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.
Whitman posts Asst. TA position
WHITMAN – The Select Board on Tuesday, March 7 approved the revision of a job description and salary range for a new Town Administration, as well of an assistant town administrator.
Town Administrator Mary Beth Carter said the salary range now being offered is $90,000 to $100,000 for the job.
Committee member Justin Evans asked where the job opening would be posted, as it had been posted on the Mass. Municipal Association site as well as some industry organizations in the past, but the town received a “flurry of resumes” when positions were posted on Indeed.
Carter said it would definitely be posted on the MMA site and she could certainly post it on Indeed as well, and in local newspapers.
“It will definitely be put out there on several sites,” she said.
Selectman Dr. Carl Kowalski advised holding off on using Indeed until the board could gauge what interest they see from local newspapers and the MMA.
Fire chief Timothy Clancy, in his regular COVID report, said there had been only 16 positive cases of the virus in town over the previous week, out of 244 tests performed for a 6.5 percent positivity rating.
“Let’s have it be noted that’s a 50-percent decrease from the previous week and we can only hope that this trend will continue as people move back outside as we approach spring,” he said. “Also, the wastewater report has shown a gradual decrease.”
Timing votes on WMS project
WHITMAN – A decision on how to proceed with the timing and logistics of a special Town Meeting and ballot question on the Whitman Middle School project has been delayed to Tuesday, March 21, so Town Clerk Dawn Varley can attend a Select Board meeting to answer some lingering questions on how the board might proceed.
Town Administrator Mary Beth Carter, at the Select Board’s Tuesday, March 7, meeting reported that delaying the Town Meeting and election for the project would add three months to the schedule and .5 percent monthly to the cost.
“Our last meeting was basically a brain-storming session of what this board felt … we needed to question a bit and find some solutions, and I don’t think, at any point any decisions were made,” Select Board Chair Randy LaMattina said, noting that Carter had researched the issue of timing the special Town Meeting and ballot initiative for the project. “Whether or not we get a date this evening – I think we definitely should by the next meeting.”
Carter said she met with Project Manager John Bates to discuss the timeline and the difference waiting to hold the ballot question to the March Presidential Primary Election might make.
“The WMS project is a massive project,” she said. It would be the largest municipal building project to date in Whitman, with an estimated borrowing cost to the town of about $72 million. The added .5 percent monthy cost from a delay could come to and additional $1,530,000.
The total cost of the project is estimated to be $127 million, with the Massachusetts School Building Authority funding about $55 million.
While a portion of the $1.5 million escalation cost would also be partially reimbursed by MSBA, the town would still have to pay more than $800,000 the cost of delay.
Carter said that waiting until the Presidential Primary vote would ensure the question that would be seen by the most voters.
“I think we’ve all seen that per the last major single-ballot vote we had was on the marijuana issue that fell on a holiday time – we did not have an extensive turnout for that,” LaMattina said.
The WMS Town Meeting was initially scheduled around Thanksgiving with a ballot question soon after.
“I personally would hate to see a borrowing and funding vote, that would be historical for this town, fall with minimum turnout,” he said.
“It makes all kinds of sense to try to attract the greatest number of people because it is an expensive item and it is such an important item for the parents of the town,” Select Board member Dr. Carl Kowalski agreed.
Select Board member Justin Evans, who had initially suggested tying the ballot question to the Presidential Primary date, said the $800,000 impact of such a delay is “a little hard for me to swallow,” however.
“I agree we should try to get as high turnout as possible, but to do so and really raise the cost of the project on the taxpayers – I don’t know if that’s the right move for this board,” Evans said.
Vice Chair Dan Salvucci, maintained that it is more important to give the most people possible a chance to voice their opinion and vote.
“My feeling is this project has been out there for a couple of years now, and to be able to move forward as quickly as possible, is not irresponsible,” he said, agreeing with LaMattina that holding a vote or Town Meeting during the holidays is not a good idea.
“You’re trying to fight a Thanksgiving turkey, Santa Claus, etc.,” he said.
But he suggested a January 2024 special Town Meeting followed by a ballot initiative in February would bring out people interested in the project, good and bad.
“If it can be earlier for the ballot vote, that’s fine, too,” Small said.
Building Committee member John Galvin asked for clarification on the necessary timeline for voting on the project, noting that an Oct. 26 MSBA meeting is being looked to for its final vote, but said there is no reason the Select Board has to wait for that date.
“That [MSBA] meeting is more or less a ceremonial approval to move forward to the vote,” he said, suggesting that the Town Meeting could be as early as Oct. 30.
Galvin also asked what the required time span is between Town Meeting and a ballot initiative.
