HANSON – Officials in both Whitman, which has held two public informational forums this week, with one more planned – and in Hanson, where a second forum was held Thursday morning, two days after its first forum Tuesday night.
Hanson’s final override informational forum will be held at 6:30 p.m., Wednesday, April 30, again at Hanson Middle School.
Town officials held the first of three planned informational forums concerning the $3 million operational override for the fiscal 2026 budget. The next one will be held at 9 a.m., April 24 in the Hanson Multi-Service Senior Center, which operates out of the building it shares with the Hanson Public Library at Maquan and School Street.
“Hanson is asking for a $3 million increase in the tax levy,” said Town Administrator Lisa Green. “What this [override] does is allow the hiring of four additional firefighters. … It allows for a sustainable budget by eliminating the [the need to use all the free cash to balance budgets]of $1.061 million in free cash, which helps our bond rate.”
“It’s a big ask, it’s a heavy lift,” Select Board Chair Laura FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “We know that. We don’t take this lightly at all, but the dire circumstances of what could happen if we do not ask for this are something we felt would be irresponsible if we didn’t ask for this override.
“But, again, it’s up to the voters at Town Meeting and its up to people at the ballot,” she said.
A woman from Lakeside road asked why the override had not been advertised sooner.
“There’s hardly anyone here tonight and this forum wasn’t posted until the other day,” she said. “A lot of people do not use computers and some don’t even look at the newspaper. This is very important to the town to come together and find out how all of you are working to get our budget under control.”
“Other than newspapers, Facebook, online, volunteer people that are trying to get the information out every single week – I don’t know what else we can do,” Select Board Vice Chair Ann Rein said. “If you’re that passionate about it, please come and get involved. We are not trying to hide anything from anybody.”
It also gives the town better credit rating when the town has to borrow. Article 5 on the Town Meeting warrant is the non-override budget and Article 6 is the budget including an override. The ballot question on the override will appear on the Saturday, May 17 ballot.
“The better your credit, the lower your interest rates,” she said. “This will avert all reductions in services.”
The cost of no
Among those proposed reductions which would be negated with the override would be:

• Approximately $940,000 for the W-H Regional School District;
• $130,000 for the facilities manager and internet technology;
• The loss of $160,000 would mean the loss of one police officer and a firefighter;
• $130,000 for facilities manager and IT for the town;
• $160,000 in public safety cuts eliminates one police officer and one firefighter;
• $216,000 means three needed police cruisers;
• $73,000 eliminates one full-time Highway Department position; and other expenses, which incudes snow and ice removal, road grader;
• $27,000 cut would mean a reduction in transportation hours;
• $49,000 cut from the Health budget; Council on Aging, library funding.
  The town website’s budget pages feature a budget calculator with which residents calculate the impact an override could affect them and how many overrides have passed.
  “There’s a lot of chatter out there about all the overrides Hanson has asked for over the years,” Green said. “The town has asked for and received a number of overrides, many have been for the schools, some for the general operation – a majority of them under laws that meant basically, not passed.”
  During the session, which lasted about 40 minutes, moderated by Town Administrator Lisa Green. She was joined by Town Accountant Eric Kinsherf, School Committee Vice Chair Hillary Kniffen, Fire Chief Robert O’Brien Jr., Police Chief Michel Miksch, Highway Director Richard Jasmin, Select Board Chair Laura FitzGerald-Kemmett, Vice Chair Ann Rein and members Ed Heal and Joe Weeks.
  “This forum is information only, for questions regarding the override,” Green told those attending. “This is not a forum for arguing or providing your opinion for or against an override. That is for Town Meeting, and that is found at the Town Election.”
  “We’re looking back to 1989 here, so it’s important to note that, if we look back to 2005, there’s been three overrides have passed,” Which can counter the old argument,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said. Information available from the state on these points is data-based.
  Handouts containing updated town budgetary documents, including tax relief program for seniors and veterans were made available as well as information from the school district and the survey, which closes by the end of the week. Results of the Bridgewater State University override survey will be discussed at the Tuesday, April 29 Select board meeting.
  The program began with the basics.
  The town is allowed by law to increase its tax levy – the amount of taxes a town can assess and collect from town residents – by 2.5 percent each year. Any new taxable development can also be added to that number. Only town residents can override that levy limit.
  Town revenue sources are taxes on real estate and personal property, state aid sources, local program reimbursements, local receipts such as meals taxes, motor vehicle excise taxes and investment income free cash, stabilization, permit and license fees,
  “Hanson is funded predominantly with property taxes,” Green said of tax information handed out. Those property taxes make up 85 percent of Hanson’s operating revenue. Local receipts make up 9 percent, and local aid is down to 6 percent.
