HANSON – Based on the Whitman-Hanson Regional School District budget certified on March 15, Hanson officials have “had to re-adjust some numbers” in the budget.
But working with interim Town accountant Eric Kinsherf, Town Administrator Lisa Green said they were able to bring the deficit down from $1.38 million to $616,000.
“We’re really working diligently to bring our budget down to a balanced budget,” she said.
The Select Board, on Tuesday, March 21 voted to close the warrant for the annual Town Meeting, which will be held on Monday, May 1. Placing and/or recommending those articles completed so far.
“We are in a cash crunch this year,” said Chair Laura FitzGerald-Kemmett, who said she has spoken to Whitman Select Board Chair Randy LaMattina about the WHRSD budget.
“They are as concerned as we are with the school assessment being in the 7- to 8-percent [range], when we had very clearly expressed that the absolute maximum that we can pay is a 4-percent increase,” she said. “One of the concerns is that, over the last two years, the district has used one-time money – grant money – in the budget, so when we’re saying it’s a level-funded budget, that’s really not accurate. It’s level-funded plus the grant.”
She argued that keeping the budget at that level was really quite a large increase.
“With our very modest growth that we have in the town, this is beyond unsustainable,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “We don’t have any sort of magic pill that’s going to change this.”
She is proposing a joint meeting between just the two select boards to talk about what finances look like for the town meetings and to find a way to speak with a united voice.
“Even with what Ms. Green has told us, that’s a large deficit,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “We’re all adults and I think we know that means costs need to be cut and there’s only so many ways to do that.”
She said one of the things she has liked seeing this year is the way each town board has been reaching out to their counterparts in Whitman and vice versa “to calibrate.”
“This is the way it needs to be,” she said.
Board member Jim Hickey said, while he wouldn’t suggest leaving the schools out, he supported the two towns talking first and then going to the School Committee.
FitzGerald-Kemmett agreed.
“There are things we’re putting off doing,” she said. “We’re making modest headway, thanks to creativity and grants and hard work, but we can’t gut our town government, we just can’t.”
She also suggested the town has no time at this point to even entertain an override this year.
“The Whitman [Select] Board is a good board,” Vice Chair Joe Weeks. “They’re good people, so I don’t think this is in any way a controversial thing. People elected us to have conversations, especially difficult ones and find solutions, and not just kick the can down the road.”
The minute this year’s problem is solved, he said, they have to get to work on next year’s problems.
The board had voted during the meeting to strike four WHRSD capital requests from the warrant not recommended by the Capital Improvement Committee because the town does not have the funds to address them. The Capital Committee had about $350,000 to fund projects in the warrant.
“We really struggled to prioritize what we could, given that budget,” said Weeks, who serves on the Capital Committee, of the $350,000 they were allocated. “We recommended to the town $313,000 of the $350,000. The reason why we couldn’t get up over $350,000 because there wasn’t something that could bridge the gap in between those and we have a relatively conservative board that didn’t want to over spend what was given to us.”
He said the total cost of all the requests made for capital projects this year was about $25 million, and the committee was only able to spend $313,000.
“We were given line items with no way to prioritize,” said Board member Ed Heal, who also serves on the Captial Committee. He said no explanations about the requests were provided.
FitzGerald-Kemmett also cited a concern over equity in the district that prompted the striking of an article to regarding capital improvement articles at Indian Head School.
“I wouldn’t want Indian Head doing something that we can’t do for the other schools that we have,” she said. “We’re in a budget deficit.”
In other business, Library Director Karen Stolfer gave an update on events and activities to the board, including the application for a construction grant, which will help with the library’s expansion needs.
There is no cost to apply, she said.
Board members voted to support the grant application.
There are two project categories for the 2022-23 grant, small populations [2,500 or less] and standard. Hanson is applying for the latter.
The library’s plans require 16,000 square feet, placing Hanson in the medium tier for their plan developed in 2018. Focused on need this time out, with nine to 10 grants planned, Stolfer said the process will be more competitive this time around.
The grant covers 50 percent of costs up to $100,000 and the town is required to appropriate up to $150,000. A letter of intent is due April 28, with a full application due by May 2024. Schematic designs are due in 2025-26 with construction due for completion in 2029
Stolfer is working on the required statement of need.
“I’m happy to report that people are coming back to the library,” Stolfer said, adding that they are borrowing items and the use of digital resources, which “skyrocketed” during COVID, is continuing. “We’re getting lots of requests from local organizations for our meeting rooms and, of course, one of our biggest draws is our programming.”
A lot of programs are being slated for school vacation week in April, including the annual Family Fun Day on April 21.
She also spoke of the Library of Things, a collection of nontraditional items, including metal detectors, puzzles, a laser levels and Roku streaming sticks that can be checked out.
School panel eyes grade equity
The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) and school legal counsel have determined the educational opportunities for fifth-graders in the W-H district meet minimum guidelines for equity.
Referring to previous discussions on the legality of inequities tied to educational opportunities of fifth-graders, since they attend the middle school in Hanson and the elementary schools in Whitman, Superintendent of Schools Jeff Szymaniak said on Wednesday, March 15, that he spoke with DESE officials as well as district legal counsel about the issue during the week.
The committee will likely revisit the issue on another agenda after the civil rights concern still remained for at least one committee member.
Counsel Andrew Waugh, who found “nothing in chapter law that what we’re doing is illegal,” recommended the calls to DESE, Szymaniak said at the Wednesday, March 15 meeting.
Heather Montalto, a problem resolution team specialist with DESE, and Ann Marie Stronach an administrator, who both said the district meets minimum requirement for the equity of instruction.
“I do want to stress this is the minimum requirement,” Szymaniak said. “That’s where we’re at right now.”
Stronach said it’s up to a school committee as to whether or not schedules are changed within a district.
“I just wanted to report back that we’re not doing anything illegal … but it is up to the school committee’s purview to change the schedules of the schools. That’s what we do,” he said.
Member Hillary Kniffen noted that the district actually exceeds the minimum time on learning requirements of 900 minutes for middle schools and 990 for high schools.
