The W-H Regional School Committee held its public hearing and budget presentation on the fiscal 2024 budget on Wednesday, Feb. 1.
The current budget figure of $60,510,901.43 for fiscal 2024 represents a 3.45-percent increase over the final operating budget of $58,492,314 for the current fiscal ’23 budget.
“The budget I present today aligns with the district’s strategic plan, the School Committee goals and what we believe provides a quality education for the students of Whitman and Hanson,” Superintendent of Schools Jeffrey Szimaniak said. “What you will see tonight is a level-services budget.
But he is willing to move the financial needle, if the School Committee wants to do that.
Szymaniak said he has also included options for increasing services and “enhancing the educational opportunities” for students.
“This budget is different from the budget presentations in December and January, and I assume this is not the final iteration of the district budget,” he said.
Gov. Maura Healey’s state budget does not come out until March 1, as new governors are given extra time to assemble their first spending plan.
Szymaniak gave a Powerpoint presentation, answering questions from the committee and pubic attending.
The four points of the disctrict’s strategic plan are: ExSEL (Excellence in Social Emotional Learning), a Pre K-12 system of teaching and learning, safe and secure school environments and community engagement.
The School Committee’s focus areas are: Early college and Innovation Pathways, robust related arts curriculum in kindergarten to grade 12, improving school culture and climate ad an examination of school start times. The strategic plan initiatives included in the FY24 budget presentation are an adjustment to school start times, inclusion of a K-8 robotics and foreign language with implementation of Spanish in grade 8.
A presentation on transportation costs will be held on Wednesday, Feb. 15, but the cost of aligning elementary start times in one of three scenarios, could cost as much as $148,666.72 more than the proposed budget of $1,759,984.88. Excess and deficiency would be looked to in that case.
The deadline for sending the school budget to the towns is March 16, with a certification vote slated for March 15.
A major unanticipated cost to the budget is a 14-percent potential increase for private and public special education placements. Szymaniak said administration has recently learned there is a potential for two out-of-district placements to be moving into the district under the new budget year.
“It could be 14 percent,” he said, noting Business Manager John Stanbrook had included a 3-percent benchmark in the budget for the increase. “But, I’m also not confident that it’s going to be 14 percent, so this number of $650,000 is not in the budget.”
He pulled it out of the budget, where it was included in December and January, and has placed it as a separate line item that the School Committee will have to provide guidance in funding, using either excess and deficiency (he sees it as a one-time cost), or fiscal 2025 Circuit Breaker funds could be used.
Szymaniak is estimating that retirements planned across the district could save $313,937 in replacement costs at lower salaries. ESSER III funds used in the fiscal ’24 budget are $67,000 for BCBA (?), $125,000 for English as a second language teachers and $260,000 for interventionists as well as $300,000 for paraprofessionals. ESSER funds expire in fiscal 2025.
“The goal and objectives for FY 2525 will be to drill down, after three years of data collecting, [to learn] how well the interventionists worked in the district and if they’re a necessity moving forward , or how we could pare down that,” Szymaniak said. “I know that’s a big number, but it’s a number we’re going to be working on moving into this school year.”
Interventionists were hired to help students struggling after the isolation of remote instruction during the COVID-19 pandemic. The efficiency of paraprofessionals will also be studied.
State and federal student support guidelines also inform district programs.
For STEM and robotics trough grade eight, the options are to conduct if through library class at elementary schools with pre-constructed curricula of iRobot ($30,000) for K-2 and Robotifi ($25,000 online programs) for grades three to eight, and revamping middle school ccurriculm to create a solid foundation for high school instruction. The additional cost to move the district forward is $55,000.
Foreign language options are: an approach with independent student work augmented with part-time teachers for a cost of $98,400, or adding three Spanish teachers and two reading teachers between the two middle schools at a cost of $335,000 to add.
“I don’t know if we can hire three Spanish teachers in this current climate of teachers – they’re few and far between,” Szymaniak said. “I’m also looking at a potential building project in Whitman, moving between a grade alignment.”
He said he’d prefer phasing the language program in through an online presence, but noted that was a discussion for another time.
But W-H is no longer at the bottom of per-pupil spending in the state.
“We’re not at [the per-pupil spending level] of the area communities yet, and I don’t know if we’ll ever be … but it’s important that we are still behind,” Szymaniak said. “Most of our league-mates in our athletic league, and most of our colleagues on the South Shore [spend more].”
Committee member Fred Small said state officials are anticipating a revenue increase of 1.6 percent, rather than the larger percentages of recent years, and that projections should be cautious. “We’re talking about how much we’re going to get in reimbursement,” Small said. “But we’re also a year behind on reimbursements, but yet we’re factoring in those funds.”
Chair Christopher Howard said the Budget Committee had been discussing that issue.
“It’s not going to help us for this year, but it kind of speaks to the one-time offset,” he said.
Small said that if the Committee was sure a reimbursement was definitely coming back, then the special ed increase would be a proper use for one-time money.
“But it’s not in here, anywhere,” he said of the budget and presentation
Committee member Dawn Byers commented on Szymaniak’s assessment of teacher morale and it’s impact on the budget.
“I have a teaching staff whose morale is teetering,” he said. “Things are difficult in the classroom. Things are difficult with our students.”
Students are returning to school with socialization issues following the pandemic, acting differently. Parents are also different, while they have always been respectfully demanding, there has been an increase in the attitude that “I want an answer now,” he said.
“It’s not bad, it’s just different,” he said.
Szymaniak said he wanted to avoid presenting a budget that residents attending would feel there is no way they could succeed with, and have teachers fear layoffs.
“We pink-slipped 62 people while we were home during COVID, and I don’t want to do that again,” he said.
Byers said the new state Secretary of Education has already been speaking about the importance of working to stabilize, heal and transform.
“I feel that’s where we’re still at,” she said. “When you say staff is panicked about pink slips, I don’t think we’re at all near that, nor should we.”
She said the towns, having received the MARS report on funding formulas, officials know where they stand.
“We know that best practices for finances in municipalities is that they should take care of their largest budget first, and the schools are the largest budget,” she said. “Absolutely. They should be. It’s education. It’s the future. I can’t at all participate in any type of false narrative, if we get there, that the town’s can’t afford our education budget. It is important and we are nowhere near providing what our students and staff deserve.”
She asked Szymaniak if he had anything in writing pertaining to what is being done with the savings to the budget from teacher retirements.
“As I said before, the numbers I had in December were off,” he said. “Salary increases moved the budget needle to 5.5. That $300,00 went right into making sure this budget was around a 3.5 target [increase], pushing it forward.”
Small said the committee should try sending a Student Success Budget again.
“It’s not up to us to go over the town’s budget and try to tell the town, ‘You should cut this, you should cut that. You have too many police officers, you have too many firefighters.’ They have their budgets and they have what they’re doing for a reason,” he said. “We know there’s a guidance for us, at least in Whitman, and if we can live within a guidance … I would hope we can make a case for everything we want.”

