HANOVER – An early forecast for the South Shore Tech fiscal 2025 budget proposal, which increases by 5.62 percent – or $16,139,669 – was presented to the School Committee on Thursday, Dec. 20.
Breaking down the increase, said Superintendent/Director Dr. Thomas J. Hickey explained that the operating budget itself is up 3.88 percent (or $320,000), with capital expenses up 0.92 percent ($180,000) and district election costs for the MSBA project will raise the budget another 0.81 percent. Of the MSBA costs, $125,000 will come from excess and deficiency to avoid impacting local assessments.
“If this wasn’t the year to budget for this election, the overall budget increase would be about 4.8 percent of which about 3.88 percent is to operate the school house,” he said.
The ballot question for the MSBA building project is being planned for late January 2025. If it is passed, borrowing would begin in 2026. A preferred schematic plan – based on a preferred planned enrollment goal – will be presented to the MSBA later this month. The MSBA vote would come in August.
“I want to be able to lift up the hood on this,” he said. “We bring our communities one assessment number … Whatever we need, whether it’s a piece of capital or just running the schoolhouse, it all funnels down into one number.”
Hickey said he also thinks the district will be able to procure new buses using a combination of stabilization and existing funds, putting money toward a second year’s payment. The district had leased a dozen propane buses in 2017 and paid the lease off early, saving money and enabling the district, through equity in the buses to enter a successor lease. Last summer the district had some surplus revenue allowing the purchase of three buses for about $435,000.
“We have said goodbye to the last of the diesel buses that were 10-plus years old,” he said. Even with Marshfield joining the district, Hickey said they should be able to delay the need for more buses by a year.
The specifics of how that assessment breaks down by town will be available at a planned Jan. 25 School Committee meeting after the governor’s budget comes out.
The December budget presentation is traditional for the district.
“We are a little bit earlier than some communities because our regional agreement calls for us to have a certified budget 45 days before our earliest district Town Meeting, Hickey. “Historically, we have at least one town that schedules Town Meeting for early April, so that triggers a budget certification in February, preceded by a budget hearing in January.
SST uses a “zero-based” budget formula.
“While there are fixed costs, every department head and cost-center supervisor is asked to look at their budget with fresh eyes and focus on the year ahead and also on long-range capital planning, but do not simply add a few percent onto last year’s number,” Hickey said. “If we all did that, there would never be enough money for the things that pop up.”
Hickey said the district is monitoring Chapter 70 aid and the effect of changes in state regulations regarding non-resident students, while in-district student enrollment increases with the addition of Marshfield, raises the question of how a drop-off based on non-resident kids graduating in June will impact revue.
The inflation rate being used to calculate state aid is under 2 percent, raising the question does a lower rate mean the member communities may have to absorb more of the costs.
“Does the state aid match the drop in [non-resident] revenue?” he said. If it does not, there is a revenue gap that must be addressed either by adjusting the budget down or pass more costs to the communities.
“We will know what the right answer is as soon as we see the governor’s budget, the estimated state aid – and I’m prepared with a Plan B if there’s a gap,” Hickey said, indicating budget cuts would be the most likely approach.
The budget also aims to move $137,407 in personnel salaries funded by grants into the budget. New personnel eyed in the budget include $75,000 for a physical education/health teacher and $40,000 for a medical assisting teacher budgeted as an aide position. The $40,000 would be paid by a Perkins grant, should it come through.
Among the accomplishments which are always included in the budget presentation: SST now has the highest enrollment in its history with a strong program placement and student application pool, outside funding has been secured via Rethinking Grading, Skills Capital and a recent $2.1 million CTI grant. There has also been progress with the MSBA project and the district has expanded to include Marshfield as of July 1, and programming for student supports have been expanded, Hickey said.
“We are killing it on state grants,” Hickey said. “We’re doing a fantastic job of showing the world that we thrive after hours and we’re serving our day kids and our nighttime adults with great distinction.”
Enrollment trends show Whitman going up by 14 students and Hanson going down by eight from last year’s enrollment. Debt service is based on a town’s average Oct. 1 enrollment in the three years preceding a debt authorization and debt amounts are fixed.
Right now, the debt service number is zero.
Goals ahead include the NEASC accreditation in 2026, expansion of community and culture goals of expanded workforce development, creation of a Student Equity Club and strong student participation in athletics. The MSBA process is the main facilities goal and implementation of a grading initiative is another instructional goal.

WHITMAN – Select Board voted on Tuesday, Dec. 19 to send two sample bylaws to the Bylaw Study Committee – to potentially allow solar farms or battery developers to locate in town.
Chair Dr. Carl Kowalski was unable to attend the meeting.
The town does not have anything at all in the general and Zoning bylaws to set any limits or have any rules or have any means of doing much to regulate solar, argued Select Board member Justin Evans.