  Where the fiscal 2026 town budget is concerned, general government – mainly the offices working in Town Hall – make up 7 percent of the annual budget. Fire and police – public safety services is 26 percent of Hanson’s budget. But there is some financial “sunshine,” in the town’s low debt percentage of just 1 percent. Employment benefits make up 16 percent of the budget.
  Library and recreational services make up only 2 percent of the budget, and human services – the Council on Aging and Board of Health makes up 1 percent of the budget expenses for Hanson. Public Works is 5 percent of Hanson’s budget.
  Education costs comprise 48 percent of Hanson’s budget in fiscal ’26.
  The forum then took questions from those attending, WHCA-TV was recording the session last night, but was not live streaming. The forum will be posted on YouTube and rebroadcast on the Hanson government access channel in a few days.
  Kinsherf answered one resident’s question about the permanence of 2.5 percent increases in the levy. He said that does indeed compound each year.
  A resident of Lakeside road sought assurance that the override would mean services to private roads will continue under an override, so home values would not be impacted by a lack of road maintenance.
  FitzGerald-Kemmett assured him that, with an override, such road maintenance will continue.
  What departments need
  Green then handed the microphone to Kniffen, O’Brien an Miksch for closing thoughts.
  “It’s important to note that the schools are just asking for a level-services budget,” Kniffen said. “We are not asking to add any programs or any more services for students, but just maintain what we have.”
  Fire Chief O’Brien said his department is asking for something in the fiscal 2026 budget.
  “Last year, we had over 900 runs” he said. “It was simultaneous calls in the town of Hanson. Right now, almost 50 percent of the calls that we do are simultaneous calls. … So what we’re looking for four firefighter/paramedics to be hired.”
  As soon as they can get the second ambulance on the road, that gives the department another ambulance on the road to answer emergency calls until the advanced life support ambulance, which requires a crew of four returns from a hospital.
  Police Chief Miksch pointed to the changes in policing during his 30 years on the job.
  “What am I asking for? My status quo,” he said. “I don’t want to lose any officers. For the first time since COVID, we’re fully staffed. If I’m not fully staffed that means less officers on the road.”
  The time on a call is a lot longer today, as officers are responsible for a lot more things.
  The Highway Department is also looking to be fully staffed, avoiding the expense of contracting out work a fully staffed department would not need to use.
  Senior Center Director Mary Collins said the center’s ability to bring back the adult supportive day program, which will be able to return to offering services five daya a week when the new modular unit arrives next month.
  “We’re a small department,” she said, noting it takes up only four-tenths of 1 percent (.4 percent) of the town budget. “We rarely ask for more than that, knowing that we have other departments that are in need.
  Collins, too, is seeking level funding — which in her department’s case is only $12,000.

WHITMAN – If the people don’t know what’s going to happen when they say no to an override, they’re going to say no.
High Street resident John Galvin argued at the Tuesday, April 15 Select Board meeting that the success or failure of the override question hinges on fully informing voters.
“It won’t be pretty when the override fails, but in my opinion, it will unless you get the information out there of what services might get affected and how bad it’s going to be,” Galvin said. “Because people are just going to say, ‘Oh, they say that every year. It’s never going to happen.”
This year, the board’s contingency budget doesn’t mean, as it has in the past, an alternate plan for expending revenue in the event the override question fails – it means how the financial pain will be felt by town employees in the form of job losses if that happens, and how the public could see the resulting loss of services. But specific jobs at risk have not been listed.
The budget was, in fact, the only item of business on the agenda.
All of them will result in a variety of reductions to the town’s current staffing levels.
“If the override does not pass, the only option to balance the budget and close the deficit for fiscal 2026 is to reduce staffing,” said Town Administrator Mary Beth Carter, who stressed that services would be reduced before the town resorted to that. Carter said she has considered several different Fiscal ’26 contingency scenarios over the past few weeks.
“At this time, all options are being considered, however, all of the options, of course, are less than ideal,” she said adding that the reductions will, in turn, impact the services residents of Whitman currently receive.
“Departmental budgets will be scaled back to a minimum level before staffing reductions are considered. It’s our intention to keep any reductions in staffing and reductions to services to a minimum level, however the town could be facing reductions of up to 14 positions across the various town departments.”
High Street resident John Galvin said, with Town Meeting in three weeks, the Select Board must decide as quickly as possible, the details of such reductions.
“The people need to know, the voters need to know, the taxpayers need to know,” he said. “What happens if we vote no? The department heads need to know, the personnel need to know.”
