset the other numbers, they asked him to adjust the budget accordingly.

“We made no vote to recommend,” Codero said when he got to the Selectmen’s meeting. “We made a vote to discuss.”

Codero said the Finance Committee voted to place a dollar value on the school budget to act as a place-holder in the budget as a whole.

Lynam said that was the information with which he worked.

“The results were very close to a scenario I had been working on,” Lynam said of the work done at the meeting Kowalski and Salvucci had with department heads. “Their recommendation is based on their belief that the likelihood of getting both an override and a debt exclusion did not hold a lot of hope.”

The schools were not represented at the meeting and Kowalski and Salvucci attended at the request of department heads, Lynam said.

“Over the last week, I’ve been working on a number of scenarios, taking different budget approaches with cuts identified by departments and reductions identified by the size of the budget’s ability to withstand the cuts,” Lynam said noting he met with the Finance Committee Tuesday, March 26 and they requested the change to a 4-percent increase for the school district.

Salvucci and Kowalski lauded the budget meeting with department heads.

“I think they did a great job of coming together as town employees working for the town, doing the job that was really good,” Salvucci said. “They know exactly where budgets should be cut that will not effect the operation — or have as little effect on their operation as possible. … They showed us another way apart from cutting staff.”

Kowalski agreed, noting that pro-school and pro-town department Selectmen were invited to the meeting.

“What pleased me about the meeting was, in working with Frank over the last week in different scenarios, one of his scenarios looked almost exactly like what the department heads came up with,” Kowalski said. “Every department accepts the responsibility for wage increases by having to cut in other areas of the department.”

Selectman Brian Bezanson said the discussion pointed to the need for a pre-Town Meeting informational meeting, which Lynam said could be slated for Saturday, April 13.

Lynam took the budget bottom line of $32,880,556 and added payment obligations of $34,280,000. The estimated available levy is $33,972,338 leaving a “small shortfall.” Free cash would be used to fund most of the capital articles on the Town Meeting warrant leaving a net available cash position of $583,000. He said he stopped at that point because “I don’t think it would make sense to vote a budget that leaves us no available funds for other issues.”

LaMattina said that, before he voted to support a budget, a policy should be adopted requiring that at least a percentage of free cash be guaranteed for capital spending.

“That’s how we will develop a capital plan,” he said. Lynam said that was a good idea.

Lynam said the problem is that the first 29 articles in the draft warrant are articles that can be funded both through the levy and other revenue sources, including the ambulance fund ($456,402), police fine account ($29,664), sewer/water enterprise fund ($918,100), the Title 5 ($7,352) revenue account that pays for septic loans the town has issued and the Chapter 90 ($388,036) funds.

For seven of the articles the town has to raise $545,120. Articles 30 through 46 would cost and additional $973,947.

Lynam suggested adjourning the Town Meeting after Article 29 and resuming at a date after the annual election so officials would know if the money was available to appropriate for the remaining requests or to prioritize which of them the town can afford.

“If this proposed budget were adopted, and if we took no other action to increase our revenue, we would not have enough money to fund those additional articles,” Lynam said. “The issue here is sustainability. We need to reach a point where we can fund, and continue to fund, the ongoing operations of the town.”

Warm welcome home

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BLESS THIS HOUSE: Brian Austin, left, of the New England Carpenters Training Council presented veteran Paul Skarinka with a framed photo of a message from an apprentice inscribed on a partition stud blessing the family’s new home as his wife Jennifer looks on. (Photo by Tracy Seelye)

HANSON — Paul and Jennifer Skarinka received the keys to their new home on Tuesday, April 2. The occasion, exciting for any young couple, was different than for most — it is a mortgage-free, injury-specific house built through Jared Allen’s Homes for Wounded Warriors for a veteran injured in action.

“It’s beautiful,” Jennifer Skarinka said. “It’s a dream home.”

“Wow,” Paul, a Plympton Fire Department firefighter-paramedic, said after his family, including children Lilliana and Noah, toured the house. “The carpenters, the Foundation, everyone did an incredible job and it was well worth the wait. It’s truly incredible.”

It was delayed a few months due to record-low temperatures, record flooding, microbursts that knocked out power for nine days, three nor’easters, delays caused by a moratorium following the Merrimack Valley natural gas explosions — and vandalism — but the Hanson community joined builders, trade union representatives and Allen to welcome Skarinka, 39, and his family to his new home.

Skarinka, an Army veteran who lost a leg and sustained severe injuries to his left arm when his unit came under attack on a mission in Sadr City, Iraq in September 2004, said he and his family are thankful for their new home and the help of Hanson police and fire departments after the project was vandalized over the winter.