“The issue ant the topic that I brought forward wasn’t necessarily, ‘Can you ask DESE if we’re meeting regulations?’” member Dawn Byers said. “It was that there’s a Civil Rights Act of 1964, so I think the question really needed to be, ‘Are we violating a human being’s civil rights by not providing the same educational opportunity?’”
She said the district policy manual includes an equal educational opportunity policy (J-b), which references the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Agreeing with that point, Whitman Finance Committee member Rosemary Connolly said the 10-percent disparity in educational time afforded to Whitman students is a deficit worth $1.4 million taxpayers were charged, but school students did not have access to, suggesting that federal educational officials be called because “there are rules to Title 1 grants.”
“You can’t create inequities because of the way the regional agreement is written,” Connolly said. “Sometimes, it’s how you ask questions that gets you the right answer.”
Member Fred Small asked for the name of the DESE attorney Byers had said she spoke with on the issue as well as the date and time of that conversation.
“When I called DESE, they referred me to attorney George Hale, and when I explained the situation, his response was this is a school committee problem,” Byers said adding that she informed him that she is a school committee member and feels it is a problem. She said he did some quick research while she was on the phone and gave her the number for the Boston office of the Civil Rights Division, saying that someone could file a lawsuit.
Chair Christopher Howard said his recollection was that a concern was voiced from DESE that the district was doing something illegal, Szymaniak follwed up with DESE and they said that was not the case.
“Correct,” Szymaniak said.
“If there’s subsequent concerns, I’m sure they could be shared with the superintendent and he’ll look into it, but that was what was said last week,” Howard said. “Certainly, that could be done. … We could chase this in all different directions. Lawsuits can happen all the time for a whole host of reasons, that’s just the nature of the American legal system.”
Member Glen DiGravio argued that what’s happened shouldn’t matter.
“What we’re going to do should matter,” he said, adding that a solution would be to find some way to get the two schools aligned.
Game for YA books
WHITMAN – They say opportunity only knocks once.
Whitman resident Coryn MacPherson was a junior at the Savannah College of Art and Design, where she majored in sequential art, answered when the knock of opportunity came to her at the school in 2021.
Within that major, she specialized in comic book and graphic novel art.
“They’re a tough school, but they’re great,” the 2018 graduate of W-H Regional High said of SCAD.
“The school … had an event specifically for people wanting to get into comics,” she said. “They would bring in art directors and editors from those [publishers] and Scholastic was one of them.”
Students had the opportunity to submit their portfolios for the publishing representatives to look at and review. Two months later, she received an email with an offer from the art director.
Graphix, a graphic novel imprint of Scholastic, was looking for illustrators for its Five Nights at Freddy’s franchise, based on a video game.
Was Coryn interested?
It didn’t take her long to say, “Yes.”
Her work is featured in the last story of “Five Nights at Freddy’s: Fazbear Frights Graphic Novel Collection, Vol. 2.” That story is titled “The New Kid.”
A kid is jealous of his best friend’s new friend, makes the new kid disappear, she said of the plot line.
It was the first step on a career path which she wants to see lead to writing and illustrating her own graphic novels. MacPherson had already been working on the script for one of her own.
“It’s a fairy tale,” she said.
In a way, she’s been living one. MacPherson, who graduated magna cum laude from SCAD in June 2022, is also working from a disability, her mother Julie Ryan said.
“She can’t see out of one of her eyes, so the fact that she draws as well is pretty extraordinary,” Ryan said. “And it’s a big deal for somebody still in college to land a job like that.”
And her career is taking off since the book came out recently. MacPherson has already seen more interest in her work through social media such as LinkedIn, but the opportunity was the stuff of movie magic.
“It’s a New York Times best-seller franchise,” her mom Julie said.
Asked for details on the story line, Coryn paused and said with a laugh “It’s … um … animatronics that kill kids. It’s a really popular franchise and they’re currently filming a movie for it down in Louisiana.”
Matthew Lillard, who played “Shaggy” in the “Scooby-Doo” film is in it as well as a former member of the “Scream” cast and Josh Hutchinson from the “Hunger Games” is in it.
While MacPherson is not involved in the film project, her work on the graphic story books is keeping her busy.
She said the 10-year-old franchise is massive, with dozens of books and eight video games based on it, as well as board games, in addition to the movie.
“The books are kind of tie-ins for the games,” MacPherson said. “What’s being adapted [in the film] is the game play, whereas these are little stories that take place I the same world.”
Published for ages 12 and up and released about three weeks ago, the book is now available at area stores like Barnes & Noble, Target and Walmart. The day her book came out, MacPherson said she went to Barnes & Noble and signed nine copies.
“They all sold out in a day,’ she said.
The copies had been identified by the Barnes & Noble staff so potential buyers would know they are a signed copy.
The publisher sent her an email about when the release date was.
“We were there, looking,” Ryan said.
Having just completed her third project for the Scholastic franchise, for whom she is working almost exclusively right now and is already at work on her next project. She said she has also applied for another position in Boston, doing similar work for this year’s Anime Boston convention in April.
“The art, I don’t think anyone is going to see until the actual convention,” she said.
Like a lot of careers today – especially in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, MacPherson can work just about anywhere she can take her tablet, but she added, it’s not really a new development in her field.
“Comics are pretty much always remote, because the artists are all over the world,” she said. “The other two artists on the book I just worked on, live in Argentina.”
MacPherson herself has studied in southern France and was briefly in Osaka, Japan, where a job teaching English didn’t work out. She’s now thinking about trying life in London.
“They’re taking away so much of the arts in school now to see something like this is uplifting for kids that are interested in art,” Julie said. “You wouldn’t have football uniforms if people weren’t around to create them. You wouldn’t have a band if somebody didn’t create the music.”
“Just let kids draw,” she said.
While Julie said Coryn had done an amazing essay during her senior year at W-H on the importance of art in people’s lives, but by that time she had already been accepted at college before her senior year of high school even started.
MacPherson has also had an essay published in one of the “Chicken Soup for the Soul” books on women empowerment while she was in college.
“This is dumb luck,” she insisted.
“When it comes to her work, shows through it,” Ryan said of her daughter’s self-professed tendency toward introversion.
“I try,” she said.
MacPherson said the franchise has not yet encountered any issues with book-banning efforts around the country.
