The School Committee on Wednesday, March 19 voted to approve the fiscal 2026 budget assessments for fiscal 2026. They also certified the FY ’26 budget [see story opposite]. It was the deadline date for the vote ahead of the May 5 town meetings.
Superintendent of Schools Jeff Szymaniak recommended that the committee affirm the assessment figures he provided in the February – a $66,306,276,19 level-service spending plan that is up $3,375,931.19 over the $ 62,530,345 budgeted in FY 25 – a total budget increase of 5.6 percent.
As of now, operational assessment totals are 61.12 percent or ($20.9 million, a 9.65 percent increase over last year) for Whitman, and 38.88 percent ($16.4 million, a 9.87 percent increase) for Hanson. Once a budget is certified, it can go down in dollars, but not up between that time and Select Board budget certifications – not up.
“I’m not asking the committee to bring this down at this point because, from the numbers provided by the two towns, there’s no budget outside of a potential override,” Szymaniak said. “So, I’m going to ask the committee to stay firm on the assessment that I provided to our budget hearing in February.”
“Those [municipal budget] numbers have not been shared with us yet,” he said. “I’m hoping to have those next week, but due to the law that says we have to set an assessment 45 days before Town Meeting, I don’t have those numbers for you and 45 days is tomorrow.”
He has met with finance committees and select boards from both towns, and planned another round of join finance committee/select board meeting in Whitman and in Hanson this week.
He said a productive meeting with the Whitman FinCom on Wednesday, March 12 yielded “some good questions from the chair, who shared those answers with the committee.”
“The [Whitman Finance] Committee has an idea of where the school budget is,” Szymaniak said, noting goals involved in five-year plans were fairly accurate in forecasting for fiscal ’26. “We knew this was going to be a difficult budget year and both towns have shared thoughts in writing, in the paper, out, vocally, that both towns are struggling financially and there will be a need or potential need for an override in both communities.”
Those overrides, he added, will not only fund the school budget, but also municipal services in both towns.
School Committee Dawn Byers, recalling four years ago when then-Chair Christopher Howard and the committee worked together in summer budget workshops to plan and set goals for the committee, including one with the Mass. Association of School Committees, which helped with the committee/superintendent relationship.
“It boils down to the ‘what and the how,’” Byers said. “The School Committee’s job is the ‘what,’ the does the ‘how,’” she quoted the message at the session. “We made some progress on class sizes and so-forth, but I feel for budget, in particular, there wasn’t as much dialog in advance over what the budget was going to include.”
While she said she was happy that it maintains programs, she said she wondered a bit if it might not be lopsided.
“Certainly, our spending should be fiscally responsible, but is it being spent with the greatest impact on student achievement?” she asked referencing are towns’ per-pupil expenditures.
W-H is at $17,000, including State Aid. East Bridgewater is $1,000 less per pupil, where they offer the world languages in middle school and robotics, for which she has long lobbied. Hanover is steady with W-H and also offer world languages in the middle school.
“We know it’s not in this budget, but I’m wondering how we are spending our money?” she said.
She also noted that the growth of South Shore Charter, which has a 400-student waiting list, Whitman and Hanson could lose another 25-30 students.
“How do we keep kids here?” she asked. “Career-tech education is the new CTE acronym for vocational schools [and] there are actually 43 programs approved by DESE for vocational – 43 programs. We know South Shore Tech has about 12 of those 43, and they are adding two.”
Weymouth Public Schools has 10 career-tech ed, and receives Chapter 74 vocational funding in their foundation budget, Silver Lake has seven, where they have 340 students enrolled in their vocational program within the public high school.
A foundation budget of a school with vocational students is $17,000, W-H’s foundation budget is $11,000 Byers noted.
“There’s state aid to be had,” she said. “We could have a Chapter 74 vocational program in this school.”
Byers listed several other area school districts offering Career-tech ed that brings in Chapter 74 funding in their high schools.
CTE has always been the main mission of vocational education, confirmed SST Superintendent-Director Dr. Thomas J. Hickey this week.
“She’s not wrong,” he said, adding it’s nothing new.