“I’m just excited,” he said. “I was nervous about moving in — it looks so nice. We’re really going to enjoy this and take a minute to kind of sit back and relax, take it one day at a time and soak it all in.”

Jennifer Skarinka said the house means her husband will be able to find comfort at the end of his working day.

“There’s no more stairs,” she said. “Taking care of other people is strenuous on his body and he gets tired [by the end of his day]. Unfortunately, in the house we were at before, he couldn’t use his wheelchair. …Now he can wheel around without having to worry about bumping into things or getting stuck. It makes me happy that he can live a somewhat normal life.”

Allen, a five-time NFL Pro Bowler, said his foundation is a way to give back to those who defend our country.

“Someone told me a long time ago, you don’t have to have a uniform on to serve your country,” Allen said. “I feel like I’ve been blessed in my life with family and work and all that. I’ve gotten a lot from this country — the ability to be free and play football and live out my dreams — so I think it’s the least we can do to show our gratitude and pay our debts forward.”

Veterans go through an application process and other veterans’ organizations “lead the way” to his program, Allen said. Skarinka also had the good fortune to be a friend of Alex Karalexis, a 1992 W-H graduate and Hanson native, who is executive director of Jared Allen’s Homes for Wounded Warriors. Veterans have  say in where they want their homes to be located and work with architects and designers in creating their homes.

Allen said the vandalism was horrible, setting the project back weeks and costing money.

“We haven’t had that issue before,” he said. “But I think the way the community reacted …”

“This has been a very special project and the community has been behind us from start to finish with all the hiccups that we had in between,” Karalexis said. “The high school football team raised money, local businesses raised money, had signs at the doors and things of that nature.”

Organizers thanked the Hanson Police for their work in apprehending the vandals.

The Skarinkas had originally planned on moving in for Thanksgiving or Christmas before the vandalism to windows in the home.

“All that did was galvanize the resolve of everybody who took part in this projects,” Karalexis said of the vandalism and natural disasters that delayed the move-in day. “It really made me proud to be part of this community.”

“This was a wonderful event this morning,” said state Rep. Josh Cutler, D-Duxbury, whose district includes Hanson. “It’s an amazing show of community for Hanson, but also the broader community, Homes for Wounded Warriors — all the folks who played a role in building this home. As other speakers have said, they built a home, but they also built a community here, that’s what’s most wonderful about this.”

Other Hanson officials present included Veterans Agent Timothy White, Town Administrator Michael McCue, Police Lt. Mike Casey, Fire Chief Jerome Thompson Jr., Deputy Fire Chief Robert O’Brien Jr., Superintendent of Schools Jeffrey Szymaniak and Assistant Superintended George Ferro. Several officials from the Plympton Fire Department also attended, wearing their dress uniforms. Several representatives of building trades organizations also attended.

“It’s a great feeling to be able to help out a deserving veteran in the community,” said Harry Brett, of Hanson, business manager of the Plumber’s Union.

“It’s just an honor to be involved in something as meaningful as what this wounded warriors project is all about,” John Murphy, of Braintree, with the United Brotherhood of Carpenters. It marked the first Jared Allen Foundation project undertaken in New England.

Brian Austin of New England Carpenters Training Council presented a framed photo of an inscription left by a second-year apprentice on an interior partition stud: “June 7 2018 — To our Warrior and his clan, Thank you for all you have done for our nation. It has been an honor to build this fortress for you all and may many great memories be made in this home. One nation under God.”

The inscription was discovered as repairs were being made two weeks after the windows had been vandalized.

“Minor road bump,” New England Carpenters Training Council representative Paul Gangemi, said of the vandalism to windows in the house. “The important ones they missed. It didn’t stop [us], we kept moving forward.”

The house featured five-foot-wide corridors and five-foot turnaround space almost everywhere inside. Gangemi said his organization had about three dozen volunteers from the council worked on the project.

“All the trades did a good job,” he said. “The painters were all apprentices — you go through that house, it looks like a professional painter’s job.”

A heart-wrenching cautionary tale

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With prom and graduation season upon us, school and law enforcement officials — along with Whitman-Hanson WILL — presented the documentary “If They Had Known,” on the dangers of mixing prescription drugs with alcohol in a program at WHRHS on Thursday, March 27.

“Prom season, graduation season are the most stressful time for high school administrators because of the level of choices that their kids can make during those times,” Superintendent of Schools Jeffrey Szymaniak said. Statistics show it is the peak time for risky behavior.

“It’s not to make people sad, it’s to make people think,” he said of the documentary screening, which the school plans to repeat for high school students.