“But, honestly, with the graphicness of it, I wouldn’t be surprised if it gets affected,” she said. “It is something I worry about a little bit, because they are really graphic stories.”
Whenever she gets a new script the worry returns, she said.
“They are really violent books … but even if the book-banning wasn’t happening, I’d still be a little worried just because of the content in these and how scary they are,” she said.
Taking a point of personal privilege to leave an Easter egg in the book, MacPherson has included her former college roommates and best friends. McKenzie and Eve, as “bit players” on the last page.
“I told them, ‘You guys dealt with me when I was stressed with this, so I’m going to put you in it,” she said. “So, the three of us are on the last page.”
School Committee OKs FY ‘24 budget
The School Committee approved a fiscal 2024 budget of $60,638,657.69 an increase of 3.67 percent over last year, on Wednesday, March 15. The spending plan adds foreign language and STEM/robotics programs to a level-services package.
Superintendent of Schools Jeff Szymaniak had presented the level-service budget of $60,485,257.69 – an increase of 3.41 percent over last year – but said his recommendation was that $153,400 for foreign language Option 1 and a STEM/robotics curriculum be added to it.
The foreign language option costs $98,400, which would add $60,083.04, or .36-percent increase for Whitman, and $38,316.96, or a .29-percent increase in grades six through eight and to add robotics in K-grade eight curricula.
STEM and robotics costs $55,000, which would add $33,583 – or a .2 percent-increase to Whitman’s budget and $21,417 to Hanson’s budget for 1.6 percent increase to Hanson.
“At minimum, I recommend this committee sets the budget at $60,485,257.69 – or a 3.41-percent increase – but seriously consider adding foreign language Option 1 and STEM and robotics, which adds $153,400, or adjusting the budget to $60,638,675.69, to put us at an overall increase of 3.67 percent over last year,” Szymaniak said. He said the committee has heard from students and curriculum administrators about how students are progressing.
“I think they need opportunities as presented, but at minimum stick with our level service and a 3.41-percent increase to our budget,” he said. “I felt I need the committee to know where we’re at. … You’ve been able to see what the towns have presented us and, I appreciate what they’ve presented us.”
“My fear is the towns just don’t have the funds,” said member Fred Small, noting that Whitman had penciled in a 5-percent increase in the assessment. “I just don’t know where they come up with the money to pay.”
Hanson’s interim Town Accountant’s letter indicated even a 3-percent increase would leave them with deficits, Small said.
“One of two things happens, it’ll get shot down on the Town Hall floor, or their going to divvy is up and push it on an override,” he said. “My opinion is, if it comes to an override I’’d rather see us hold firm.”
Vice Chair Christopher Scriven said he came to discuss and vote on assessments as it stated in the agenda, to have the extra consideration of language and STEM/robotics program costs at that point made him pause and need time to consider it.
“I don’t know if I’m really ready to consider this,” Scriven said.
Chair Howard said a budget had to be voted that night.
“I’ve presented a budget with those two options in February, and they’ve been there,” Szymaniak said. “It’s something the committee doesn’t have to approve.”
He said district counsel Andrew Waugh recommended the budget not be increased after March 15.
Small, while supporting the students supported the original level-service budget minus the lanquages and STEM/robotics because the towns’ fiscal positions are so tenuous.
Member Beth Stafford stressed that, while the towns are facing financial challenges, the committee and school district are not asking the towns to foot the bill for the data breach they had last summer.
“This is level-service,” she said. “Level service is not always the greatest thing, folks [it] means you don’t go anywhere further.”
She also noted the familiar territory of the strain between town and school committee roles.
“This is the conversation that always comes up,” Stafford said. “And the conversation is, ‘What’s our job here on the School Committee?’ Yes, we represent the towns, but our main focus is the students and what we have to do.”
Member Dawn Byers noted the budget doesn’t address start times or strengthening the school-community connection, but while they could do better, she said the budget reflects the real cost of the district’s needs for education. She also argued that an increase of 3.41 percent is below what both towns have certified with the DOR as their annual municipal revenue growth factor – 4 percent for Whitman and 3.9 percent for Hanson this year.
Whitman Selectmen Shawn Kain and Justin Evans also weighed in on the school budget.
Kain said the hold-harmless situation created the “tragic dilemma” for the towns.
“Because we’ve been in hold-harmless for so long, we aren’t getting enough state aid t sustain the budget,” he said. “That’s the answer. That’s it.”
The situation frequently pits town departments and the school district against each other at Town Meeting, often forcing a decision between funding other town departments or seeking an override.
Evans said the 4.3 percent projected municipal revenue growth comes to a bit less than $1.7 million of total growth to spend everywhere.
Between the level-service plus two additional programs for the schools and the Plymouth County retirement assessment of about $300,000, all that money is used, he said.
Finance Committee member Kathlen Ottina, however urged the committee to hold fast to Szymaniak’s recommendation.
“It’s early in the budget process,” she said. “We still have budgets to be heard at the Finance Committee level and, if you don’t ask for it tonight, you can’t ask for it later.”
Member David Forth advocated for the language and technology programs to prepare for the long-term needs of educating students for the future.
“If we don’t add services now, we kick the can once again for level services,” he said. “What are we doing next year? … We really need to think about the long-term aspect.”
Howard said figures reviewed the five-year in September that included a budget with a 3.13 percent increase for level services.
“Our students are not getting anything more with this budget,” member Hillary Kniffen said. “A level-serviced budget is the best that we have. The cost of educating children has increased.”
“I will not accept that there’s a surprise when we start talking about some of these numbers because we’ve talked about them for over a year,” he said.
Szymaniak said the South Shore Superintendent’s group met with legislators and informed them how problematic a 14-percent increase in out-of-district special education tuition was, but he has not included that increase in the FY ’24 budget.
The final figure is still to be determined, he said.
“They’re bringing some of those thoughts back to the House,” Szymaniak said. “However, if nothing is done, we will receive tuition bills this summer, and we’re obligated to pay them.”
The committee, last year, decided to keep a one-year Circuit Breaker allowance in reserve to either apply to the following fiscal year’s budget or to use it for extenuating costs or circumstances.
A portion it is being used for the budget and a portion will be used for the latter, using them once they are appropriated in October to pay off the debt for that increase.