“Career-tech education, also known as vocational education, has been a valuable public school resource for decades,” Hickey said. “We don’t offer every vocational program that the state allows. I think students and their families are eager to have applied education that would lead to more direct-to-work options as kids graduate and get into their young adult years.”
He added that young people often need an economic leg-up in order to pay for post-secondary education and a vocational skill applied in the workplace can help.
Szymaniak said he has looked into Chapter 74 funding.
“We used to have a vocational [program],” said Committee Chair Beth Stafford. “We used to have wood shop, we used to have a metal shop – my son participated in that. Unfortunately, one of the reasons it was cancelled, actually, was not enough kids were participating.”
Byers clarified that the law prohibits W-H from competing with SST, because the towns are member communities. That is why she stressed there are 43 CTE programs that DESE recognizes, one of which is early childhood education, three business programs – including marketing, which Hickey had also mentioned as an excellent program for W-H.
“Some of them are not trades – construction, mechanical – that require a lot of space. They’re technology, they’re engineering, so I don’t think it’s going to require a lot of physical space or equipment. I would ask people to look at those 43 programs that are online at DESE.”
Stafford also suggested they examine how many programs W-H needs to adopt to earn Chapter 74 funds, or if some of the school’s programs would already qualify.
School Committee member Rosemary Connolly also noted that Chapter 74 also carries more aid for special education.
“I would love to establish some sort of vocational program here,” he said. “We’re limited on space right now.”
While every classroom is full, there might be some flexibility once the middle school is built and there is a decision from the committee to move the preschool out of the high school building.
“There’s a vacant lot in Whitman specifically designated for education,” Byers said. “If this committee wanted to vote for education, and ask the town of Whitman if we could use Park Avenue … they’re not doing anything else with that property.”
Both Vice Chair Hillary Kniffen and committee member Kara Moser stressed that vocational programs carry the need for extra staff that sometimes exacts cuts to other programs – Kniffen pointed to Pembroke’s once strong music program, caused problems for vocational pathways students interested in music because of the rigid vocational schedule.
“We just need to be careful when we’re making these decisions,” Kniffen said.
She teaches in Pembroke and said the school band, for example went from 200 students two or three years ago to nine this year because of the scheduling issue.
“We are looking long term,” Szymaniak said. “This is going to be a tight fiscal year. This is why we didn’t try to add multiple programs to this budget. My concern is going to be trying to pass a budget at Town Meeting where there’s not going to be an impact on student learning and we’re gearing up for a fight after tonight to go forward with both communities.
“I say ‘fight’ in a positive way to support our kids,” he said. He said the district’s business manager Stephen Marshall has already submitted assessments that are sustainable for the communities and will grow the schools if the overrides pass.
According to Byers’ research, Whitman’s town budget pays W-H $9,000 per pupil in addition to the school’s state aid from its Article 2 budget, another $11,000 per pupil goes to SST; $15,000 per pupil is paid to South Shore Charter; $28,000 per pupil to Bristol County Agricultural-Vocational and $29,000 per pupil to Norfolk County Agricultural-Vocational.
“When a town tries to say, ‘W-H, your costs are going up, they’re too much,’ we’re the cheapest deal out of all those public schools,” she said. “I’m glad this committee is not falling for the false narrative that the towns can’t afford the education budget we’re presenting.”
She said she has listened to Hickey state, when his committee certified their budget in February, that “the town financial teams are baking it into their budgets,” and that he didn’t flinch one bit with his School Committee members because he knows the assessment is going right to Town Meeting floor and the people will decide what they want to fund.
Finally, she asked about the bond rating, wanting to know if stabilization accounts are being funded as a senior adviser from Unibank recommended keep financial reserves above the 5 percent threshold crucial to maintain a strong bond rating.
Marshall said there is nothing in the budget that’s funding any stabilization funds.
“There’s not any stabilization funds that have been set up in the district,” he said. “There’s no funding in there right now for OPEB, either.”
Based on the answers to her questions, Byers said she would support the budget.
“I want to make sure we’re looking long-term, to the stability of this district and protecting that bond rating over all,” she said.