Superintendent of Schools Jeff Szymaniak presented a “truly a level-service budget” for fiscal 2025 to the School Committe on Wednesday, Feb. 7.
The proposed budget for FY ’25 funds exactly the same programs and staff now in place during the 2023-24 school year, with no proposals to add or change programs.
“What is presented tonight is apples to apples,” Szymaniak said. “With the exception that everything is a bit more expensive than last year.”
The proposed $63,590,845 budget represents a 4.7 percent ($3,105,687) spending increase because of cost increases, according to Szymaniak. 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.
All budget documents are available on the district webste whrsd.org.
By comparion, some area school districts are “looking at double-digit increases of their overall budgets,” Szymaniak said, citing Middleboro and Norton in particular who are looking at 11- to 13-percent increases. Most are looking at increases of 3 percent and up.
“We’re just trying to service our students the best we can,” he said. “I believe we’ve done a nice job … we’ve been able to work federal aid into the district budgets for the support of students.” Between the ESSER funding series of grants the district has received close to $4.6 million in federal aid.
After budget discussions with both town administrators in November to hear what they were allocating, Szymaniak said he told them he would get the budget to that allocation, but he was obligated to present to the School Committee what the schools needed.
A 2 percent ($61,694,861) district budget increase would require cuts of $1.8 million to the overall plan, and would place Whitman’s assessment at $18,529,713 – of 4.45 percent higher – and Hanson’s at $14,595,226 – or 4.96 percent higher. A 3 percent ($62,299,713) district budget increase would require cuts of about $1.3 million to the overall plan, and would place Whitman’s assessment at $18,901,636 – or 6.55 percent higher – and Hanson’s at $14,828,154 – or 6.62 percent higher. A 4 percent ($62,904,564) district budget increase would require cuts of $686,281 to the overall plan, and would place Whitman’s assessment at $19,273,559 – or 8.63 percent higher – and Hanson’s at $15,061,082 – or 8.30 percent higher.
“It really looks like 5.13 percent when we add the [Whitman] middle school debt … but, overall, for the assessment value of the district, we’re looking at a 4.74 increase this year to maintain level services,” he said. “Hanson is not going to be paying anything on the Whitman Middle School project. It shows in the budget … because it’s a borrowing on behalf of the school, but it’s not part of the Hanson assessment.”
Since 2016 only one other budget – when it went up 5.52 percent in fiscal 2021 posted an increase of more than 4 percent.
He also pointed out that Whitman-Hanson is still spending less, at $16,339.41, per-pupil than 11 other area communities. The state per-pupil average is $19,566.95.
“I am very thankful and grateful to say to the towns of Whitman and Hanson tonight that we’re not in the bottom third,” Szymaniak said. “We’re not up at the top tier, but we’ve made somes strong gains.”
That is an improvement from the bottom eight districts where it once had been.
Szymaniak said educational programs the towns have paid for have helped that happen, but that he is concerned about regressing.
“We all know this is a challenging time of year, as all department heads and chiefs in both Whitman and Hanson are advocating for their departments and employees,” Szymaniak said. “I’m taking risk here, but I think all town officials and leaders in both communities want a budget that will support their department and the town, and also provide the best possible service to the community. The regional school district budget proposal is no different.”
He noted that today’s students are “much different than the students we had in 2019.”
The COVID-19 pandemic has had an impact on students academically, socially and behaviorally.
“Students have changed and our teachers and our district have had to change and modify how we deliver our curriculm and keep students engaged in our classrooms,” Szymaniak said. High-quality instructional materials, one-to-one technology, interventionists to aid students in making up any lost ground while helping all students, social-emotional supports, a growing English language learner population and an increase in students receiving special education both in and out-of-district, have increased the school budget over the years.
W-H is in compliance with laws, regulations and mandates from the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) on high-quality evidence-based instructional materials, K- grade three screenings and interventions and enrichment.
