WHITMAN – A suggestion made during the Monday, Jan. 9 WHRSD Regional Agreement Committee that all School Committee votes require a two-thirds vote to carry, was greeted with concern by Whitman Selectmen at their Tuesday, Jan. 24 meeting.
Right now, only budget certification needs a two-thirds vote to pass.
Whitman representative to the Regional Agreement Committee, Select Board member Justin Evans reported on the two meetings held on Jan. 9 and 23. The vote issue was discussed on Jan. 9.
Evans said the voting threshold was the only issue on that agenda that delved into deep discussion.
Hanson Select Board member and Regional Agreement Committee representative Jim Hickey said that is why he felt that a two-thirds vote on any kind of vote taken by the School Committee would make would be the easiest way to solve the problem.
“On anything that the School Committee would actually vote for, you’d need seven out of 10,” he said on Jan. 9. “If the School Committee is doing their job, there’s never a tie vote.”
Evans told his board that the expectation was that Hanson would seek reconfiguration of how many members come from each town, as that approach has been discussed to this point.
“I wanted to get the opinion of this board because I think that will be the biggest area of disagreement when we go back for next Monday’s meeting,” Evans said. “How do we feel about every vote the School Committee takes being at least a two-thirds vote.”
Interim Town Administrator Frank Lynam said that, just like a budget vote. The proposed change would require two-thirds of all members, and not just of those School Committee members present to approve anything.
“It would really be inappropriate to change the number of members from each town,” Lynam said, noting that representation is based on population. “The alternative was a suggestion that there’s some – I would call unfounded concern – that Whitman having six members and Hanson having four members, puts them in a difficult position when issues are controversial, and the interests of a particular town are at hand.”
Lynam said he could only remember one vote, in all his years of dealing with the region, that broke down along town lines, 6-4 and that was the assessment method of dividing costs to the schools.
“The question is, is there enough concern, either on the Whitman side or the Hanson side, that we need to put in some type of circuit-breaker that prevents us from voting along town lines on issues that effect the School Department,” Lynam said.
Evans said he thinks the School Committee members will push back on the proposals as well, because it couldn’t function without seven members.
“I think they’ll push back on that pretty hard,” he said. “They may entertain two-thirds of present members, which would create all kinds of strange scenarios for voting.”
Evans said he is uncertain if he could personally support the proposal but stressed he is the representative to the committee from the Select Board and wanted to get their opinion.
“I don’t even know if they’d reach out to counsel to see if it’s allowable, according to state law,” Evans said.
Select Board Chair Randy LaMattina said he understood Evans’ concern and the nature of compromise, but that the most important vote the School Committee takes every year is the budget and views the issue as “an internal problem.”
“I don’t know if I would argue it,” he said.
“This is a decision that doesn’t effect our hand so much as the School Committee themselves,” Evans said. “I think their opinion matters more than ours, but I wanted to see how we felt.”
Select Board members Dr. Carl Kowalski said he didn’t see any reason to go to a two-thirds vote.
“It doesn’t make sense to me,” he said. “Leaving it the way it is, does.”
“For as long as I’ve been involved, Hanson’s had the chair,” Evans said.
“Yes, they have,” Kowalski said.
Evans noted that Regional Agreement Committee members do see the reorganization votes are a time when the two-thirds vote would definitely come into play.
The current agreement stipulates that “in accordance with one man, one vote committee members will be elected by voters in member communities, with each community’s representation apportioned according to population” and adjusted every five years, beginning in 1995.
School Committee Chair Christopher Howard said his interpretation was that the passage pertained to the interim committee and that the proposed agreement kept that unless and until “a shift in the effective populations in the member towns … creates an impermissible disparity, based on the one person, one vote principal, the committee will address the disparity by either adjusting the committee members or weighing the votes.”
A state law governing how regional committees can form their membership through one of five ways:
Electing committee members by voters in each town with the number of members apportioned by population;
Electing members through district elections on biennial state election ballots;
Electing members with residency requirements in district elections on biennial state election ballots;
Weighing the votes of committee members according to the population they represent; or
Appointing committee members by locally elected officials such as school board members.
Howard said issues that had been difficult to surmount in past years because “we couldn’t get a two-thirds vote.”
School Committee Vice Chair Christopher Scriven noted that, while it may not always be right, people tend to vote for their town.
“To me, that’s wrong,” Hickey said. “I think the School Committee, as members has to hold themselves to a higher standard.”
Evans also reported to the Whitman Select Board on Jan. 24 that the Regionalization Committee discussed busing calculations again as well as what capital needs of the schools come under the heading of an “emergency” cost.
Evans said in years when the School Committee has a large balance in excess and deficiency, they could pay for emergency repairs of most kids, but in leaner budget years, even some of the smaller costs will have to be sent to the towns.
“I personally think an emergency cost is an emergency,” LaMattina said. “It is going to impact you going to school the next day, or impact a particular school or classroom.”
“That’s where most of the conversation was,” Evans said.
Select Board Vice Chair Dan Salvucci stressed that he did not want to see repairs delayed until they were big enough to pass along to the town.
“As far as I’m concerned, that is mismanagement of town buildings,” he said.
Evans also said requiring a periodic review of the Regional Agreement was relatively non-controversial.

The school district outlined its preliminary figures for a“reasonable budget” of $60,984,583 during a preliminary budget presentation to officials from both towns on Thursday, Jan. 12. That figure represents a 3 percent increase.
