HANSON – Town Administrator Lisa Green on Tuesday, April 2 informed the Select Board that full approval has been received from the state Department of Public Utilities Control (DPUC) for the town’s municipal energy aggregate program to offer residents savings on their electricity bills.
Good Energy conducted the procurement bidding service and, out of three bids received, the supplier with the lowest cost was Direct Energy Services.
“There has been an electric service agreement that has been executed,” she said. “Good Energy [was] going to begin, I believe [this] week, the outreach.”
Hanson residents are being mailed informational postcards including quotes on savings and rates in order to decide what what to do, or they can visit hansoncommunitypower.com.
“This will be a savings,” Green said. “I can’t give estimates on what the savings will be, but is a significant savings, below what National Grid charges pet kilowatt.”
Chair Laura FitzGerald-Kemmett noted that board member Ed Heal had specifically asked that outreach be done to inform residents – targeting the Senior Center in particular – to get that information out.
“What’s our plan here?” she asked.
Green said Green Energy would be developing the postcards and literature for “basically everyone in Hanson” and said her office could ensure it is delivered to the Senior Center as well.
“We can also ask them to put together a presentation that they can do by Zoom over at the Senior Center,” she said.
Energy Committee member Marianne DiMascio said there is a full community outreach schedule to which Good Energy must adhere, including postcards and literature. There will also be an in-person community information session this month, probably at the library or police station, and a virtual meeting in May. Another in-person session could also be held at the Senior Center.
The basic rate for National Grid service is currently 18.32 cents per kilowatt hour. Hanson standard is the default at 13.693 cents per KWH and 10 percent of that supply is from renewable sources. Hanson basic (no renewable sources) is 13.62 cents per KWH and Hanson 14.7 cents per KWH for 100-percent renewable sources.
The board also voted to have Green draft a letter to National Grid requesting streetlights at three utility poles along Route 58 in the center of town in the interest of pedestrian safety.
Green said she had received an email from Sgt. Michael Bearse of the Hanson Police, about streetlights at the intersections of Liberty and Winter as well as Indian Head and School streets. Bearse observed that lighting at those areas was insufficient to make it safe for pedestrians to cross.
“He has suggested that we add streetlights to the crosswalks,” she said. “ One is near the front of Town Hall on Liberty Street at Winter Street and the intersection of Indian Head Street and at the School Street side of Indian Head Street.
“Apparently, there is one streetlight on one of those poles, but it’s not operational, so I don’t know if that was one that was included in the recent LED conversion that National Grid did,” Green said. “We can get in touch with them as soon as we know exactly what pole number it is.”
Green reached out to National Grid about the process of adding streetlights to those poles and was told it was just a matter of adding the light arm and lamp to the poles. The cost is $108 per year per light annually.
FitzGerald-Kemmett asked if that was an annual expense or just the cost of adding the light to each pole. Green said a 20-watt LED light plus installation done at no cost, the $108 reflects the electricity cost.
In other business, the board, had voted to appoint Highway Supervisor Steve Graham as temporary interim highway director for March 20-29. As it was not posted for that meeting, the board will vote on appointing Kurt McLean as the new interim highway director, effective April 1.
The board also voted in open session to place Highway Director Jameson Shave on paid administrative leave for the remainder of his contract – effectively no longer being employed by the town from March 20 to June 30. The board had already taken the vote during executive session.

HANOVER – Back-to-back meetings of the South Shore Tech School Committee and School Building Committee on Wednesday, March 20 updated the ballot timing and reviewed the process for selecting a project construction manager.
During the School Committee’s regular meeting, Superintendent/Direction Dr, Thomas J. Hickey noted Town Meeting season was approaching rapidly for the district as Abington holds its Town Meeting on Monday, April 1 and Scituate’s is on Monday, April 8.
Hickey said his evaluation goals for the year include cyber security, the MSBA process and students receiving third party licenses.