District Attorney Timothy Cruz briefed the audience of students and parents on the points of the Social Host Law.

He said parents who host teen parties where alcohol consumption takes place, risk both criminal charges and civil liabilities when accidents occur as a result of underage drinking.

“If you know a parent that may be considering doing that, tell them this,” Cruz said. “Tell them it’s illegal. Tell them that, if you provide alcohol to a minor at your home, and, if they leave your home, your responsibility is not over. If they drive their car, after being inebriated by drugs, alcohol or whatever and there is — god forbid — a terrible accident and somebody gets hurt or killed, you will be sued.”

Szymaniak said there had already been a recent incident in which a group of seniors were caught having a party at a home during the school day.

Cruz and Szymaniak warned that local police also file charges against parents or 18-year-olds who violate the Social Host Law.

Szymaniak said he has “buried probably 25 kids” in his years a school administrator and the described regret their classmates experienced over not taking their keys before they got behind the wheel after drinking.

“We all want to be friends with our kids,” Cruz said to emphasize the point. “My answer has always been, I’ll be friends with them when they’re 25. Up until that point, I’m their father.”

He urged the teens in the audience to take care of each other and stop them from taking risks in their behaviors to save lives.

“I applaud these parents who have worked so hard to get the word out,” Cruz said of Winchester parents Geoff and Genny Soper, who are taking a lead role in the fight against the party culture of mixing prescription drugs and alcohol after their eldest son, Clay, died after taking Xanax followed by a night of heavy drinking.

“Their strength really impresses me,” Cruz said. “They are doing what they can to make sure that other parents don’t [suffer] what happened to them.”

A family’s anguish

The Whitman-Hanson WILL program featured the documentary about their son’s last night alive, “If They Had Known,” during a pre-prom and graduation season program held at the Dr. John F. McEwan Performing Arts Center.

The Sopers were scheduled to appear at the program, but Whitman-Hanson WILL organizers explained they felt unable to cope with the emotion of reliving the experience in a public setting at this time.

Founded in 2014, Whitman-Hanson WILL works to bring awareness to the importance of good decision-making about the use of alcohol and/or drugs.

“We’ve transitioned into all types of decision-making that are core for our youth, including texting and driving, drunk driving and all sorts of substances,” Szymaniak said. “The organization works with us in the community in the schools and in community outreach both in Whitman and Hanson.”

Clay Soper, then 19, was home for a winter break while attending the University of Denver, when he and some friends got together at one of their homes in 2015 when they decided to try Xanax before going to another house party where Clay had too much to drink.

His friends thought it best to get him in bed to sleep it off, but the mix of the prescription anti-anxiety medication and alcohol caused his heart and respiratory system to fatally slow down.

Friends’ efforts at CPR, when he was found to be pale and unresponsive were unsuccessful. Clay was pronounced dead at the hospital.

“You know who mixes,” Szymaniak said to the teens in the audience after the documentary was shown. “You know where the parties are, who know who brings what, you know what’s out there, and you know [what can happen] if you choose to do this or not.”

Hanson School Resource Officer William Frasier, Whitman Lt. Dan Connolly, Whitman Deputy Police Chief Timothy Hanlon and Hanson Lt. Mike Casey also attended the event in case parents had questions or concerns following the program.

Gauging town’s fiscal mood

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Dr. Melinda Tarsi (Courtesy WHCA9TV)

WHITMAN — Residents support their town services, but are reluctant to look toward an operational override, preferring a targeted approach to support specific departments or projects.

Bridgewater State University Political Science Professor Dr. Melinda Tarsi presented the results of the survey to a small gathering in the Town Hall Auditorium Wednesday, March 20.

“Several months ago, we met in this room to talk about doing a community survey,” said Town Administrator Frank Lynam, noting that Tarsi has offered her services as well as the university’s for the project.

Tarsi thanked those who showed up on a “pretty nice spring evening to look at survey results” and thanked those in town’s participation, questions and overall interest in the project.

“I think we saw from the level of interest … from the community and the kinds of questions they were asking [indicated they wanted to] make sure everything was done correctly and making sure we got their survey, to me and my students indicates how much people care about the community,” she said.

The bimodal survey — conducted both on paper and online — was done between November and the beginning of February. The university, which provided all paper, postage and other costs through the university, sent a single copy of a paper survey to each household, with a QR code that could access additional copies online. Additional paper copies were also provided on request.

Despite the short response window and the size of the response sample — 1,062 of which 640 were online and 422 on paper — Tarsi said it still gave adequate information for discussion about priorities and budget issues.