“FY ’25 is no different,” he said. “The difference this year, is the loss of federal assistance to the amount of about $818,000, which we have incorporated into this budget.”
There are 11 district paraprofessionals ($351,388), one English language learner teacher ($90,859) and four Unit A staff members ($375,955) who were hired under the federal Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Reief (ESSER) III funds for which salaries are being placed back in the general fund for fiscal 2025.
The budget is aligned with the School Committee’s Strategic Plan for 2023-28, focusing on what they term the four “focus area buckets” of: student access; communication; curriculum and community/culture, while simultaneously aiming to retain, recruit and develop staff as well as resources.
The budget process began with the Jan. 10 preliminary presentation to the School Committee and will continue to be discusssed at every committee meeting through April 17, if it takes that long, to finalize the budget for the May 6 Town Meetings. A meeting with the Whitman Finance Committee was held Tuesday, Feb. 6. The deadline for presenting the budget to the towns is March 21.
There are anticipated costs included in the budget, as well, Szymaniak said. These include contractual obligations, movement of costs from grants (like ESSER funds) to the budget and multi-lingual learner enrollment for which there are educational requirements the district must meet. Szymaniak stressed the multi-lingual learner population does not represent newly arrvied homeless migrants, as is the case in some neighboring districts.
“This is just direct residents of either Whitman or Hanson that has increased 198 percent over the past two years,” he said.
Unanticipated costs include specal education placements due to move-ins and increasing student mental health needs and behavioral supports.
At the same time, class size is down.
“We are at or close to, class sizes of 21 in all elementaries, if not a little bit lower,” Szymaniak said. Only the incoming kindergarten classes are not fully known right now.
High school enrollment, meanwhile, is decreasing as the town average between 60 and 70 students going to vocational schools, private schools or charter schools.
There is also 28 students supported by the district in its Community Evening School. Another 117 preschool students are also enrolled in that program at the high school.
“What does all this mean?” said Asssistant Superintendent George Ferro. “It means that we’re trying to do the right thing for the students that we have in our schools.”
That boils down to three district-based academic interventionists, 12 building-based interventionists, five district wide curriculum coordinators spanning all subject areas and a secondary data specialist. Interventionists help W-H students as teachers and paraprofessionals in math and ELA, gathering data to form intervention groups and work with staff and teachers in the buildings.
For social-emotional supports, there are five board-certified behavioral analysts, seven school psychologists, 10 adjustment counselors and transition rooms at Hanson Middle and WHRHS for students returning from hospitalization – which can run the gamut from concussions or minor surgery such as appendectomies as well as students with social-emotional issues or hospitalization of other treatment for any mental health issues.
“Our staff has done a wonderful job for the last 20 years, but we never gave them the schools that they actually needed – that are research-based, that are scientifically based, that do improve student learning that we now can offer,” Ferro said.

WHITMAN – The town is looking at a 1,017,394 deficit even as officials have been crafting tighter budgets.
The Select Board heard a budget update from member Shawn Kain and Town Administrator Mary Beth Carter at its Tuesday, Feb. 6 meeting.
The process was begun as a forecast, based on the fiscal 2024 budget and projections of what revenue and expenditures might be for the next budget cycle. The result was a “pretty tight” forecast, Kain said, moving Carter to issue a budget message to department heads in early December that was in line with that forecast to stay within the Proposition 2 ½ increase with no increase in expenses. The total revenue increase over last year is only 1.2 percent for funding all departments, according to Kain.
“The likelihood of an override – certainly a discussion with the schools about an override – is real,” he said.
“We have to balance the budget, that’s the bottom line,” Carter said. “So the tough work is ahead of us.”
Since December, Carter has met with each department head separately to listen to concerns about the department needs. The Finance Committee has gone through a similar process, and more information on revenues is now available.
On Dec. 5, the deficit stood at $273,813, but now comes in at $1,017,394 in a fiscal 25 budget totaling $43,312,919 – with revenues of $42,295,525 in department requests.