Hickey said he planned to convene with town clerks in district communities on April 24.
“At that meeting, my hope is to get updated feedback from them.” he said, noting he has already received one request to consider moving a January vote to closer to spring 2025. “I asked if that meant something like March or April, the answer was, ‘yes.’ … so we are anywhere from 10 to 12 months from the voters of our district rendering a decision.”
Saturday, March 1 or Saturday, March 8, 2025 are both possible election dates, he said.
“We may see some of our communities, which has nothing to do with us, decide that on the same day to have a separate ballot, ask the sequence of A1) Do you support the vote project? And A2) are you willing to pay for it through a debt exclusion? … That way town financial teams would know where they stand.”
“How do we inform our communities?” Mahoney asked.
Carlson said that, aside from the usual marketing materials such as the use of a website and flyers, talking to people is the best avenue.
“To date, we’ve been trying to go to public meetings and things like that,” Carlson said. “Over the summer, there’s farmer’s markets … having conversations with people, I think will be an important part. … Nobody can advocate for the project, but we can provide facts.”
“What can we do to convince the state [that] the cost of vocational education is a lot more than a traditional regular high school?” Salvucci asked.
Franceschi said a recent project by Tri-County saw discussion of the need to get more vocational representation on the MSBA board.
The Building Committee, on which most of the School Committee also serves, heard a project update from the Construction, according to Manager Jennifer Carlson of LeftField. The Building Committee also voted to appoint OPM representative Carlson, architect representative Carl Franceschi of DRA and awarding authority representatives Hickey and School Committee members Robert Mahoney and Robert Mello to the at-risk prequalification and selection committees.
The state requires those representatives to serve on the committee approving the project moving forward with the procurement process, which the inspector general has approved.
The selection committee reviews the statement of qualifications to decide which are qualified to move on to the next round, conduct interviews and, ultimately votes to award the construction manager’s contract.
Abington School Commitee member Mahoney, of SST Dean of Students Robert Mello, who holds an unrestricted construction supervisors license, were selected based on their construction experience, said Chair Robert Heywood who represents Hanover.
“This is a process that’s based on the qualifications, but we do have to see the price before we do the final ranking,” Carlson said.
The aim is to have the process complete for the SBC to approve the construction manager by May 23.
The construction manager feasibility pre-con fee range, which gets the project through schematic design, is between $55,000 to $65,000 from the $305,565 in remaining uncommitted funds.
Whitman committee representative Dan Salvucci asked when town votes on the new school project would begin.
Bringing them back to the matter of the schematic design, Franceschi noted that, while they are not there yet, they “don’t have to wait around” to take the project to the next level.
“The basic goal of this phase is to describe the scope, the schedule and the budget so by the time we submit again to the state, those three areas are well-defined and everyone is willing to live with it because it really becomes a contract,” he said.
Now that the specific site of the new building is better known, DRA’s engineers can go back to make boring and test kits in more specific locations to know what the soils and ground water is like.
“It’s pretty important information from a design point of view,” Franchesci said.
A traffic engineer will also be more closely studying the traffic flow past the school.
“So basically, we’ll be refining the design,” he said. “There’ll certainly be fine-tuning.”
Mahoney asked when the committee would see a “drop-dead date” when they learn MSBA numbers.
Carlson said the budget is part of the schematic design submission delivered to the MSBA in August and, two weeks later, the whole schematic package, which the MSBA will have two months to provide the numbers. Officially, the date would be around Oct. 30.

The Whitman-Hanson School committee voted 9-1 on Wednesday, March 20, after impassioned arguments on both sides of the fiscal 2025 budget issue – both in the public comment periods and among themselves – to support the level-service budget of $63,590,845 budget unveiled on Feb. 1.
The figure can be lowered if state adjusts Chapter 70 funds for inflation before Town Meeting. The Committee voted 9-1 against reconsidering the first vote, which would have not allowed them to change the figure later on as they expressed uncertainty about what the effect of such a vote would really be.