“I’m hoping it won’t be 14 percent, but I doubt that it will be the 3 percent that I allocated within the budget,” Szymaniak said. “Best case, it may be 7 [percent].”
If Circuit Breaker is not needed, it will go toward the FY ’25 budget next year.
Where excess and deficiency is concerned, $1.718 million is in that account, and the district will have to access $605,000 to pay invoices in excess of our insurance coverage to make the district whole in the wake of the computer and data breach it sustained in July 2022.
“We’re not going to the towns to make us whole from that breach,” he said. “The transfer will leave $1.13 million in E&D for FY ’24.”
Whitman has made its town budget available to the district and information has been received from Hanson regarding the funds they have earmarked for the district.
Member Steve Bois agreed with Howard that the committee has had all the numbers and criteria for the budget.
“We can do better,” she said. “It’s not in this budget right now, but we have room for improvement.”
School choice gets the green light
The School Committee revisited the school choice issue on Wednesday, March 15, voting to accept school choice for all grades except 11 and 12.
Superintendent of Schools Jeff Szymaniak said the process would only be open based on student enrollment and class size.
He reported that district legal counsel Andrew Waugh reiterated that all school districts are school choice unless they opt out.”
A tie vote, like the one cast on March 13, would mean W-H is a school choice district “because the School Committee did not make an affirmative vote to opt out,” Szymaniak explained. “We need a 6-4 vote to opt out.”
Waugh made some further recommendations for the committee to consider voting again in hopes of reaching a 6-4 decision to withdraw from K-12 school choice for the school year 2023-24.
The committee again voted 5-5 on the opt-out option.
Waugh further recommended in such an event, that a motion establishing parameters around how the district should participate in school choice.
Szymaniak suggested the motion that the district withdraw from school choice in kindergarten through grade eight, and 11 and 12, while allowing it in grades nine and 10 – and for students in any grade, whose family moves out of the district as school choice – for school year 2023-24.
The committee then voted 9-1 to accept school choice for all grades with the exclusion of grades 11 and 12. Vice Chair Christopher Scriven voted against.
It was an amended motion at the suggestion of member Dawn Byers as questions began popping up about Szymaniak’s suggestion.
Scriven asked what the rationale was in allowing high school freshmen and sophomores but not any other grade, as well as the benefits of doing so and the considerations made in offering it.
“In grades nine and 10, those students have a fresh start in coming to school,” Szymaniak said, just like any other student at the high school. “That’s what we’ve done in the past. In grades 11 and 12 [administrators] have less control of that student, graduating from school.”
Where K-eight is concerned, Szymaniak said there just hasn’t been space for school choice students and the district has been more focused on lowering class sizes in those grades.
“That, for me, facilitates the issue that is most concerning to a lot of us that oppose this,” Scriven said.
Member Hillary Kniffen said if enrollment considerations were a reason for not taking school choice in lower grades, why not allow them in so they could become part of the community, which would negate that concern among opponents of school choice.
“It sounds like we’re talking out of both sides of our mouths,” she said.
Member Dawn Byers moved to amend the motion for school choice to be open to all grades, with a cap per grade based on enrollment.
“I’ve got one seat in second grade, I’ve got four seats in fifth grade, I’ve got seven at ninth-grade … We don’t have to accept 199 kids if they all want to come here,” she said. “We have the control as a district.”
A policy limiting class size could also be used.
Member Beth Stafford said she would prefer to cap it at 10th grade, because of the possibility and incoming student might not have the credits to allow them to graduate on time.
Szymaniak said he would be looking at keeping class sizes to 20 at the elementary grades, 20-23 in middle grades and 25 at the high school, in determining how many school choice students might be allowed in.
“Our high school enrollment this year in grade nine is the lowest we’ve ever had,” Szymaniak said, noting that where they usually have 270 students, this year they are looking at 230.
If the committee voted to open school choice for all grades, he would look at the numbers in order to announce how many students would be accepted and a lottery system would be used.
If students are looking for schools with good sports teams for their school choice plans, the MIAA requires varsity athletes to apply for a waiver and the receiving administrator and athletic director have to sign off on it, or that student-athlete has to sit out the year.
“You can’t deny [acceptance] unless it’s a drugs or weapons violation,” Szymaniak said of students with disciplinary issues. Otherwise districts are not allowed to ask why students are interesting in coming.
“We’re not even supposed to meet with that family prior to,” he said.
WHRHS Principal Dr. Christopher Jones said he is very pro-school choice, as it does a lot for the school, but he asked what consideration is given a parent who wants to choice two kids – one in ninth grade and one in 11th.
“I would tell that parent it’s not an option for that 11th grader,” Szymaniak said.
In other business, Student Advisory Committee members gave a slide presentation on their findings from an outreach survey of students in all five district schools regarding multiple line items in the FY 2024 district school budget.
Students were strongly in favor of some change in start times, with Indian Head students in Hanson supporting an earlier start, Duval students nearly unanimous that some change was needed.
“A majority [of Duval students] informed us that they woke up at 7 a.m., and just watched TV or played video games with the time they had before school started,” the survey found. At Indian Head, “many told us they had busy lives afte school, and it was difficult to get to extra-curricular activities while getting home [from school] around 3:30 p.m., every day.”
Conley students also preferred an earlier start time.
Getting off a school bus in the dark during the winter wan another source of dissatisfaction with the start times.
Opinions were more mixed for Hanson Middle School students, where the older ones preferred an earlier start and younger students preferred a later start time, but there was little demand overall for a change. Whitman Middle School students, meanwhile, were split over a slightly different start time,versus no change.
A majority of high school students supported a later start time.
Whitman grapples with lean budget
WHITMAN – The town will be seeing an “extremely lean” budget – at a 5-percent school assessment – according to town officials. The budget approved by the School Committee approved last week would mean another $560,351 will have to be cut.
“If we do that, I feel that we’re looking, without a doubt, at layoffs on police, fire, DPW, Town Hall,” she said. “I just don’t know where … in this budget there is not an extra $560,351 to skim off this.
While it still needs “tweaking,” Carter said the budget is balanced at this point, with more articles yet to be voted, but that all but $316.25 of the town’s free cash has been used at this point, Carter reported.