He noting that, during the auction of the Peaceful Meadows property, the auctioneers mentioned some solar developers were interested and bidding on the property, according to state law, solar farms up to a certain size are allowed by right and because Whitman is a green community, anything above that is also allowed.
But there are no protections on the books for the town to use in controlling or reviewing potential developers.
“We don’t have anything at all in the general and zoning bylaws to set any limits, have any reviews – there’s nothing to protect the town from a developer and coming in and doing whatever related to solar,” Select Board member Justin Evans said. “But we do have the ability to put in place … bylaws. On batteries, that’s less of an already existing issue and more of an opportunity.
He said Carver, like Witman, has a large electric distribution substation, he said, noting the property off Sportsman’s Trail near the Brockton line.
“[That] would be a very desirable place for a potential battery developer to put something,” Evans said. “The project in Carver is estimated to cost about $175 million on six acres. In Whitman, in our personal property taxes, that would be a little over $2 million to the town if someone like that were to come in and do a project [like Carver’s].”
He said it is an opportunity the town could look at.
The board also discussed the extension of sidewalks from Hogg Memorial Drive to the Brockton Line.
Board Chair Dan Salvucci said he has spoken to the DPW Commissioners, as the board’s liaison to them, and reported that, while the commissioners feel it is important to have a sidewalk there, it is not their main priority. That priority is Plymouth Street from the Rotary to the Hanson line, where there are a great many houses never served by a sidewalk. It is also an area closer to the MBTA station, to which a lot of commuters walk and for which parking is scarce.
Salvucci also noted there are no sidewalks in Brockton on Route 14.
“So, [the proposed section] would stop there, and anybody wanted to walk further, Brockton doesn’t have it either,” he said. “They need to make the decision [about] what they want to do, try and get a grant and then bring it to Town Meeting. I don’t think it’s our decision to do that.”
Board member Shawn Kain noted the DPW has a formal plan with about 15 specific priorities, so the Hogg Memorial area is on the complete streets plan, it’s just not at the top of the list right now.
“I think, if the timeline worked out well, and they were to get the money, they’re looking at closer to 2026,” Kain said.
“The town can’t afford to put all the sidewalks in,” Salvucci agreed. “They’d have to go with a grant – complete streets and things like that. … As far as the Joint Transportation Committee – I will push for anything that the town is looking for.”
Kain said it is on his list of priorities as well.
An Auburnville Way resident said meetings about the issue with the offices of state Rep. Alyson Sullivan-Almeida, R-Abington, and Congressman Stephen Lynch, D-Mass., has resulted in guidance that the Select Board’s prioritizing the Route 14 sidewalks could result in the faster release of state and federal grant money.
Both Salvucci and Town Administrator Mary Beth Carter said it would be better to discuss that with the DPW Commissioners first, as they are also an elected board and it would avoid over-stepping the commissioners’ authority.
SST concern
Resident Robert Kimball also spoke during the public forum on the informational meeting held by South Shore Tech on Dec. 14 regarding its upcoming building project.
“One of the big concerns was the percentage of paying moving forward, and I hope the Board of Selectmen can take a real good look at it,” he said, noting that Whitman’s share should be based on current enrollment.
Salvucci, who is also the Whitman representative to the SST School Committee, said Superintendent-Director Dr. Thomas J. Hickey thought the opinion is credible and is looking into it.
“I asked him, since I’m on the committee there, to look at the enrollment for the past 10-15 years and see how the enrollment was, because there was one year, we went down a few students,” he said. “There was one year we went up 10 students.”
But, he added, interest in the school in Whitman remains high. There were more than 100 families touring the school during the registration process for next year’s freshman class recently.
“All I’m asking is that you take a good look at it and analyze it and do what’s best for the community,” Kimball said. “I want you to analyze it, not have your mind made up right now.”
Carter said Hickey had sent her an email about meeting to discuss the issue.

WHITMAN – While 2023 ended with the question of whether a new Whitman Middle School would be built, in the coming year the same question faces voters – as one of nine member communities being asked to support a new South Shore Tech.
“Our goal is not to build the absolute biggest thing we can build,” said SST Superintendent-Director Dr. Thomas J. Hickey, as some voters brought their questions to an informational meeting held in Whitman Town Hall on Thursday, Dec. 14. “We have to build something that is as affordable as possible.”
He was joined by Project Manager Jen Carlson from the firm LeftField, Educational Consultant Adele Sands, and Carl Franshesci from architectural firm DRA. Whitman’s representative to the SST School Committee, Select Board Vice Chair Dan Salvucci also attended, as did Select Board member Justin Evans, who also serves on the Whitman Middle School Building Committee.
Whitman Finance Committee members Kathleen Ottina and Rosemary Connolly also attended and asked several questions.