A vote to use excess and deficiency to lower assessments can be made at any time before Town Meeting.
The Committee unanimously voted to approve a debt assessment of $251,903 covering the high school and HVAC debt for Hanson and debt assessment of $623,531 the high school debt and a bond anticipation note for the new middle school for Whitman.
The proposed fiscal 2025 budget represents a 4.7 percent ($3,105,687) spending increase because of cost increases, according to Superintendent of Schools Jeff Szymaniak, who said in February that, if accepted as presented, the budget would set assessment increases as 11.03 percent ($19,695,553) for Whitman and 10.20 percent ($15,325,369) for Hanson. Both assessment figures were cerified as well, by 9-1 votes. Member Fred Small was the dissenting vote in all of them.
The figures were brought before the Committee to start discussion about where and how the budget may be cut. But for Committee member David Forth, there was nothing to discuss, and everything for students to lose [see related story below].
Made atfter a motion by Hanson Committee member Glen DiGravio, the vote now leaves the issue in the hands of the voters.
“We’re here to tonight to push this thing forward because we have to,” he said. “We’ve got to go forward.”
He said, personally, he favored the level-service budget moving on to Town Meeting and the community would vote on it.
“It’s their money,” he said. “We’re like a poorly run business that, without an infusion of cash, we’re going under.”
Whitman Town Administrator Mary Beth Carter, in response to a question from Szymaniak, said even with a 5-percent earmark for the school budget, they plan to use $500,000 from free cash to balance the town budget.
“I’m almost there at level, using that with drastic reductions, of course, to what was requested [by town departments],” she said.
Hanson Town Administrator Lisa Green said that, even with a 5.85-percent assessment, her town is almost $1 million in deficit.
“Our free cash is at $1.4 million,” she said. “We would basically need to use most of that. Anything higher than that pretty much is going to wipe out all our free cash and gives us nothing for capital until October. … Regardless of what the schools do, we’re at a deficit on all of those figures [Szymaniak spoke of as assessment formulas], which may mean staff [cuts] on our end, as well.”
Whitman Select Board member Shawn Kain said all three boards are bare-boned and super-efficient, so there is little room for cuts.
“The best thing we can do is get on the same page and move forward together so we can get past this in a way that the community will accept,” he said.
Select Board member Justin Evans said Whitman’s new growth for fiscal 2025 is looking to be $250,000. New growth plus Prop 2 ½ is $1.2 million the current year.
Before the budget discussion a handful of Whitman officials said the 5.58 percent assessment was within a comfortable margin of the 5 percent their Select Board budget line items.
Szymaniak began the budget discussion with a review of where the assessment proposals were left the previous week.
Noting that the level-service budget presented Feb, 2 “didn’t go over well with our communities,” and following cuts proposed the previous week, both towns are earmarking the schools at about a 5 percent assessment increase, which he said presents “ a real challenge to our district budget.”
He thanked both town administrators for providing the district with the budget numbers they are dealing with.
“We might not agree where we’re at right now, but I appreciate the transparency of having some numbers to work with,” Szymaniak said. “I presented the Committee some options for what that would look like if we come down from 5.13 percent.”
He reviewed those options at Wednesday’s meeting, all the way down to a 5.8-percent assessment increase – including the unemployment numbers, which kick in with the new fiscal year on July 1, included in the personnel reductions. If a teacher does not have a position by June 30, the district must begin paying them unemployment compensation until they are called back or secure another job at equal pay to what they are now receiving at W-H.
“We learned that through COVID,” he said. The district was forced to pink-slip 62 people during the fiscal 2021 budget process because that budget – being worked out during the height of the pandemic was fraught with uncertainty. Most returned or found gainful employment elsewhere.
Szymaniak went over his recommendations in the event cuts are necessary, before the Committee discussed them.
To reach the assessments the towns can afford without an override, the district is 5 percent, they have said to Szymaniak and in public meetings.