Not all town officials see such a dire picture, but agreed more work needs to be done.
“It’s clear that the number they submitted, given the current levy that we have, is not going to work,” said Select Board member Shawn Kain, who also serves on the Budget Subcommittee, but he disagrees with the School Committee and district are making decisions solely through the lens of being an advocate for students. While admirable, he said he has to balance that with his role of being an advocate for all departments.
“The vibe I got the other night was, [the schools] are willing to come in high again and go back and forth for a couple of weeks,” he said. “It’s the old game that, we’ve played over the years that I’m hoping we can move away from.”
Kain, who is also an educator, said the subcommittee was not there to make decisions, but to do due diligence so the town’s financial team could be more informed about the decisions they make.
He argued that the best option, until the town knows with certainty that hold-harmless might end next year, the town should stick to the policy it has put in place, calculating the yearly increase of 5 percent.
“I’m looking at more slow, incremental, positive change,” he said. “No drastic, big change and I think that’s what the policy is allowing us to do.”
Not all members of the Select Board took such a negative view, however.
“This feels like a workable budget,” said Select Board member Justin Evans, who noted this is his sixth budget process. “The town has dialed back all of the department requests to level service with free cash. … I think it would not be unreasonable to ask the department to take a look and to the same.”
Evans said the current financial climate in town feels more like fiscal 2019 and 2021, than the 2020 budget when deep cuts were needed. He added this year’s budget could work if everyone worked together.
After a week of number Town Administrator Mary Beth Carter informed the Select Board, in a joint meeting with the Finance Committee on Tuesday, March 21, that with a 5-percent assessment from the schools, which they had calculated for, the town was “not close” to a balanced budget for the coming year.
“I went line-by-line with [Town Accountant Ken Lytle and interim Town Administrator Frank Lynam] and cut everything that we could possibly cut without hurting the departments,” she said. “We used the free cash that we had available for the articles.”
There were also a couple of warrant articles that have been removed and the town now plans to use ARPA funds to fund.
The budget does include 2.5percent salary increases already negotiated with the unions, as well as for department heads unless they have contracts, which might have different salary agreements.
The joint meeting was attended by several town department heads, held a sobering discussion of the municipal budget for FY 2024.
Police Chief Timothy Hanlon and Fire Chief Timothy Clancy each made presentations to the two boards during the Select Board meeting. [See page 3]
“I think we’re in a better place than we were last year,” said Finance Chair Rick Anderson, noting that they have been meeting with all departments – a process that is still ongoing. Anderson said the FinCom has been concerned from the start about the sustainability of the budget, and recognized the Budget Subcommittee for its work.
“It’s not easy to separate the wants and the needs, but I really think they did an exemplary job taking the budget submissions that were provided by the town departments and coming up with some middle ground,” he said.
Select Board Chair Randy LaMattina said there was no intention when it was formed, to have the Budget Subcommittee draft the town’s budget, but that it was designed to help develop a budget and clarify points when needed.
“That budget that you’ve all received shows some pretty key points, that diligence has been done, that budgets have been scraped to try to make this within our levy,” he said. “This is a budget created by a professional financial team.”
LaMattina said another key issue is revenue analysis.
“I don’t think you’ll see any fictitious numbers in our revenue,” he said in the first of many references during the meeting to Finance member Kathleen Ottina’s comment at the March 15 School Committee meeting that preliminary town budget figures represented “fictitious numbers,” because the town’s projections have been stable, except where the town has had to “push it a little bit more” to barely accommodate everyone.
“To basically stand up in that meeting and draw a line in the sand between departments, the town and the schools … I was just in shock,” he, criticizing Ottina’s standing to make her comments to the School Committee as a representative of the Finance Committee.
Ottina explained that she realized immediately that she had unintentionally used the wrong word, meaning to say “preliminary.”
“There’s nothing fictitious about them,” she said. “We’ve been living with these numbers every Tuesday night for the past three months, but I do believe some of these figures are preliminary.”
Anderson said Ottina was representing the Finance Committee at the meeting and, as such presents her opinions as the liaison to the committee, but there are eight other members of the Finance Committee which is still preliminarily evaluating that budget.
She said town departments should mirror the schools and present higher budgets to the Finance Committee, so decisions can be made on those needs.
LaMattina argued that the School Committee is vastly different, in that they certify a budget.
“Our department heads simply make an ask as a presentation of where they’re looking to go in the future,” he said. “[The Select Board] has the ability to tell our department heads, ‘You will not get that this year.’ We do not have that same luxury with the schools.”
Vice Chair Dan Salvucci recalled a meeting held a few years ago in which department heads had “cut their budgets to the extreme,” noting the cuts had almost been dangerous – especially where police and fire services were concerned.
“I don’t ever want to see that happen again,” he said. “I will not support a budget that the town has to cut so deeply that we lose people. That’s not what we’re here for.”
Salvucci mentioned that the fire department incurs added costs and ambulance availability for having to transport patients to hospitals further away because Brockton Hospital is temporarily closed due to recent fire damage.
“The revenue is the revenue, and I think that’s a piece that has been sadly overlooked this year,” LaMattina said. “Sadly.”
Hanson paychecks to track time off
HANSON – The Select Board approved a policy recommendation to add employee accrued time off information to pay stubs.
“We have an opportunity to better keep track of attendance and also to help the employees keep track,” Town Administrator Lisa Green said.
The payroll company can track how much vacation, sick time, floating holidays and personal days on pay stubs.
“As they use time, it will show up on pay stubs,” she said.
Select Board Chair Laura FitzGerald-Kemmett asked if the count begins at the start of the fiscal year and who will be inputting that data.
Green said the countdown would begin on the anniversary date of their hiring.
The payroll company would be supplied with contract start date and allotted vacation/personal time information and will calculate it from there.
The town’s assistant treasurer, who puts in payroll data, would be relied on to catch errors, that could give employees too many vacation days, Green said.
“Hopefully, the employee would come forward and say there’s an error,” she said.
Vice Chair Joe Weeks said he would hope there are policies in place that would address such an eventuality.
“I think Mr. Weeks is picking up what I was putting down,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “I think we need to have a very clear policy that states in no event would something that appears on a pay stub supersede what is actually in the contract about what you would otherwise be due.”