HANSON – Interim Town Accountant Eric Kinsherf and Town Administrator Lisa Green presented “real preliminary budget numbers” to the Select Board on Tuesday, Jan. 24, while the board said “no thank you to sharing accountant services with Whitman,
“I think we have a good start for this time of the year,” Kinsherf said about the amount of information now available to the acountant’s office.
Green said all departments had submitted their budgets on time but “we don’t have numbers outside of Town Hall to work on,” as Gov. Maura Healey plans to unveil her state budget March 1 and the W-H School District is still dealing with preliminary numbers because of that, too
“We have put together, based on some revenues, a very preliminary initial budget kickoff,” Green said, handing off the presentation to Kinsherf, who termed it “a good footprint to work with,” but noted some information such as real estate taxes is easy to forecast.
Hanson can anticipate $883,000 – 3.4 percent of the levy – in new real estate taxes next year, he said. Of that, the new growth forecast is level with last year at $250,000.
Local receipts were also fairly level, according to Kinsherf.
Based on initial receipts from the new meals tax, he is estimating a $48,000 gain, for the town coffers.
State aid figures will not be available until March.
“The long and short of it, for new revenues, compared to last year, we’re looking at $945,000,” he said.
Budget requests have not been vetted yet, he said, but the biggest preliminary numbers are from the school budget, where a $1 million increase is being estimated.
Select Board Chair Laura FitzGerald-Kemmett again asked if any information about local impact revenue from cannabis business Impressed LLC had yet been determined.
“It seems to be taking quite a long time,” she said. “It’s been more than a minute.”
Green said they would be seeing real estate and personal property taxes, but sales tax information would not be available until the business harvests its third crop, having grown two test crops so far.
“It seems we have not been having a robust and ongoing conversation with them,” said FitzGerald-Kemmett, in asking that the company be contacted for more information. “We’ve taken quite a leap of faith in entering into a community host agreement with them and we’ve seen – other than the real estate taxes and the real property, we have not seen the money that we were hoping to see.”
Select Board member Ann Rein advised Green to see if there have been any top-level changes at the company, and she said that she had heard a rumor that they were missing a certification, which was holding everything up.
FitzGerald-Kemmett said the community host agreement requires Impressed LLC to inform the town of such personnel changes, if any had been made, and no mention of test crops had been made, either.
Green said she would contact the company.
FitzGerald-Kemmett also said a lot of new growth given the green light by either the ZBA or zoning inspector had been delayed by materials shortages during the supply chain crisis, and related cost increases, have lately shown signs of activity only to halt.
The board also discussed Whitman interim Town Administrator Frank Lynam’s suggestion that the two towns share an accountant.
“Financially, it looks like it’s a good idea,” Green said. “But after speaking to Eric about it, and looking at how sharing somebody has either benefited us or not … in the past, it may not be the best road to go down, but I’m going to leave that to the board to discuss.”
FitzGerald-Kemmett said she agreed with that reasoning, as well as the prospect of sharing an accountant with a town with which Hanson is in a regional schools agreement – “which, at times, has had some contention and difficult moments” – might not be the best fit.
“I appreciate them reaching out and, for certain services, I certainly would entertain shared services, town accountant is just way too close to home for me,” she said.
Despite the standards of practice and ethics in the accountant profession, FitzGerald-Kemmett said she felt the optics are “not great.”
The board was unanimous in agreement.
“I think we’ve decided we’re looking for someone full-time here,” Weeks said. “It’s a good Plan B if we ever needed it.”
“[We] would like to thank our brethren in Whitman for thinking of us and for reaching out and … no thank you,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said, noting that former accountant Todd Hassett had urged the town to hire a full-time, in-house accountant. She also note that, no matter how well-intentioned such a partnership is, it is difficult to get an even 50/50 split of services.