Former Town Administrator Frank Lynam said 35 days are required between the two votes. While the annual Town Meeting and elections are set in the by-law.
“They are considered one event,” he said. “The meeting and the election comprise one event, and that’s why there isn’t a further expanse of time between the two,” he said. Otherwise, the Town Clerk must be given 35 days to present the ballot.
“There is no negotiating that,” Lynam said.
LaMattina noted that the building committee is also working on a deadline. They have 980 days to get it on a ballot from the time MSBA invites a community into the process.
The Whitman project already has had to file an extention because the Building Committee had to seek an RFS for the OPM twice. A January special Town Meeting, meanwhile, would require a primary day ballot anyway.
Another wrinkle, as Galvin brought to the board’s attention that only the list of candidates for president are included on a Presidential Primary ballot.
“You would need a second ballot at that election,” he said.
“I see that as an issue,” Salvucci said.
Evans suggested asking the Town Clerk’s office about whether or not they can even process two ballots simultaneously. Carter said the town consulted the Secretary of the Commonwealth said including a second ballot is not a problem at all.
Evans said a high early vote, which is used in Presidential primaries and general elections also presents a separate problem.
“I think for the turnout, it’s worthwhile and, for logistical, I’d think the timeline is going to be there anyway,” Evans said.
“You may want to think about that before you take a vote, because that will be a separatee cost,” Galvin said.
Thanks, Frank!
Before the meeting got down to business, Kowalski thanked Lynam for serving as interim town administrator,
“We have had the good fortune of having our former town administrator serve as the interim town administrator and as an assistant to Mary Beth in this transition period,” Kowalski said. “On behalf of the board, even though they don’t know I’m doing this, I’d like to thank Frank for doing so. As we all know, Frank was a town administrator for a very long time – a lot of good things happened while he was.”
He ticked off accomplishments such as a comparatively low tax rate, a new police station, improvements to the Town Hall and fire station and a new high school among them.
“But this interim period has been a tricky one and Frank jumped into it,” he said. “He didn’t have to. He was home with his grandchildren, and I just wanted to say thank you [to] him.”
Then Kowalski, leaning on his noted sense of humor, presented Lynam with a gift of cookies made by Leslie Diorio, bearing the “town seal” – an illustration of the marine animal balancing a ball bearing the official town seal, on its nose.
“One of the more interesting things we had happen during [Frank’s] tenure, was the cookie fiasco,” Kowalski said.
The design referenced an incident earlier in the year, when she had made cookies with the official Town Seal as refreshments for a joint Select Board/Finance Committee, which led to a complaint filed by the Keeper of the Seal for misuse of the official seal. A second cookie design featured the words, “Thanks for leading our circus.”
“You’ve done a great service to the town,” LaMattina said about Lynam.
Carter also thanked him “You stepped in, and I know you didn’t think you’d be here this long, it did take us a bit, but I think the wait was worth it and I think things worked out great for the town and I personally wanted to thank you.”
“And I really want to thank you,” Carter added. “I’ll never be a Frank Lynam, but I’ll do my best.”
District reviews Healey’s budget
School Committee chair Christopher Howard wrapped up the Wednesday, March 1 meeting by announcing his resignation, effective following the Monday, May1 Hanson Town Meeting.
“I’ve personally reached a point of disappointment and frustration to where it’s time for me to step off the committee,” he said, adding that he would be delivering a letter to Hanson Town Clerk Elizabeth Sloan the next day. “It’s seven years, it’s time. I think it’s important to stay with the committee through Town Meeting, we have a lot of work to do between now and then.”
He added that he wanted to give the town a chance to prepare – placing someone on the ballot – for the Town Election and give Hanson voters the opportunity to weigh in.
Committee members expressed surprise at the announcement and, while Howard discouraged professional euologes, Vice Chair Christopher Scriven said he intended to thank Howard for his time and service.
“I’m going to say out loud that the transition from the last regime, let’s say, has been drastic,” Scriven said. “We’ve been more aggressive, we’ve been more transparent, we’ve been more open to feedback from the public, we’ve worked collaboratively in a better manner and we owe you a debt of gratitude.”
“It’s a committee of 10,” Howard said. “We’ve got a lot of work to do between now and then.”
Committee member Beth Stafford attended the meeting remotely via phone and member Steven Bois was absent.
The committee also heard a budget update, as new Cherry Sheet figures became available from the state since the Feb. 22 meeting.
District Business Manager John Stanbrook said school choice and charter schools are the two figures hitting the expense side of the fiscal 2024 budget.