Green agreed.
Select Board member Ed Heal asked about the process involved.
“If I take a sick day, how does it get on my pay stub?” he asked.
Green said department heads submit time sheets to accounting and then to the payroll firm, who will key in the data.
She said she has already discussed it with the interim accountant and treasurer about the process, and stressed there is no cost to the town for the change.
In order to give the assistant treasurer the ability to learn the process, departments will be entered on a staggered basis, suggesting the Highway Department and Administrative Professionals union would be the first to be included.
“Then if fire and police want to join in, we would start them afterward because they have a little more of a complex system,” she said.
Weeks said he liked the idea, because tracking days owed information is often tricky.
“To me it’s an easy way of looking at it, trying to plan for the future,” he said. “This makes complete logical sense.”
He did question how the discussion was listed on the agenda as including attendance on the stubs.
“I don’t want to give people the wrong impression that we’re keeping track of when they’re clocking in and clocking out, before we roll this out,” he said. “I think before you roll this out, people need to have the policy in front of them.”
Green stressed the change refers only to accrued time off.
FitzGerald-Kemmett said there needs to be ownership of the policy, advocating that employees be asked to initial it as an indication that they have read it. Town officials overseeing the process should also be required to provide the information to department heads to verify the information entered on the payroll forms.
“If you’re concerned there might be a learning curve to it … a training on the process, would also be a smart way to avoid errors,” Weeks said.
Hanson OKs task force on trash costs
HANSON – The Select Board voted, on Tuesday, March 14 to establish a task force to determine the direction for operations at the Transfer Station and the most economical way to dispose of trash, following a presentation by and discussion with Health Board Chair Melissa Pinnetti.
Pinnetti, Town Accountant Eric Kinscherf and Finance Committee Chair Michael Dugan, who have already been working on the issue, were officially named members of the task force.
Citing cost considerations and quotes from hauling firms, Pinnetti said there is a need to make the transfer station’s vital operation for residents more economical, especially for seniors, who cannot afford private trash hauling services. While no exact length of the task force’s work has been made, she said the hope is to have something prepared for the special Town Meeting in October.
“Significantly more than half the town does not utilize the transfer station, so that means they are paying for their trash to be handled some other way,” she said. “They are also paying through their taxes for funding the transfer station.”
Select Board member Joe Weeks pointed to the “substantial amount of folks in this town that are on fixed income and depend heavily on the transfer station.”
“What we’re trying to do right now is be able to gather other data to make informed decisions about what has the operational cost [been] over the past five to 10 years, and how can we use that to project into the future?” he said. “This is protecting the citizens, but also being able to stretch the tax dollar as far as we can possibly go and [use] it in a meaningful way.”
Weeks said the task force is necessary to allow town officials to hone in and try to figure out what kind of recommendations can be made to the town.
“We kind of need to get everybody’s input on this,” he said. “We want the town to be part of it.”
Select Board Chair Laura FitzGerald-Kemmett said she liked the “cross-pollination” of the different groups working together.
“Everybody’s coming together, looking at what’s best for the town and cohesively making a recommendation, and I just love that,” she said.
Pinnetti was asked in September to have the Board of Health to outline ways to address long-standing budget issues at the transfer station. The town has issued 1,800 stickers, for a fee, to residents who use the transfer station.
“I know more about trash and transfer stations now than I thought I would,” she said in outlining what has been done in the interim and an article being presented to Town Meeting.
The contract for hauling and disposal of refuse from the transfer station had been expired for quite some time, Pinnetti said, causing recycling expenses to go in flux with the market since China stopped accepting bulk recycling shipments.
“We may have been paying much more than we needed to over those many years,” she said, adding that she and Health Agent Gil Amado had met with Waste Management officials about obtaining a quote for their services both at the transfer station and for town-wide pickup. She also requested a quote from E.L. Harvey out of Westborough, which now services the transfer station.
She called comparing the two quotes “eye-opening.”
The Health Board plans to enter a one-year contract with Harvey, which came in “substantially lower” with their quote than Waste Management. The cost for the rental compactors alone was about five times higher for WM than for Harvey, she said.
There has been a 23-percent increase in hauling and a 25-percent increase in the cost for equipment rental at the transfer station operating expenses from 2016 to now, according to Pinnetti. But it has been 116-percent higher for tipping fee for mainstream waste per ton in addition to the cost of getting rid of recycling.
“The overwhelming cost of operations comes from our hauling and municipal disposal,” Pinnetti said. “We started discussing in our meetings how we could tonnage of mainstream waste, which included the decision to open the Swap Shop, which seems to be a hit.”
Pinnetti said she hopes to see more residents “shopping” the Swap Shop as the weather improves in the spring.
“Kudos on that, Melissa,”FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “That was a great idea, and our thanks to the board for that, because it showed great initiative.”
Pinnetti also credited transfer station attendants for doing a great job in trying to deal with the frustrations involved in starting any such project from scratch, and said the Board of Health is looking to bringing on some volunteers to help run the Swap Shop on a long-term basis and has discussed grant opportunites with Claire Galkowski, executive director of the South Shore Recycling Cooperative to help improve transfer station operations, as well.
Pinnetti said he has also been reviewing the 2014 Town Meeting article that established the transfer station enterprise fund and revenue trends since.
“The wheels on this are going to turn very slowly,” said Dugan. “I’m not saying this will be the end result, but if this was something where you moved to curbside for the entire town, this is about a two-year project.”
Costs for any new equipment, including additional trucks and drivers a compnay might need, among other considerations would mean a longer ramp-up.
“Nothing is going to change today,” Dugan said. “Nothing is going to change a year from now. Quite frankly, we’re looking at a budget that is projecting $200,000 in revenue generated to support $420,000 worth of expenses.”
He said the town would be better off looking to other options, adding it may end up back in the same place, but it’s time to work on finding out what can and can’t be done, rather than just keep filling the revenue gap.
“At this point, because of the dynamics changing so significantly that really couldn’t have ever been predicted … I think it would be irresponsible for us not to explore other options,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “I want to be super-clear that we will at all times take into consideration that we have employees working there and think about what their long-term impact would be and how we might best serve them, as well.”