WHITMAN – The Select Board, in a joint budget meeting with the Finance Committee, on Tuesday, Jan. 10 to discuss early financial trends for fiscal 2024 and ways the FinCom has worked to make the budget process more transparent.
“Everything is timely,” interim Town Administrator Frank Lynam said. “We’re going to talk about the budget tonight, but it’s really not a budget, it’s just a whole bunch of numbers put on a spread sheet and saying, ‘What do you think?’”
He said, at this point the figures indicate it’s not going to work the way it’s come in. Department heads submitted their budgets in December, with the town’s budget presentation slated for Feb. 1. The Select Board votes on the town’s appropriation to send to Town Meeting by early March
The budget goals include following the Madden recommendations to use a strategic financial plan and management policies to clearly define the impact to property taxpayers in order to create predictable and moderate increases.
The revenue summary projects a budget at $41,522,749 as of now, with a shortfall of $1,367,980 if those are the numbers the town must work with as the budget process continues. The town’s levy limit is $30,668,912. Total revenue is expected to be $40,699,562.
The figures do not include enterprise funds, which are completely separate, or Cherry Sheet numbers, for which there are only estimates available at this point.
“This is not the budget that we’re going to present and ask people to vote, this is the starting point,” Lynam said as he presented an outline of what the town is looking at now, based on funds coming in. “These numbers aren’t actually accurate, either.”
TheW-H regional school district will meet with both towns on the budget at 6:30 p.m., Thursday, Jan. 12.
“I think we have a lot of work to do over the next two months, and I’m confident that, if we put our heads together with everyone, we’ll come out with a solution that works,” Lynam said.
Select Board Chair Randy LaMattina said he hoped the takeaway from the meeting would be some type of unified consensus of what the town’s message is to give a solid answer to where Whitman is able to provide funding and what would possibly have to be sought through other means, whether by override or the school distirict tailoring back their budget.
Whitman’s funding limit is up to a 5 percent assessment increase, not an overall budget increase.
“I’d like everyone to know the challenges here,” Finance Chair Rick Anderson said, as he described his purpose for the meeting as a review of some policy decisions the committee had entertained through a policy subcommittee over the past summer. He also characterized the numbers presented this week as “significantly preliminary.”
“I don’t think we should overreact to the numbers as much as to focus on what the needs are for each department, and give them an opportunity to present,” he said.
Anderson said the Finance Committee has begun meeting with budget managers from all town departments, and that his committee believes some “difficult decisions” must be made by all stakeholders to ensure that taxpayers can continue to afford living in Whitman.
“I believe that, not only have many members of both boards embraced the new strategic plan, but [have] gone so far as to implement some immediate procedures that get us out of the gate a lot faster than I had envisioned,” Anderson said. “We have the tools, and I’d really like to see us put them to work.”
Finance Committee liaison to the School Committee Kathleen Ottina said the proposed $60 million school budget is almost overwhelming, but she did not want to take away Superintendent of Schools Jeff Szymaniak’s spotlight in explaining the areas and reasons for the increases.
“My breath has been taken away, not just by the school requests, but by some of the budget requests we have received from the town side departments,” she said. “I think, if there’s a budget message to be sent to everyone … it’s that the Madden report is the guiding principal.”
She said there is a lot of work to be done before the school budget is accepted by the School Committee.
Leslie DiOrio, of the policy subcommittee, presented an overview of the committee’s work so far this budget cycle.
She noted that one topic of discussion during the policy subcommittee’s work was about how some line items in the budget were “rolled up as something like a miscellaneous category,” which didn’t give much transparency into what those line items meant.
They came up with a mirroring of the format to create an additional column that pops up with a comment such as “please provide additional documentation,” on budget computer worksheets. Another tab would explain what the documentation was.
“The intent wasn’t to add work, it’s really work they were already doing,” DiOrio. It was meant to get out to department groups earlier to help them better develop their budgets.
Anderson said it also helps departments analyze budget trends.
“It really is a simplification process,” Lynam said. “It provides some thought as to why things are being done.”
Select Board member Shawn Kain said he liked the format because it’s organized and helps understand the budget presentations, but he added he would like feedback from department heads to see whether it helps them or if it adds too much work for them.
“Maybe it’s good to have a year to have some discussion and feedback — also, a new town administrator is coming in and I’m sure that person would like to have some feedback about this,” he said. “I really think it’s going to help us in the long run.”
Kain also spoke of the need to focus on budget forecasting to help prevent conflict during the budget process.
LaMattina noted there’s always going to be tension during a budget process.
“We are taking steps to change the way we are doing the beginning of the budget process,” Anderson said.
“I appreciate getting this out to us now,” Select Board member Justin Evans said, seeking clarification on whose role it would be going forward to present a balanced budget back to the board. His assumption that the incoming town administrator would be that person was confirmed by LaMattina.
Vice Chair Dan Salvucci commented on schools being largest cost, but emphasized that the onus is not only on the schools.
“It takes all the departments to run this town,” he said.