“Those were general fund Cherry Sheet charges, state aid charges,” Stanbrook said, noting he had placed $200,000 as a place holder for school choise on Feb. 15, and it ended up being $208,962 – or an $8,962 increase to the budget. He had calculated $950,000 for district-wide charter schools, but Cherry Sheet figures put it at $1.19 million, up more than $240,000.
Under revenue changes, Chapter 70 funds went down by an estimated $18,000, while charter school reimbursement went up $40,000. He had caluclated regional transportation reimbursement at 90 percent when it was actually adding up to 87 percent. An error in carrying over non-mandated busing costs for both towns has also been corrected, at $8,000.
Operating budget changes – as a result of Gov. Maura Healey releasing her budget numbers March 1 for minimum local contribution also had minimum local contributions down slightly, while student enrollment rose a bit.
Hanson student count went from 1,344 to 1,390 and from 2,068 in Whitman to 2,180 for assessment percentages that shifted from 39.39 percent to 38.94 percent for Hanson and 60.61 percent to 61.06 percent for Whitman.
Hanson’s operating assessment would now be a 6.47-percent increase
Whitman’s would be a 7.70-percent increase on a $60,484,108.69 budget, which is a $249,276 increase.
The overall budget is up 3.41 percent over last year as of now, he said.
Superintendent of Schools Jeff Szymaniak said an update on hold harmless, which is decreased significantly, would be available Wednesday, March 8 after the budget subcommittee addresses it on Monday, March 6.
“The Cherry Sheet does reflect some change to hold harmless,” he said, noting Stanbrook was pretty accurate in his estimates.
While it has been cut to $500,000 because of the addition of universal free all-day kindergarten and low-income student costs into the foundation budget.
“That, for us is a benefit, really – going forward, not in FY ‘24,,” Szymaniak said. “We haven’t got much state aid in Chapter 70 because we’ve been at a $3.6 million or a $4.6 million hold harmless rate over the past couple of years. … Moving forward, hopefully, we will join the ranks of our next door neighbor Abington, getting $1.2 million in State Aid, Bridgewater-Raynham $3.2 million in State Aid in the future to help the towns out.”
A larger kindergarten enrollment because of full-day kindergarten, low income levels and the larger English learning population counts for the district in State Aid calculations and help get the district out of the hold harmless situation.
Committee member Dawn Byers said the larger enrollment didn’t exactly mean 150 more kids were added to the district.
“It’s a formula with the foundation enrollment where, a kindergarten student the prior year, was actually only counted as a half a student for enrollment numbers,” she said, explaining that the state looks at half-day kindergarten pupils that way for calculations. “Now they’re counted, enrollment-wise, as a full person.”
Stanbrook said the district’s 2022 excess and deficiency numbers have not yet been certified by the Department of Revenue, but he expects that information will be available by next week.
In other business, the district’s transportation department included the extra buses needed to realign the school start times between the elementary schools within the scenarios Szymaniak had presented the previous week, he announced, recommending using E&D to offset the cost.
“If we choose to not align the elementary schools, I have to go back to the financials about non-mandated busing,” he said.
While he wasn’t looking for a vote, Szymaniak said he was seeking three “asks” – to consider start times that give school-aged children more time at home; to align elementary schools to permit coordinated professional development with faculty and to add time to the school day.
Parents have been asking about the intent behind a longer school day, which he said could allow social-emotional learning as well as more instruction time. Some also noted that, as a financial decision, it is isn’t done, “where are we?”
Committee member Fred Small said he did not see how a decision could be made until all the information is available.
“I don’t know how you become Solomon and satisfy everybody at the same time, but without having all the information so we can make an informed decision, I just don’t think we can,” he said.
Vice Chair Christopher Scriven said finding the right decision is worth taking the time.
Committee member Beth Stafford said she felt very strongly that the elementary school starts would have to be aligned if the district is going to change start times.
Howard said the shortened Hanson bus trips can’t be sacrificed in the attempt to align start times.
“They’re separate, but they’re linked, and I’m sorry if it’s confusing,” Assistant Superintendent George Ferro, noting it makes it harder to leave the meeting without guidance from the committee.
“What I’m hearing is you need more information and this isn’t happening in the next two weeks,” Szymaniak said.
Byers had questioned the legality – from an equity standpoint – of treating fifth-graders as middle schoolers in one town and elementary students in another, which makes it hard for teachers to collaborate for the benefit of their students.
“I think people are concerned about the equity and the life experience,” Szymaniak said, noting that he would have to consult with district counsel on the question of legality. “That was a decision that was made in 2018, and I would have hoped it was run by counsel because, again, the committee made this decision then, aligning the schools.”