“My recommendation – if we have to – if this Committee has to move away from the 5.13 percent assessment … I still recommend potentially using one-time funds, using circuit-breaker funds and not replacing five retirements and non-renewals for a total of five positions cut,” he said. That would mean a total cut of $910,500 and make the overall budget – not the assessment – a 4.04 percent increase. It would assess Whitman $19,135,687 (a 7.8 percent increase) and Hanson $14,974,786 (a 7.68 percent increase).
Deeper cuts are “where it gets a little bit uncomfortable” for running the schools effectively and carrying the additional 40-percent cost in the salaries of each person pink-slipped because of the cost of unemployment benefits to the district.
“I had told the Committee, and I shared with the district today, where cuts could come from,” Szymaniak said. “The only place I could take cuts from … I’m looking at Conley, Indian Head [elementary schools], Hanson Middle School, Whitman Middle School at the grade levels. You can probably assume that some of the retirements are coming from the high school because they are getting cuts, as well.”
The cuts could increase class sizes.
Szymaniak said the district has worked hard to serve its students, especially in kindergarten through grade five, which now average classes of 20 pupils and under, and grades six to eight, where classes average 20 to 22. In the high school, classes average between 22 to 25 students.
The cuts would bring the average for every elementary and middle school class to 25 with “hopefully no move-ins.”
He said he had a question from a community member about whether studies have been done on optimal class size.
“Yes, a lot before 2019,” he said. “Nobody’s really talking about that now because kids are different.”
Twenty-five students in a high school class used to be manageable, and while it is still doable now, it’s different, Szymaniak said. That same number, 25, in an elementary classroom was once considered a bit large, but manageable. Today, 20-pupil classrooms are considered challenging.
The district has interventionists, but Assistant Superintendent George Ferro mentioned last week that, where they are progressing and educating all kids, there will be a restructuring of how that happens if there are 25 students in a classroom.
Cuts to bring the assessment increase down to 4.04 percent, if the Committee supported it, would not really affect kindergarten to grade eight students, but high school students somewhat, but he said he gets really nervous about adequately serving students once they go below that percentage for cuts.
“Cutting five positions in the district isn’t awesome,” Szymaniak said. “There are retirements and non-renewals that we could probably get by [with]. It won’t be a tremendous increase in class size; however services will be lost. It’s not level-serviced.”
Excess and deficiency, which is revenue, of which the district is also using $250,000 to support the budget, he reminded the committee.
Szymaniak then listed the effects of each subsequent single percent cut from the assessment increase below 5 percent.
Bringing Whitman’s assessment down to $18,917,397 (6.84 percent assessment) and Hanson’s to $14,838,025 (6.85 percent assessment) would mean layoffs or terminations for seven employees.
The next layer, with total proposed cuts – including use of excess and deficiency and circuit-breaker – reduces the budget by $1,208,700. If the district has to get closer to the 5-percent mark, and Szymaniak’s calculations did not get that far – they went as far as 5.58 percent – because “I stopped there,” he said.
That layer of cuts eliminates an additional 8.5 staff members, but reduces Whitman’s assessment to $18,655,450 (a 5.58 assessment increase) and Hanson’s would be $14,673,972 (5.85 percent assessment). Total reductions in this scenario still puts the W-H school budget at a 2.9 percent overall increase over last year with $1,570,800 – or 20 professional staff member positions – in proposed cuts including the use of excess and deficiency revenues and circuit-breaker funds.
While paraprofessionals are professional staff as well, Szymaniak said he has not looked to making cuts there as yet.
“These are not retirements, these are people,” Szymaniak said, referring to the unemployment implications of those positions.
Committee member Dawn Byers asked Szymaniak if he could tell them what positions are involved with the five retiring staff members.
“I won’t say that at this point, because it’s retirements and non-renewals and replacements of those folks,” he said. “I know who my retirements are and they are retirements in elementary and high school.”