WHITMAN – Could Whitman and Hanson share accounting services?

Interim Town Administrator Frank Lynam asked that question during the Tuesday, Dec. 20 Select Board meeting. The board expressed their willingness to give Lynam authority to explore the issue.

“I would like to look at the possibility of engaging either an accountant or an accounting service – probably, preferably an accountant that could divide his or her time between the towns of Whitman and Hanson and the formula should be relatively easily based on transactional workload,” Lynam said, suggesting a formula could be formulated that is acceptable to both. He stressed that he is not saying the town would hire someone right away.

“All I’m asking for is to see if the board is amenable to my pursuing this a little further in finding out what the level of interest might be in Hanson and whether or not it’s in our mutual interest to do something like this,” Lynam said. “If there isn’t, nothing ventured, nothing gained.”

Both towns are currently without an accountant after their accountants – who in both cases, were working one day per week – resigned in Hanson’s case,

[see related story page 1] and accepted a position as treasurer/collector in Whitman.

Whitman is currently contracting with Eric Kinscherf, who had also offered his services to Hanson, but that town is issuing a request for proposals for the work.

Lynam said that, while the arrangement with Kinscherf is working out well, it raised the question of what the town really needs in terms of accounting services.

Whitman is a town of 14,000 people with a budget of $43 million. Hanson has about 9,000 people with a budget of between $31 million and $32 million.

“The logical thought that occurs to me is, ‘Can we team together and take a regional approach to accounting,” Lynam said. “Franklin County Council of Government does that very well.

Hanson’s former accountant Todd Hassett also provided services for several towns, with Hanson being a one-day-a-week service, he noted. Whitman also has had accounting services for one day a week and it has been working.