“We’ve accomplished a lot as a building committee in the last few months,” Hickey said, as he began with an overview of the project and its status before taking those questions. “I promise you there are slides that say ‘Show me the money.’”
Opened in 1962, SST is the second-oldest regional-vocational school in Massachusetts with the original member communities of Abington, Cohasset, Hanover, Norwell, Rockland and Scituate, with Whitman and Hanson joining the region in the 1982-83 school year. Marshfield is now in the process of joining the district and Pembroke is considering that move.
“If we decide to bring in more communities that are not part of a regional voke later on, we’ll bring them in knowing they’ll help with cost-sharing, but those conversations are entirely separate from this,” Hickey said.
Marshfield will be paying a portion a share of the project in fiscal 2026, the first anticipated year of bond anticipation notes.
“Marshfield’s annual debt share will adjust with their enrollment, as they add students for fiscal ’26, ’27, ’28 and ’29,” Hickey said. “Then, on Oct. 1, 2028, as we’re preparing the fiscal ’30 budget, Mansfield’s share will be fixed.”
For example, if Marshfield sends 20 kids per year, it would put them at 11.9 percent of total school enrollment, translating to an 11.9 percent cut for each of the towns. It would be the district’s largest sending community with an eighth-grade class of more than 250 kids.
Whitman’s eighth-grade class is currently 174.
“Second-oldest doesn’t mean [it’s a] decrepit building,” he said. “We’re a well-maintained building, but we just happened to be the second one in Massachusetts to experiment with this model.
With a larger school building, Hickey said plumbing and veterinary technician can be added to the 12 shop specialties taught to the 670 students already attending SST.
Hickey said people have been asking him for decades why the school hasn’t offered a plumbing program, but the space limitations have not permitted it.
“Over the last 10 years, the number of kids who would like to come, but there is no space, has averaged out at about 68 students,” he said. “That’s an important number for me to factor in when making recommendations about what we could potentially build for – what is the demand?”
The average freshman class now numbers between 175 and 180 students. Each town is apportioned a number of seats each year, based on the number of eighth graders in each town and there is an application process. While some towns use all their seats and have excess demand, of which Whitman is one, with the highest population in the school for a few years. Other towns, like Cohasset and Norwell, have seats left unfilled and are reapportioned to communities with excess demand.
SST has been filing statements of interest with the Massachusetts School Building Authority for a school project since 2015, and were invited into the process in March 2022.
“We’ll have something that’s safer, that will allow us not to have modular units,” he said. “The bread and butter of our school is our shop space … to teach kids the trade skills they need.”
As an example, he said that, if all the school’s carpentry students stopped or were unable to go out on cooperative learning work in the upper grades, Hickey doubts there would be room for all of them to safely work in the Carpentry Shop.
The useful life of the building and its systems is also a concern.
SST’s education plan and preliminary design program are now under review by the MSBA. The building committee looked at several design options and five different enrollments, narrowing it to three plans. All information about the SST school design options and cost projections are available on a website: southshoretechproject.com.
“By the end of January [2024] we, as a building committee, will make two decisions – which design do we want to push forward and what will the enrollment number be?” Hickey said. “Then we go into 2024, working with the MSBA … and, ultimately and hopefully, they will then approve a project, with a project funding agreement and reimbursement rates in August.”
The process would culminate with a ballot question going before voters in late January 2025.
SST is also on a small site with environmental limitations, including wetlands, which is why at least one design is for an addition/renovation – which would bring no MSBA reimbursement – but Marshfield will be helping with cost-sharing.
“That amount is not something voters would know when making an educated decision on the project, but it is likely to assist,” he said. “We’re looking at an add/reno and two projects for new construction that we’re calling ‘2.0’ and ‘2.1.’”
The main differences between them is the layout of athletic fields where the current school is as well as the location of a multi-purpose auditorium – with retractable stadium seats so the space can be used for sports and other programs as well as performances – dining commons, gym and locker rooms.
“Every square foot that we’re asking for has got to have more than one purpose,” he said. “Having [all that] in one area is an important theme. Of the three floors this one probably has the most unique elements.”
Design 2.0 places them to one side of the school building center. Design 2.1 puts them in the center of the building.
Hickey said the decision on locating the common areas are still under discussion, but fundamentally, the general layout of both designs are the same.
Two enrollment figures have been prioritized for the new building – 805 and 900. The building space, now at 130,000 square feet on one level, will expand to between 240,000 and 260,000 square feet on multiple levels.
“The first floor is focused on our shops,” Hickey said.
Any new construction will have to be to the rear of the property, where baseball and football fields are now.
If the MSBA gives its approval in the summer of 2024, a district-wide ballot question will go before voters in January 2025 and the project will enter the design phase in 2025 to early 2026, entering the construction phase in 2026 to mid-2028 to be opened for the 2028-29 school year.