“The numbers we were looking at this year are pretty lean,” he said. “At this point we are now ready to begin to formulate the formal budget.”
They walked the board through that information Tuesday night.
The Fire Department, seeking a 15.83 percent increase ($615,529) for salaries and a 12.42 percent increase ($52,945) in expenses, includes adding a firefighter to fill a vacancy created by promotion and contract year for the chief and deputy chief as well as equipment repairs, service contract increases and the ongoing expense of transporting patients due to the Brockton Hospital fire. The Police Department’s salary line increase is 8.05 percent ($274,204) as the chief and deputy chief contracts are up for negotiation, shifts have been unified and police reform makes hiring more complex, but expenses have been held to a .92 percent increase ($3,200).
At the DPW, salaries are up 4.56 percent ($33,865) due to contracts and expenses are increased by 10.64 percent ($190,394) primarily due the increase in solid waste expenses, even as they offset by the trash rate. Capital needs included in transitioning to the part-time use of the armory as the new DPW building is under constructed are also calculated in the expense increase.
Library salary line increases total to 3.81 percent ($14,791) as director and assistant director contracts, other salary increases are contractual. Expenses are up by 29.14 percent ($28,773) due to materials, utilities and maintenance costs.
“If their budget increases, then the amount or money that they spend on books, specifically, has to increase in order to qualify for a significant amount of state funding,” Kain said.
Technology expenses are up 17.03 percent ($46,023) while the salary costs have been kept to a 2.5 percent ($5,777) largely due to software costs.
While the School Department budget wouldn’t be unveiled until the next evening, a level-serviced budget with an increase of 11.12 percent ($1,972,658) is anticipated.
“They knew that this particular year was going to be a drop off, mostly because of the sunset of the federal ESSER funds,” Kain said. “The level-service numbers are expected to increase because of the numbers that came back from the state.”
Carter has included a 5 percent (an increase of $886,975) school budget increase as a placeholder in the budget thus far.
“Anything above that, of course, is going to be a much higher impact to the budget,” she said.
South Shore Tech’s assessment is up by 11.79 percent ($189,177) as a placeholder, as Whitman is sending 14 more students to the school this year.
“When Mary Beth sent her budget message, most of the department heads gave really what they think their department deserves, and they’re advocating for their budget, which they should be able to do so that we and the public understand what their needs and concerns are,” Kain said. “But what they didn’t provide us is what would their department look like if it actually was a 2.5 percent and zero percent expenses.”
He said that is the information they expect to be learning in the coming weeks.
Board Vice Chair Dan Salvucci said that, with three building projects in the works, he does not think an override to balance the budget would pass.
“I think that’s an important discussion for us to have with the School Department,” Kain said. “Obviously, people in the community care about education, they’ve made that clear, it’s a priority.”
He noted the district was presenting a thorough presentation on it Wednesday, Feb. 7 on what it will be able to fund as well as what they won’t be able to fund.
Chair Dr. Carl Kowalski also saw the need for the schools to ask for an override this year.
“I don’t want to be pessimistic about an operational override because we need it to take care of the kids,” he said. “As long as we know that they’re spending their money responsibly, we need it.”
Salvucci said it depends on what the School Committee decides for a budget.
“They need to show that they’re willing to look at both towns and what their budget [outlook is],” he said.
Kowalski said a lot of hard work has gone into avoiding an override to this point.
“Some of us have been saying for years that, in order for us to serve our students in a way that is appropriate,” he said. “The town needs to say – not only in a survey can we say that we value the students and we value the schools, but they also have to say they are willing to pay for it.”
Board member Justin Evans said town departments are not without blame, either.
“A lot of those asks are well above two-and-a-half percent,” he said. “The money has to come from somewhere.”
Police Chief Timothy Hanlon said his department has been underfunded for years.