“This is part of an approach to plan ahead,” Lynam said. “It’s not going to answer all the questions that we need [answered] for this years’ budget, but it gives us an idea of what the community as a whole is looking at.”

Tarsi said it was equally rewarding for her students, many of whom are now interested in obtaining internships in local government.

The full report is available on the town website Whitman-ma.gov.

The most important issues facing the town, according to the survey, were: schools and education — 36 percent; property tax rates — 36 percent; opioid and other substance abuse — 23 percent; business/economic development — 24 percent; roads/transportation and upkeep — 31 percent. There were several other issues drawing lower percentages and some write-in responses that are viewable online.

People were allowed to select more than one issue on the survey.

Where raising revenue is concerned, almost half preferred increases to licenses and fees; 8 percent suggested raising excise taxes; 17 percent would increase property tax rates; and 28 percent had other views.

“Increasing licenses and fees tends to be a more popular option generally, in whatever case we’re talking about, so this follows what we might tend to see in any municipality when they’re being presented with options on how to increase revenues,” Tarsi said of research on the issue.

To control costs; 42 percent said all departments should be asked to cut their budgets by a certain proportion; 15 percent wanted to see town employees’ salaries level with no raises; 14 percent said to reduce Town Hall hours; and 13 percent said reduce town services. Only 1 percent of residents suggested layoffs.

Overrides were defined in the survey and residents were asked if they favored that option. Forty-two percent said they would back an override, but only for a particular reason; 38 percent said no to an override for any reason and close to 20 percent support an operational override for any part of the budget.

“What this indicates for us as survey researchers, is that there is some acceptance of the idea of an override, but, understandably, voters, residents, taxpayers want to know why,” Tarsi said.

Departments preferred to benefit from any override were: schools, police, fire and public works. Veterans services were also quite high.

Of school services, smaller class sizes, instructional materials for teachers and full-day kindergarten were the top priorities. For the DPW, road repair, snow removal and maintaining town buildings were top concerns.

People responding to the survey reported that 72 percent did not attend the 2018 Town Meeting, while 28 percent said they did attend.

Of those respondents, 47 percent owned a home in Whitman; 19 percent have had children in the schools in the past; 11 percent currently have children in the schools; 10 percent volunteer in town; 5 percent are renters; 2 percent own a business in town; another 2 percent works for a Whitman business; and 1 percent works for the town.

The residents responded that 27 percent have lived in Whitman between 31 and 50 years; 21 percent between 11 and 20 years; 15 percent from 21 to 30 years with another 15 percent fewer than five years; 11 percent have lived in Whitman more than 50 years and 10 percent from five to 10 years.

As Selectmen had previously reported about the results most people scored Whitman well on quality of life and as a good place to live and raise a family, but poor as a destination for entertainment.

Residents also indicated they liked the level of town services they receive, but recognize that cuts may have to be made in a budget crisis, according to Tarsi.

School funding review

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WHITMAN — The Board of Selectmen voted Tuesday, March 26 to advise the Finance Committee, it could not support a 10-percent increase in the town’s assessment for the W-H School District.

Last week, Selectmen, meeting with the Finance Committee discussed two budget scenarios, one of which provided for a 6-percent school assessment increase and the other, 10 percent.

“Of those two scenarios, one of them would be devastating to every other department in the town — the one with the 10-percent increase,” Selectmen Chairman Dr. Carl Kowalski said. “The other column still presents cuts in the amount of money that goes to departments, some of which would have to be personnel, and all of that rests on an override to overcome it.”

Kowalski said with the schools asking for 15 percent, the Finance Committee’s seeming willingness to give them 10 percent and the potential effect on the town’s services, he would entertain a motion to inform the FinCom that “the 10-percent option is really not on the board.”

“The idea right now is 10 percent isn’t going to work for anybody and you know how hard it is for me to say that with my history with the schools,” said Kowalski, who has served on the School Committee in the past and is an educator himself.

Selectmen Daniel Salvucci, making the motion for discussion said any budget option should leave the town “as harmless as possible.”

“It seems like we’re controlling our [costs] and holding down the raises .. and I’d like to see that maintained,” he said. “[The schools] need to look at their budget and come up with something that helps both communities.”

Kowalski said Hanson is willing to give the schools somewhere between 5 and 6 percent — amounting to a 6.5-percent increase for Whitman, or $862,562, and $579,367 to Hanson.

Town Administrator Frank Lynam said his talks with Hanson Town Administrator Michael McCue indicated Hanson could afford 6.5 percent.

“They’re not going to be happy with 10, so obviously, they’re not going to be happy with 6 … however, it’s more realistic to say that at this point in the game, we need to think not just about the schools, but the other departments, too,” Kowalski said. “I think I’d like to send a signal that 10 percent is not something that we can consider at this time.”