“But, is it a classroom teacher?” Byers asked, noting they could be a school nurse or other staff position.
“They’re all classroom teachers,” Szymaniak said. “I need to have that flexibility in who I need to replace based on who I need next year. I’m looking at five professional positions who are going to be lowest next year.”
“They’re not just retirements, some of them are non-renewals, which some of those people don’t know that yet, so we can’t say their names,” said Chair Beth Stafford. “We can’t say the position because they’ve not been notified.”
She said part of the problem is that some information won’t be available until April 1 or later from people returning who might not want to return from maternity leave or other long-term leave.
“We have to set this at this time,” she said. “Things can change, but we don’t know that and that’s an issue.”
“I’m not trying to be shady, if that’s a word,” Szymaniak said. “I have retirements, and there are some retirements I’m going to fill and there are some retirements I’’m not going to fill. It’s just going to depend on enrollments and what numbers look like as we roll them out and scheduling with each building next year.”
Elizabeth Dagnall, of School Street in Whitman, said she understood the position the school district is in as it tries to balance the budget without crippling an already tight spending plan.
“It’s a gross understatement to say that this budgeting stuff is complex, difficult, [but] the district is making strides that are beginning to have positive impact on each and every student,” she said. “It is imperative to focus on the need for programs like foreign language at the middle school, robotics … as well as keeping the interventions that are currently in place and working.”
She added that above all, it is crucial to work to move the district forward.
“I’m painfully aware that our financial landscape cannot be repaired overnight, nor can town-wide budgeting shortfalls be repaired solely by cutting education or pushing the narrative that investing in our students is problematic while all other spending is justified,” Dagnall said, asking that the committee support a budget that does not cut programs and continues to move the school district forward.
She also took issue with “terminology of a ‘school override’ at a Town Meeting to fix a problem that is not only residing within the school system.”
Whitman Select Board members Justin Evans and Shawn Kain also addressed the budget issue during the public forum.
Evans spoke of last year’s meeting between the two select boards and the School Committee to discuss the use of one-time funding to balance last year’s budget, in which they “agreed to do something different this year.”
“And I think that you have,” he said, noting that, so far Szymaniak has met with both town administrators several times in “productive meetings” since last summer.
Evans also noted during the committee’s budget hearing a couple of weeks ago that Whitman was projecting about $1.2 million in new revenue.
“What I don’t think I said was that, if you assess anything above that number, the FinCom has to balance the budget,” he said. “We have to present a balanced budget to Town Meeting for the town to vote on.”
That budget will show cuts to other departments.
“In that scenario, in all likelihood, I think the selectmen would present an alternative budget alongside, that would show a different number for the schools,” Evans said. “If that happens [we’d] likely want to work with you to present an override that would make up that difference, but we’re in a time crunch.”
The process for presenting an override to the towns would require the Select Board to vote 35 days before an election, which would mean April 12 is the deadline for such a vote.
“To avoid an override and live within Proposition 2 1/2 is going to take cuts from everyone, including Hanson’s town government as well,” he said. “If you think you can live with those cuts, assess a number close to the 5 percent that the towns have both said that they can deal with. If you can’t live with those cuts, it sets the budget higher but let’s set a meeting very soon between the three boards to work out a plan to fund it – likely with an override.”
Kain reminded the Committee of Assistant Superintendent George Ferro using the phrase “moral imperative” when discussing the reasoning behind the use of one-time funds to balance the budget.
“I agree with him,” said Kain, who is also an educator. “I am in the classroom and I do know what it’s like to work with kids who struggled through the pandemic.”
Some of his students are also struggling with the loss of either of – or both – their parents in the opioid epidemic.
“But the question I’d ask you to consider tonight is how to raise those funds,” Kain said, arguing that the best way to accomplish that is to work with the leadership of both towns to coordinate an override for anything above a 5 percent assessment increase.