Szymaniak was not superintendent at that time.
“We can consult counsel on that,” he said.
“I do know that a parent called DESE to ask about inequity in the district and DESE’s answer was, ‘Do you have a parent who’s an attorney in the district? They may want to file a lawsuit,’” Byers said, admitting that she did not know what statute would cover it. “That’s all I’m saying.”
She said, referring to data-driven decisions, that a 7:05 a.m. start time is also not healthy and asked what is involved in the $1.7 million line item as far as the bus routes cost is concerned.
Scriven asked for a scheduled commitment going forward, if the committee was not taking action at this time.
“I just want to rest assured that we’re going to chart a course, so to speak,” he said, including a suggestion that all students be bused.
Szymaniak said that, too, was something that could be done.
“I think we need a plan,” Howard agreed. “We started this conversation in the fall last year. Here we are today [and] we need a thoughtful plan. And, if that thoughtful plan is we need a third-party consultant, sobeit. … We need a clearly articulate and defined plan – without the pressure of this budget cycle.”
SST moves along MSBA process
HANOVER –An update on the school’s renovation and expansion program, being funded in part by the Massachusetts School Building Association (MSBA), as well as ongoing regional agreement revision, by the South Shore Tech School Committee on Wednesday Feb. 15, also expanded – into a discussion about the future of vocational education and how the school should prepare for that.
The district was admitted to the MSBA program about a year ago.
Superintendent-Director Dr. Thomas J. Hickey had reported that the Building Committee has submitted a draft request for services document to the MSBA so that panel can hire a design firm for the project, expecting a month or so to pass before the MSBA takes action on it.
“The trajectory for 2023 is that we will probably spend from now through June going through the process of bringing the design team on board,” Hickey said. “By June … we’ll have formed our project team and the second half of 2023 will be focused on the design. We should be at the tail-end of this calendar year with first instances of models [and cost estimates for a new and/or renovated school].”
Visioning sessions with members of the school community are being eyed as a source for discovering what the district’s needs are. The models will give an idea of what this final project cost might be. An opening is eyed for 2028.
SST is anticipating that 55.16 percent of the total cost will be reimbursed by MSBA although the construction reimbursement amount has not been determined as of now.
“Towns want to come here if they don’t have vocational schools to go to, but yet there are kids who want to come to a vocational school to get an education,” Whitman representative Dan Salvucci said, pointing to Marshfield, in particular that has expressed interest in, and is negotiating to, join the SST region. “That’s the trend nowadays.”
He suggested the impact of that be considered.
“We may build a school that’s bigger … with a lot more space than we need for the students we have, but future needs…
That point was echoed by Scituate representative Jack Manning.
“I don’t know if you’ve been watching the news, but, of late, vocational ed has been getting support,” he said, holding his thumb up.
The comment came during another ancillary discussion of bills now before the state legislature on bills concerning access opportunity and capacity in vocational education. Hickey has recently sent a letter to area legislators concerning bills HD485 and SD1697.
“This bill seeks a lot of things,” he said. “But I do believe the timing is right to at least raise the issue.”
He recalled that committee members often speak of the days when regional vocational schools were opened in the 1960s and 1970s began with substantial state investment and not as much burden on the local towns.
“This bill attempts to do a few things,” Hickey said. “The most notable … is that it seeks to set up a program that puts at least $3 billion aside for brick and mortar improvements to regional vocational schools, county agricultural schools and high schools that have Chapter 74 programs.”
The funding source would be the recently passed Fair Share Amendment.
“In order for our schools to be modernized and expanded to meet state demand, capacity must be improved, and we should take an ‘all of the above’ strategy,” Hickey said, offering programs at night, programs to students who do not attend the school full time, and the school should get state funding for equipment.
The missing link is direct state funding to help taxpayers in the district offset the cost of a substantial capital project, according to Hickey.
“That’s what this bill would do,” he said. “The state’s economy benefits when it invests in its regionals and its county agriculturals, and if the state’s willing to do that, local municipalities don’t have to make that tough choice [in deciding whether to construct a new building].”
Hickey said that is why the district has to build the most modern building it can afford, while projecting honestly to themselves what the increased operating costs could be.
MSBA has agreed to subsidize a new or renovated SST with enrollments between 645-805 students with the current 8 member district, or as many as 975 students with Marshfield becoming a member. The school’s enrollment is approximately 650 students currently with a waiting list.
“Very few building projects are taking an existing school population and projecting that it’s going to increase by a third,” Hickey said, noting several such projects are being built to serve a smaller population. “We are bucking that trend and we’ll know so much more by the end of this calendar year [about feasible options].”
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