He said he wanted to avoid  splitting the town up between the schools and the other departments.

Lynam is also working to reduce the override needed to close the budget gap and, if the debt exclusion to remove the police station from within the levy is approved, that could also add to the funds available.

“What we’re trying to do is keep everybody as harmless as possible,” Kowalski said. “I don’t want a situation where everyone is thinking an override is just for the schools — it’s an override for the town.”

“As I understand it, you are working on a version of the budget yourself, somewhat different from the Finance Committee,” Kowalski asked Lynam. “What should happen between now and next week [when Selectmen next meet] is you’ll give us a report in writing and we’ll be able to discuss it as a board … so that we can give direction to the Finance Committee.”

Kowalski said it made sense to give the Finance Committee a bit of direction that night as school officials were meeting with the FinCom at the same time, and Lynam was scheduled to join the Finance Committee’s meeting after Selectmen concluded their meeting.

In other business, Salvucci said the MBTA advisory board has indicated Whitman’s assessment will be reduced from $74,166 to $49,908 — a 30-percent saving of $24,258.

“I’m really afraid to ask why,” Lynam said, suggesting that Whitman is also part of Brockton Area Transit an suggested perhaps the reason was that the BAT assessment increased.

Salvucci said the MBTA pointed to the “make-up of the town” and fare increases for the reasoning.

Selectmen also approved a Class II Auto Dealer’s license for Ally Motors, 934 Temple St., limiting the amount of cars permitted to 60, as currently allowed by the license, and giving the owners 14 days to remove an additional 25 cars now on the property.

Building Inspector Bob Curran, after he and Lynam visited the site last week, said there had been complaints about vehicles blocking sidewalk access in the area and that there were too many cars on the property.

Abutter Craig Donahue, who lives behind the business on Sportsmans Trail, said he and an elderly neighbor said Donahue had purchased a buffer lot between the two homes and the business.

“They’ve been fairly good neighbors,” he said of the car lot. “But over a period of time, they have been parking more and more vehicles in that field behind their business.”

He expressed concern that a dump truck, used to spread substrate for a parking lot hit utility wires, causing a power failure to the area last summer. They are also concerned about how a building on the site is being used.

Business owners apologized for the dump truck incident and pointed out they called the fire department and NStar as soon as it happened and that the building in question is used only for detailing, no mechanic work.

Tempers flare over Whitman budget

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WHITMAN — The unveiling of Whitman’s latest draft version of the fiscal 2020 municipal budget on Tuesday, March 19, led to more than an 90 minutes of often heated debate, in which charges of failure and political grandstanding were exchanged between Selectmen.

The board met in a joint session with the Finance Committee.

The budget document offered two financial scenarios — both of which would require an operational override to prevent layoffs.

The budget’s reduction of $3.3 million features uniform cuts to al departments and cuts $676,779 — a 10-percent cut — rom the school district and $2,623,221 from all other departments, Town Administrator Frank Lynam said.

“These reductions will cause significant impacts on all of town services,” Lynam said, noting the town will be seeking an override. “To implement this would be devastating to the town. This is worse than [Proposition] 2 ½ was, because 2 ½ caused us to redefine our structure as a town and there have been very few additions to employees since then. … What we’re talking about is a cut that would wipe out anything we have done over the last 20 years and would make many of our services part time.”

Without an override, cuts would include $36,176 in the best-case scenario to $65,728 in the worst without an override to the three employees involved in the Selectmen’s budget; $14,123 or $25,660 for the two employees in the accountant’s office; $19,813 or $35,998 to the assessors office; $45,310 or $82,325 from the collector’s office; $40,496 or $73,578 from technology; $20,306 or $36,895 from the clerk’s office; $22,930 or $41,662 from the single maintenance employee; $428,886 or $779,254 from the 26 sworn officers and three other Police Department employees; $482,354 or $876,402 from the Fire Department; $19,397 or $35,243 from inspectional services; $80,560 or $146,372 for the DPW; $21,374 or $38,836 from health; $28,879 or $52,471 from the Council on Aging; and $54,322 or $95,065 from the library. The vocational school assessments remain the same and a best-worst case scenario could not be offered for WHRSD because of financial commitments.

Other reductions being looked at involve street lighting, park maintenance, bylaw committees, veterans’ graves and Whitman Counseling.

Unemployment compensation would increase because of layoffs.