Joe Weeks lauded the work Pinnetti, Dugan and Kinscherf have already done and sought to make clear that the presentation was in the interest of transparency, so the public can become involved and help brainstorm new ideas.
Select Board member Jim Hickey also pointed to the fuel costs, as diesel has remained high even while gas prices have come down a bit. He also asked for a ballpark figure for curbside pickup.
WM provided a quote of $1.5 million for the 3,800 homes using the service, based on comparable towns, but that a more specific figure would take a couple weeks to calculate.
Resident Frank Milisi said that estimate is comparable to what residents are paying for private hauling, about $112 per quarter, right now. He also said a 20-percent fuel surcharge had been added to the residential customers’ bills last quarter.
“I really want to emphasize that, whatever happens has to be affordable for those people that are not using curbside pickup,” Select Board member Ann Rein said. “And there’s a reason why. I don’t use curbside. I use the transfer station and I know many people my age and older who do the same thing, because it’s too expensive to have curbside pickup for us. … I’m afraid about my neighbors.”
FitzGerald-Kemmett said she, also, is a transfer station user and loves that trash doesn’t have to sit around waiting to be picked up.
“But what I’ve heard these guys say, is they’re going to try to do a Herculean task to figure out what’s in the best interests of the entire town of Hanson,” she said. “We’ve got competing needs, we need cost-efficiencies, we want convenience, we don’t want to bankrupt anybody.”
In other business, Town Administrator Lisa Green updated the board on the progress Building Inspector Kerry Glass was making in obtaining the licensing credentials required by the state.
“He has been taking courses and has taken a couple of exams,” Green said. “I’m not sure if he’s found out whether he’s passed them or not.”
FitzGerald-Kemmett asked for a more through update at next week’s meeting.
Glass, who was on vacation, left a list of projects in town he has been overseeing with Green, who read them to the board.
School choice debated
The School Committee, following its annual public hearing on school choice participation on Wednesday, March 8, tabled action on school choice pending an opinion from counsel on available options after members split down the middle on the issue.
The district must vote by June 1, or it accepts K-12 school choice by default, as, without at least a 6 to 4 vote either way, the district will take part in school choice.
A motion by Committee member Fred Small to accept school choice for grades nine and 10, with kindergarten through grade eight open, at the superintendent’s discretion, only to siblings of those high school students enrolled through the program, was deadlocked 5 to 5.
Voting yes were Small, David Forth, Beth Stafford, Dawn Byers and Steve Bois. Voting against were Christopher Howard, Christopher Scriven, Hillary Kniffen, Glen DiGravio and Michelle Bourgelas.
Superintendent of Schools Jeff Szymaniak noted that school choice is open to all schools and that all school committees must vote to close a district to school choice, or limit its participation, stating their reasons for doing so before June 1. The vote would have to be whether or not to close the district to school choice.
“You’re voting not to do something,” Chair Howard said before the discussion began.
Szymaniak also noted that athletics has also been the subject of conversation centering on school choice in the past, and provided committee members with a list of current choice students, where they are from, the sport they play and which are former W-H students whose families moved out of town, but who wanted to stay to graduate from WHRHS.
“It’s a data point … just to see where we’re at,” he said, adding that, of 45 school choice students, 34 are high school students and 12 are identified as playing a sport.
From a purely financial viewpoint, Whitman Finance Committee member Kathleen Ottina noted district enrollment has gone down 15 percent since school choice was first accepted in 2012. She argued that, eliminating a program that increases enrollment would bring even greater scrutiny on the district budget than they are currently seeing.
“In the past, we’ve closed school choice to every grade, except grades nine and 10 and students who were staying in the district if they chose to move out,” Szymaniak said. “We didn’t have school choice grades one through eight or 11 and 12. We chose to close those grades because of enrollment. Last year we chose to close all grades to the district.”
He added that there are financial implications to the decision before the committee talks about budget or approve an assessment.
Vice Chair Scriven asked, if the district votes against accepting new school choice students, does that mean students whose families move out of the district would be unable to continue attending W-H.
In those cases, Szymaniak said, he would ask the superintendent of the new district if they are willing to pay the costs of such students to continue at W-H.
“They don’t have to,” he said. “If it were choice, they’d have to do that. It would be a conversation [otherwise].”
Szymaniak said he already has a parent asking about that now, but he has held off contacting the Pembroke superintendent until after the committee votes.
Stafford asked about the circumstances of the nine non-high school students now attending W-H schools under previous school choice votes. Szymaniak explained they were in-district students before their families moved.
“That would kind of be a stipulation, I would think, for anything we would do,” she said, but she expressed concern that it was “picking and choosing who gets to stay.”
She said she has heard from a parent with a child in the district now, but they are from a different town – and are on the list, but are not in sports.
“They have a child in seventh or eighth grade and wanted to come but can’t if we vote no and she was very upset about that, because her older child has had a wonderful education here and the other child is not going to [be able to] do that,” Stafford said. “We have a lot more students here [on the list] who came here for a reason other than sports.”
She said committee members have to be careful about arguments that school choice students at WHRHS are taking opportunities for playing sports with kids they grew up with, since the same could be said of high school students whose families move to town when they are in those grades.
“Whenever we discuss things, we have to be careful of our choice of words,” Stafford said. “I don’t even really care about the money issue. My point is, look at all the kids who came just for an education.”
She pointed to girls’ soccer seems to be the main concern regarding soccer, and said no students have been kept out of AP courses because of school choice students.
Kniffen said she spoke about the issue last meeting and stands by her comments, advocating that students moving to W-H in their freshman year, obtain a waiver from the MIAA to be cleared to play a sport.
“Whether we want to admit it or not, sports are the thing that develops culture and community for the students at this school,” she said. While she agreed students weren’t kept out of AP classes, Kniffen said 30 kids in an AP class “isn’t great,” either.
“It is so important that we take care of our own,” she said, noting the district receives $5,000 per school choice student and it costs more per student to provide and education. “It does not provide opportunities, it takes them away.”
Michelle Bourgelas echoed Kniffen’s points.
“We talk a lot about equity,” she said. “How does school choice offer equity to our W-H high school students?”