“My goal for tonight is to give both boards, both FinComs, the select boards in Hanson and Whitman an overview of what the regional school district budget looks like,” Superintendent of School Jeffrey Szymaniak said. “This is a preliminary overview that I shared with [the] School Committee Dec. 21, right before the winter break.”
Szymaniak made a presentation before Business Manager John Stanbrook spoke about the financial picture
“This is a level-service budget as presented,” Szymaniak said. “We are not adding any additional staff. We are, in this budget hopefully [reusing] retirement funds to be able to fund staffing positions that are currently in ESSER 2 and ESSER 3.”
ESSER 2 federal Coronavirus grants are expiring and ESSER 3 expire in September 2024.
Budget information, which had not been adjusted since the Dec. 21 meeting, are available on the school district website whrsd.org.
“Again, this is prelim, so we had to make some estimates going forward,” he said. “I also ask both [Select] boards to offer some grace in going forward. As you know, we’ve had some technical issues, dating back to July, and we are knee-deep – neck-deep – in W2s right now, to make sure our employee get their tax documents prior to Jan. 31.”
After Stanbrook completes that, the information will be made available at the Wednesday, Feb. 1 budget meeting. Szymaniak said the school district and committee are also in the process of developing a new five-year strategic plan for the district, which they hope will be approved by the School Committee this June.
Stanbrook said Hanson’s operating assessment is currently calculated at a 7.88 percent increase and Whitman’s at 8.52 percent higher.
District goals for the current budget were tuition-free, all-day kindergarten, one-to-one devices for students, a robust K-eight related arts program and an improved culture and climate in district schools. Szymaniak thanked both communities for supporting all-day kindergarten and making it possible for each student to have a [Chromebook] device on which to learn.
“We were not successful, necessarily, in putting forth a robust K-eight related arts program,” he said. “We’re still in motion on that, with a goal this year to potentially put it into the FY ’24 budget.”
School start times, if changed, and the related arts programs, will have a financial effect on the fiscal 2024 budget, innovation pathways toward early college courses will have no impact on the budget, he said.
The budget currently does not have the funds included to bring back foreign language to the middle school to the extent students would like to see [see related story, opposite].
Improving the culture and climate so that every student has an equitable experience in school, preK-to-age 22, has no financial implications, he said.
Szymaniak said class sizes are “better than they ever have been and students are achieving more than they have in the past,” and credited community support for budgets has meant lower class sizes, giving teachers more one-on-one opportunities to help students since 2010.
Retaining special education students in the district is another goal, as well as support for English language learners.
Enrollment is expected to maintain its current levels – at about 3,440 students – for the foreseeable future.
Salaries and expenses are being calculated to increase about 3 percent – but not across he board, but more to ensure salaries are not underfunded. Hold harmless requirements will increase the required town contributions by 5 percent and the town split for non-mandated busing is estimated at 60.61 for Whitman and 39.39 percent for Hanson.
A major questionmark remains the state’s special education tuition expectations.
Szymaniak said in December, he is looking at what represents or a 4.19-percent increase over the current budget. The district has tried to keep the increase to 3 percent every year in the interest of fairness to the towns, and, if a state-mandated 14 percent increase in special education tuition could be eliminated, the WHRSD budget increase is back to 3 percent, he said.
Whitman Selectman Shawn Kain disagreed on the way the budget is being rolled out.
“We should have a revenue forecast,” he said. “We should come together and come to consensus about what we’re going to do about revenue … and then we should build our budget.”
He said a consensus is missing in the process, which creates tension in the community and between other departments and asked if the school department was looking for an override.
“I don’t know,” said Szymaniak, who stressed the budget is preliminary without state budget information, as well as from the towns. “What I would like to get is the budget forecast from both communities, because that hasn’t been presented to me in two years.”
He said he was targeting a 3 percent increase this year.
Whitman Select Board Chair Randy LaMattina said he respectfully disagreed that the schools had not received town financial forecasts, having provided a fiscal policy three years ago that gave up to a 5 –percent increase to the schools and 2.5 percent to other departments.
“We’ve not moved off that,” he said, noting that Whitman School Committee members have consistently reminded the district about it.
“It’s seems the understanding falls on you, Mr. Szymaniak, because you haven’t gotten it right yet,” he said. “The amount of money you just asked for in this budget is more than the town takes in.”
LaMattina said the purpose for financial forecasting is to enable the town to live with from year to year.
He also asked how many positions were paid for with onetime funds, information Szymaniak said he would have by the Wednesday, Feb. 1 public hearing on the budget.
Whitman Finance Committee member Kathleen Ottina said other town departments have also come in with higher numbers than the town could afford, because this is the preliminary stage of budgeting.
“I think the tone that’s beginning to escalate in this room needs to be ratcheded down,” she said. “We have to start somewhere. … We’re all good people who work very hard to do the right thing for everybody.
Hanson Selectman Jim Hickey the budget picture is similar to the age-old chicken-or-the-egg question.
“You’re waiting to get information from the towns in October 2022 to present something to the district, to the board, to the School Committee in January, but you’re not getting those numbers in October,” he said. “Maybe it’s the towns’ fault … maybe it’s the selectmen’s fault, the town administrator’s fault that we don’t have the numbers projected for you in October to use for us in January.”
He said the process has to start somewhere.
“At some point, we have to start,” he said. “It has to change.”
Whitman Selectman Justin Evans said a lot of progress has been made.
“We’re moving in the right direction, and I do think that, for Whitman, out budget forecast is going to get better every year that Shawn is on the board,” he said. “He’s been pushing us since he was a citizen, attending meetings of he board.”