Some lines, such as the law account, are required and cannot be cut.

questions raised

“Has this board, in the last seven or eight months, done anything to bring us any further to an answer [of] what sustainability would mean in this town, and the answer is no,” Selectman Randy LaMattina said, to applause from police and firefighters’ union members in attendance. “We should be embarrassed. … We’ve heard the phrase ‘kicking the can down the road,’ well, are we going to keep kicking it or are we going to fix it?”

Lynam said he met with the Finance Committee last week to discuss reductions to bring the town’s finances within the levy limit.

“The Finance Committee continued to evaluate the most effective approach to conclude this budget cycle,” said Chairman Richard Anderson, who said they followed Lynam’s recommendation to suspend a second round of meeting with department heads in order to devote the entire March 5 meeting to drafting a budget for Article 2. But, he added, the committee continues to meet in an “often contentious process” with the town departments to review budget requests and provide them with a “real time update of where the board stands” for a recommendation to Town Meeting.

The result, Anderson said, was a “responsible draft for an extremely difficult recommendation.”

The deficit was calculated at 6 percent of the total budget, basing cuts on the percentage each department had been allocated in the previous budget cycle.

“It was generally agreed that this approach was the most fair and equitable distribution of the liability,” Anderson said. “In a narrow majority, the board most recently recommended increasing the line item to fund a larger percentage of the school’s estimate … then to further redistribute the additional liability to all the other departments.”

While Lynam said there are no villains in the process, the elephant in the room is the cost of education and is something with which the town can’t keep pace.

The recent Community Assessment Survey, conducted through the offices of Bridgewater State University showed that 62 percent indicated support for an override, Selectmen Chairman Dr. Carl Kowalski noted. Of those people, 69 percent said some of the money from an override should go to the schools, 56 to the police and fire departments and 40 percent wanted to fund the DPW with it.

Kowalski also acknowledged “some talk” around town questioning the need for Assistant Town Administrator Lisa Green’s position.

“I’d like to remind people that over the two years that she has been serving, Lisa has been responsible for  $676,000 worth of grants, some of which will decrease our payments in the future on things like energy,” he said. That figure is more than 7 ½ times her $87,800 salary.

LaMattina pointed to a firefighter in the audience and said he risked his life at the Commercial Street fire and is one of those who will likely be laid off.

“What’s the value of that?” he said. “We are getting to be a joke. Imagine being that person whose job is on the line — and I’ve been in that situation — and it’s horrible, not knowing what’s going to happen. By this time, we should be able to provide some answers and we’re not.”

heated exchange

Near the end of the meeting, Selectman Brian Bezanson and LaMattina became involved in a shouting match over whether LaMattina’s comments reflected genuine concern or a political stump speech.

“We could have met every stinking day, all year, and never would have come up with that money,” Bezanson said. “So to say that this board is not doing its due diligence I find it to be outrageous.”

“I’m sorry you think that,” LaMattina said.

“You’ve had your time,” Bezanson continued. “That was a soap box speech.”

“What have you done in the last year?” LaMattina demanded.

“Not once has anybody here tonight mentioned the elephant in the room, which is the taxpayers in this town, the ones that have to foot the bill,” Bezanson said. “Everybody here has been worrying about what they have had, what they do. What about the people that pay the darned bill? Nobody here brings up the fact that some people are losing their houses, foreclosures are up — why don’t they ever get any consideration?”

Connolly tried to interject in support of resident Shawn Kain’s position that doing due diligence on the concerns of the residents, but Bezanson held his hand up to stop her.

“It’s time we started worrying about them,” he said, advocating his previous suggestion for a pre-town meeting session to outline what cuts will mean. “It’s our job to present the facts, the good, the bad and the ugly.”

Kowalski said that has been all the meeting had been discussing.

“We’re going to end this meeting and there’s not an employee or a department head that knows what’s going on,” LaMattina said. “It’s a failure, admit it.”

“No, I won’t admit it,” Bezanson  said. “Get off your stump speech, that’s bull.”

“We knew [after last year’s Town Meeting] and we did nothing,” LaMattina said.

“And what did you do?” Bezanson retorted. “Zero.”

“Here’s my budget, Brian,” LaMattina said holding papers up. “Here’s my budget, where’s yours? Here’s a legitimate budget with the taxpayer in mind, and what I have for a budget is to protect services, because that’s what I want to do.”

“You know, these used to have power,” Kowalski said, holding is gavel.

“What I’m saying is we should have done, as a board, a better job — maybe staying on top of these two people [motioning toward Lynam and Green] so that they got more got done so information could have gotten out to the public in a more timely manner,” LaMattina said. “We shouldn’t be in this position March 19 when we knew a year ago what we had in front of us.”

“They’ve been working on it ever since,” Bezanson said.

“What have we done?” LaMattina shouted. “Give me some tangibles — do you have any tangibles?”