Select Board member Shawn Kain, who is a member of the budget working group, argued that, while on one hand it’s good to know what services could be potentially lost, but to be respectful to people he doesn’t believe in putting people’s professional fate public.
Kain said there could be a couple of different strategies with an override such as trying to get the most shock value.
“I don’t support that,” he said. “I think if we have to put together a contingency plan – and it’s going to be about 14 full-time employees – I think we try to do it in the least impactful way possible.”
Carter said there are different ways departments could feel the effects of budget cuts if the override fails, such as expense lines, where she has “pulled everything back before we take the last step to reduce staff.”
“You have tiny departments – Planning Board and Bylaw Study Committee, little departments like that that we can make any adjustments in – but all the major departments will have some reductions in expenses, of course, or in staffing.”
Kain noted that there has been some discussion online about the use of free cash.
“I feel like we have some use of free cash that’s in line with our financial policy, embedded in the budget – about $340,000 in free cash – and for me, I think those are acceptable uses, because it’s short-term use. It’s not paying for personnel and regular budgetary items,” he said. “I would not support the use of free cash beyond what we currently have in the budget. I will not.”
He said it’s not meant to be a shock or scare tactic.
Carter said she had talked with John Adams of the accounting department, who is a former financial director, on Tuesday, who stressed and she knows as well, that free cash is one-time money that should not be used for recurring expenses.
Even with the $2 million override, she said the town is looking at a deficit of $1.8 million in fiscal 2027 ($2.6 million without an override), and a $3.9 million deficit for 2028.
“One of the reasons that we’re in the situation we’re in this year is because we used free cash last year,” she said. “If we were ever to use a large amount of free cash this year … it’s not even a Band-Aid. It’s a bad fiscal move.”
Free cash is the number one funding source for capital needs and using it to balance the budget would deplete that source.
“If you just start going down that path, using free cash to close the budget … auditors would not look [favorably] on that,” she said. Rating agencies also take that into consideration when deciding the town’s bond rating and the town could be downgraded in the future, leading to higher rates if the town needs to borrow in the future.
The $340,000 Kain mentioned is intended to used toward the Plymouth County Pension liability, that is expected to be paid off in 2030. Once that is paid up it will free up quite a bit of money in Whitman’s budget annually, which she then would like to see diverted to the other post-employment benefits [OPEB] liability, currently $140,000 a year paid from meals tax revenues, and some could be used in the regular budget. The pay-off of both liabilities also factors into the town’s bond rating calculations.
Select Board member Justin Evans said that, if Town Meeting supports the Select Board budget May 5, they will be waiting for the override ballot question result on May 17.
“If it passes, we have a balanced budget,” he said. “If it doesn’t, we have to start looking at these scenarios. But the clock really starts when the School Committee has 30 days to reassess the towns because they now have a rejected regional school budget. I imagine they’d do it sooner.”
The town would have 45 days to call a special Town Meeting at that point.
“The same process works for [South Shore Tech] if all four towns that have overrides on the ballot that are [SST] members, fail to pass a [SST] budget, [they’ll] do the same thing,” he said. “I don’t want to get into specifics right now to scare departments, but I think only … draft cuts number three scenario is even workable as a town – as devastating as it would be to all of our departments.”
He made a motion to recommend that scenario going forward.
“I think we deserve to start preparing for the worst because, right now, an override’s probably 50-50 at best,” Evans said.
Vice Chair Dan Salvucci, who was directing the meeting in the absence of Chair Dr. Carl Kowalski, said he would prefer to wait for a full board to decide that.
Police Chief Timothy Hanlon and Fire Chief Timothy Clancy offered a glimpse of the effect cuts could have in their departments as about five public safety job losses are anticipated if the override fails.
“For public safety, we think worst-case scenario first,” Hanlon said. “That’s the bleak outlook that we have to face now.” He said his department hasn’t been level serviced since at least 2012.
“In 2017, the townspeople spoke to increase our staffing from the 1970s [levels],” Clancy said. “Now that we’re being faced with the challenge of decreasing that staffing, it’s super disheartening. … If we start losing people, we start losing ambulances. If we start losing ambulances, we start losing revenue. When does it stop? … I’ve sworn to protect this town and I have to have the people to do it.”
Kain noted that the schools have not outlined specifics of the job cuts they anticipate other than that they want to stay away from elementary grade cuts with “a little at the middle schools and high school.”
“They deliberately left out the details because right now, for one, there’s a lot to be considered,” he said. “We don’t know how to calculate what we’re going to be up against because we don’t know exactly what the number is. Period.”
On Wednesday, April 9, the School District had outlined the effect an override failure will have in the schools.