DiGravio asked if any school choice students had disciplinary problems at their home district schools.
Szymaniak said they have to take the students who apply so long as there are spaces for them under school choice, but said there are “ways to have a conversation with families,” including the requirement that the parents are solely responsible for transporting the students. If there are more students than school choice spaces, a lottery is held.
While there have been school choice students who have posed disciplinary problems, they tend to move back to their home districts.
“In my tenure the number of students presenting disciplinary cases has been slim to none,” Szymaniak said.
Byers, who supports school choice noted that a fair number of W-H sports teams are no-cut, with volley ball – with one school choice student – being an exception.
“It’s the right thing to do to be inclusive,” she said.
Howard’s main concern was that the money coming in with school choice students doesn’t fully cover educational costs.
“When I have students in front of me, I don’t care if you’re from Dighton-Rehoboth, W-H, whatever, I’m going to give it all to you, and I know a lot of people say the same,” said WHEA president and history teacher Kevin Kafka, who noted there are five staff members tied to partial funding through school choice.
Like Stafford, he cautioned people to be very careful in linking a process to a legal process. There have been no investigations or proof that school choice has been used improperly.
Forth, who attended WHRHS with school choice students said such students become part of the community and made an impassioned argument on their behalf.
“They’re not a ‘school-choice kid,’ they’re a Panther,” he said, noting that students also come to W-H via move-ins, the foster care system or McKinney-Vento – which requires homeless students placed in shelters out of town to be transported back at district expense to attend school in their home districts – or English language learners. “They either are impacted by the district, or they contribute … they enrich our experience, they are our peers. They’re not ‘someone from another town.’”
In response to a question from Committee member Small, Szymaniak said school choice students do not have a great impact on class size because the 45 students are spread out across grade levels.
“Class size at the high school is very good with the exception of foreign language,” he said. “I think it’s been a good thing for our school … but I also hear where people are.” He said if a student lost a specific opportunity, such as a part in a school play, as a parent he would be upset.
“To me, this is an issue of community and access,” Scriven said. “The relationships that we nurture, and the people that we interact with on a daily basis in our community really, really matters for a lot. … Kids in our community should be our top priority.”
He argued that it is the average student that is most negatively affected by school choice.
In other business, the committee heard a review of budget numbers, their impact on the district’s hold-harmess status and possible ways to use excess and deficiency funds to improve the towns’ assessment figures. No changes have been made to the budget from the previous week.
“I thought it would take a lot longer to get out of hold harmless than it looks like we’re going to, because we just made up a substantial amount of it in one year alone,” Business Manager John Stanbrook said.
When the district comes out of hold harmless, Chapter 70 funds should increase to the district,” Szymaniak suggested, adding that the district had thought it would take until FY 2028 to get this far. Stanbrook agreed.
“We get credited more [toward emerging from hold harmless] for English language learners, low-income students and [increased] overall enrollment, and from going to half-day kindergarten to full-day K,” Szymaniak said. “There was a definite increase in our foundation budget, which then lowered our hold harmless.”
Howard noted it has decreased from about $4 million to $500,000 to $600,000.
“When we talked about it last year, no one expected a jump that big,” Howard said. “So there’s some cause for optimism going forward.”
Hanson reviews strategic plan
HANSON – The Hanson Select Board, on Tuesday, March 7, held a strategic planning session with other boards and department heads at Camp Kiwanee.
The goal, according to Select Board Chair Laura FitzGerald-Kemmett, was to review the results of last year’s initial brainstorming session to avoid having that work wasted by tucking it on a shelf and forgetting it.
The meeting broke up into groups to discuss where progress had been made and where it is still needed.
“We want to come out of tonight with some solid action steps,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “We don’t want to be just talking in circles.”
The areas in which goals were being discussed were:
• Public facilities for improvement to meet the needs of citizens and town departments;
• Public programming and recreation to develop programs and opportunities for citizens of all ages;
• Economic development to mitigate tax increases while providing first-class services to Hanson citizens;
• Citizen engagement to build participation in town government by filling volunteer positions and increasing Town Meeting attendance; and
• Town administration to make town employment more attractive to qualified candidates.
“One of the loudest cries that we heard was about communicating with citizens and engaging citizens and, of course, that got back to our website and how we do things,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said, introducing Town Administrator Lisa Green, who described the Select Board’s contracting of Capital Strategic Solutions to assist with that civic engagement effort.
“They have revamped and redesigned how [we] post things,” she said of examples the consultant has posted on social media. “So far, we’ve heard very god feedback.”
They’ve only been at work on the project for about three or four weeks, Green said, but what town officials have seen is excellent.
The Economic Development Committee is also hard at work. Town Planner Antonio DeFrias outlined the group’s economic manual. Completed a few months ago, it provides a step-by-step handbook for the steps new businesses coming into town need to get inspections done before opening and other information.
The facilities group’s discussion yielded a monthly follow-up schedule of meetings to identify all current and future public facilities to discover, among other things, the exact use of the facilities and how they fit into the capital matrix and whether they have ancillary support groups or foundation. Archiving and publishing the information is another goal.
Under Recreation, one of the goals is to return to a Recreation Committee, in place of the Camp Kiwanee Commission. It’s five members would serve one-year terms to establish policies and procedures and establish a business plan to help make it self-sufficient and to create a revolving account to support the programs and prevent using it as an enterprise fund. An events calendar is one way of publicizing programs.
Economic Development requires a huge partnership between land use groups and the EDC, according to that working group, and should start on the MBTA Communities 40R overlay and extending the flexible overlay further down Main Street, as that is their area of focus. Zoning bylaws should also be reviewed in an effort to make the town more business friendly, while reconvening the EDC.
Capital Strategic solutions’ help with improving the website Citizen engagement is a key, but getting town representatives out to holding both hours at events like Hanson Days and other town events. A discussion of sign bylaws so an electronic message board could be placed at Town Hall was also considered.
Town administration’s mission to take care of Town Hall staff, needs a human resources position – an HR generalist working out of the Select Board office, working with the town administrator. One suggestion was to use funds such as the cannabis impact fees, meals tax and tax title properties could be used for that salary. A clear, concise and easy to understand employee handbook was also recommended.
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