LaMattina also questioned the regional agreement’s financial formula, in view of what he termed Whitman’s being short-changed on $450,000 in Chapter 70 funds that go instead to the region.

School Committee Chairman Bob Hayes argued the main problem is the state’s unfunded mandates. School Committee member Fred Small said he could not obtain the information after two hours on the phone with the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. Finance Committee member Rosemary Connolly said she had obtained that information, but not until earlier Tuesday afternoon.

“The last thing I want to see is one department against another,” Small said.

Both Small and Hayes also pointed to a an $897,000 spike in special education  transportation costs and $650,000 in unexpected tuition costs, for part of the school budget increase.

Selectman Dan Salvucci said the town side of the budget is within the $970,000 in new growth and that, if that was their only budget obligation, there would be no layoffs.

“You’ve got to look at controllable numbers,” he said.

Lynam countered that most communities devote 70 percent of their annual economic growth to the schools, which at about $680,000 for Whitman would still put the town side at $500,000 or so on the town budget would also be in excess of the town’s growth.

LaMattina then asked Salvucci, who is the representative to the South Shore Tech School Committee, why that school is thriving while the W-H budget is in such difficulty.

“It’s because you constantly get your assessments,” LaMattina said. “We’re not funding [W-H] properly, yet South Shore Tech gets their full assessment and they are a thriving school. … Why not have an override for the vo-tech?”

Hayes argued that South Shore offers a different program and that charter schools present a bigger concern.

“[SSVT] offers a way different service — it’s a fabulous school. We lose kids to charter schools that don’t even come to W-H because we don’t have all-day kindergarten … it costs us,” he said. “I don’t think anybody’s questioning the professionalism of [any department], it’s how do we fund this runaway train?”

Kowalski also raised the issue of wage freezes. Salvucci said payroll is the largest portion of all department budgets.

Anderson said the Finance Committee recognizes and has prioritized the need for a sustainable financial plan, but also has to address the town’s immediate financial need.

Fire union President Scott Figgins expressed frustration that nothing has been accomplished on the budget front.

“We’re looking at losing half our department and you’re talking about giving us wage freezes,” he said. “We bargained faithfully with this board, we’ve given up things. … That override passes, there’s no guarantee that money comes to the department.”

He said he supports the schools, but the school budget keeps increasing while others have been cut.

“It’s very unfair to put that on the employees of this town,” Figgins said.

“I’m trying to think of as many ways as possible for us to avoid that,” Kowalski replied. “A wage freeze shouldn’t be a magic bullet to fix everything.”

Lynam said his two conversations with unions, and his request that the schools have to do the same, have been met with some support and some skepticism, over school employees’ continuing to receive step and lane increases.

Hayes said the school employees’ unions are still in discussions on the wage freeze issue.

“Hanson has its own assessment issues,” said Lynam, who said he was told by Hanson Town Administrator Michael McCue and town Accountant Todd Hassett that the most Hanson can increase is 6.5 percent.

A Whitman override must provide enough to meet the current budget as well as capital needs, Lynam warned.

Selectmen began the meeting with a 4-0 vote — Selectman Scott Lambiase was absent — to approve the sale of the $5,235,000 general obligation refunding bonds of the town for the police station debt to Fidelity Capital Markets for $5,836,956.07 and accrued interest, if any. The bond, payable on June 1 2020 through 2030, saves the town $564,631.09 or about $50,000 in saving per year for the next 11 years.

Planning ahead for new WMS

By

Emphasizing it could be years before a shovel breaks ground, the School Committee on Wednesday, March 13 approved the drafting of a statement of interest (SOI) to the Massachusetts School Building Authority for a new Whitman Middle School.

Superintendent of Schools Jeffrey Szymaniak said he has asked Facilities Director Ernest Sandland to begin work on the SOI for a grade five through eight school to address structural problems and place a new school in alignment with programs now in place at Hanson Middle School.

“This is just the process [of] what we have to do to get in the queue for MSBA,” Szymaniak said.

Sandland said all documents would have to be in by April 12, but  said he has been asked why the district is taking that route while it is facing budget problems.

“There is a process we have to go through and there’s a time frame we’ve got to go through and this is the beginning of it,” he said. “We’re trying to meet all those time frames.”

It could be two years before MSBA gives an indication that the district would be considered for funding, with eight possible categories for a district to apply under. WHRSD would be seeking funds for replacement/modernization of school facilities, one of eight possible categories. The school opened in 1972 and was last renovated in 1997. Boilers were replaced in 2007.

“We’re good stewards in trying to identify what’s going on at Whitman Middle,” he said. “It’s the story that we’re writing on the history of [the school].”

A past facilities survey on the WMS renovation outlined that the work was supposed to include replacement of the roof, a lot of the exterior façade and of lockers throughout the building — none of which was done.

“We’re going to tell that story and, once it gets to the state they’re going to read it and they’ll say, ‘OK, this is what we’re going to do, we’re going to put you off for two more years, we’re going to put you off for a year,’” Sandland said. “But at least we start the process.”

Szymaniak said the facilities subcommittee has expressed concern with mold issues at the school.

“I’d like to see where we stand,” he said. “There’s no harm, no foul at this point.”

School Committee Chairman Bob Hayes said his experience with similar projects has shown the approval process for an SOI could take as long as five years.

“We don’t even know where the list is — what they are accepting, what they aren’t accepting,” Hayes said. “This is a first step. The commitment comes way down the road when you have to do a feasibility study. … This is not committing any dollars and cents.”

School Committee member Fred Small stressed that an SOI should make clear WMS has only had a partial renovation done.

Sandland said the MSBA has noted that W-H has an excellent capital plan, something 40 to 60 percent of school districts do not have.

The debt exclusion for the high school comes off the books in seven years, Hayes said.

Budget committee

In other business, Small suggested a separate subcommittee charged with reviewing the strategic plan as part of an effort to align them with small goals to begin working on the budget in August or September and obtain a clear idea from the towns about where the schools stand on the goal of developing a sustainable budget.

“I know we have to get through today first,” he said, suggesting it might be a way to determine what programs might be funded a year or so in advance through a debt exclusion.

Hayes agreed that the budget is difficult for other town departments at well.

“It costs more, it demands more, and everybody’s in this budget crisis,” he said. “Nobody’s putting the blame here. I think everybody wants better education for every student.”

Business Services Director Christine Suckow said year to-date expenditures are up by just over $13,000 for recovery high school tuition, and unexpected retirements have increased the salary reserve line. Special education accounts have increased by just over $600,000 in the current budget year due to contracted services, legal costs, transportation and out-of-district tuition costs.

Szymaniak attributed the special ed increase to a few movements of students already committed to a collaborative and transportation costs from $250 to $400 per day, depending on the company used.

The fiscal 2019 budget is currently frozen except for emergency expenses, which generally includes special education changes.

Superindendent goals

The committee also discussed Szymaniak’s midyear goals, part of the process of evaluating his job performance.

The goals involve ensuring a cohesive pre-k to grade 12 system of teaching and learning; keeping visible throughout the district to support teachers and staff; ensuring school safety and security; and a workable budget to deliver services to district students to prepare them for career or college.

“It’s out there right now,” he said of the budget. “I appreciate the support of what we’re looking at for level services … How do we progress through? I think, looking at a realistic budget that will maintain the level of services and add — without adding to the budget — a curriculum and curriculum leadership that we so desperately need.”

Szymaniak said the first goal involves reviewing which math pilot program the district would purchase as well as different programs to highlight for English classes next year. Changes in curriculum leadership are also being investigated. All changes being considered within the goal are budget-dependent, he noted.

Being more visible is a favorite part of the job for Szymaniak.

“We’re out and about looking at teachers that make a difference and celebrating that,” he said. “I’ve had several visits with principals formally to discuss things, and informally I pop into buildings to see [what’s going on]. … It’s important for me to be out, visible to teachers and staff and students know who I am.”

He said he and Ferro have both been seeing evidence of teachers doing a good job — in the absence, Assistant Superintendent George Ferro said, of an elementary English Language Arts curriculum and an expiring 7-year-old math program that is obsolete for today’s standards and cuts to the elementary science program.

Safety continues to be a priority, Szymaniak said, by keeping in communication via text with police and fire chiefs in both towns and the establishment of a district communication weather team to have the latest information in any emergency. He is also reviewing the “relatively antiquated radio system” for internal school communications. He is also exploring the expansion of the ALICE program to elementary schools.

School Committee member Christopher Howard said it would be very helpful for committee members to observe classes and programs for themselves without getting in the way.

“I think it would be really helpful,” he said. “We spend a lot of time talking about dollars and cents, we spend a lot of time talking about buildings, but the reason we’re here is for the education of children…. It would be very helpful to all of us and I think it allows us to think about how we can share that message back to the public.”

Szymaniak said there is an open invitation to all committee members to visit schools and classrooms.

“You get so much out of it,” said Small who recalled an art class in which fifth-grade students were discussing what message different colors convey in a PowerPoint presentation. “To me art class was where you take a piece of paper and draw a picture. … School has changed so much.”