With today’s technology, he said it is easier to maintain operations and records electronically, which takes a lot of the concern out of it.

Vice Chair Dan Salvucci asked if a larger group of towns would be worth looking into for a regional approach, but was in favor of exploring the idea.

The larger the group, the more demands are going to be placed on a person,” Lynam said about a larger regional effort.

Select Board member Shawn Kain said he felt having someone like former accountant Ken Lytle on staff is a valuable resource for the town and the Select Board, and a new town administrator might want to take a different path.

“I wouldn’t mind doing something like this for short term to get us through a period of time, but I feel like it’s a big decision to make as far as the financial team is concerned,” he said.

Select Board member Justin Evans said it is an interesting thing to explore and went a step further, asking if – since the two towns are already in a region with regard to the schools – there might be precedent for adding accounting services to that mix.

“Boy, what could go wrong with that?” Select Board member Dr. Carl Kowalski said.

“I think that our work load for the two towns vs the region are significant enough that I wouldn’t want to put one service handling all three,” Lynam said.

Meanwhile, Lynam is working to “develop a potential candidate” for the Town Administrator search in the wake of the withdrawals of one of the three finalists before the scheduled interviews at the last meeting.

However, he said he as not in the position to publicly “out” that person because they were not prepared for that at this point.

“But we may have an opportunity in the very near future to address that need,” he said.

Regional agreement

In other business, Evans sought the board’s consensus regarding issues they see are important during the regional agreement as the committee plans to meet next on Jan. 9.

“This is the third go at amending a regional agreement in the last five years or so,” Evans said. “Assuming that all the work we’ve done with MARS (Mass. Association of Regional Schools) and DESE (Department of Elementary and Secondary Education) and we use that as kind of a template for where we want to take the new regional agreement – and including the statutory method that we incorporated in 2020 – if we just take that as a framework, I’m looking at any other direction that the board would like to go.”

First on Evans’ list is middle school field leases, but that is further down the agenda and can wait. He also wants to focus on the way busing is handled in the district, especially since there initially wasn’t the financial incentive to discover deficiencies like they did last year.

“If we wrote into the regional agreement [that] non-mandated students wil be bused to school … that puts the effort back on the district to find savings,” he said.

Kowalski agreed that non-mandated busing must be formalized and the whole relationship clarified, including reimbursement questions, in the regional agreement.

WHITMAN – The Select Board on Tuesday, Dec. 13 to offer host community agreements (HCAs) to three of four applicants —Flower & Soul, Berkeley Botanicals and Stories — affording them the opportunity to move forward with the process of opening a retail recreational cannabis business in town.
All five board members selected Flowers & Soul and Berkely Botanicals and four selected Stories. Mitchell Cannabis Co. was not selected based primarily on the order in which applications came in.
“You can make a decision on the whole,” Town Counsel Peter Sumners said. “The decision should be based on the benefit to the town, weighing the pros and cons of each business.
The criteria were: geographic diversity of businesses coming in, anticipated impacts on the town or surrounding neighborhood where a business would locate; experience of applicants, anticipated tax revenue to the town; apparent ability of an applicant to actually open their business and succeed and the applicants’ social equity status.
No one reason should be the determining factor, and it is not “an exhaustive list,” but examples of pros and cons for the towns that the board should consider, according to Sumners. As a tie-breaker, if there was one, the board should consider the order in which applications were presented, he said.
Before the board’s decision, Sumners also presented amendments to the town’s host community agreement (HCA). While the board had not taken a formal vote on the HCA at previous meetings, it had agreed to move forward by consensus, according to Sumners, who said comments from applicants on how the agreement works in practice led to the changes.
“We’ve taken [the comments] into consideration and made a few minor changes to the form HCA that I’m recommending you use as your final version,” he said.
Those changes are: requiring the HCA to be signed by all the members of the board instead of only the chair with authorization of the board; corrections to some typographical errors; changed an unrealistic requirement that no air be allowed to enter or leave a premises, rather requiring that installation of equipment to filter air entering or exiting a facility to mitigate any odor issues; and clarifying the payment of impact fees to other municipalities.
“The new law requires impact fees to be directly related to impacts in your individual town,” Sumners said. “If another town gets more money from an impact fee than you, that’s not grounds for reopening [negotiations], that’s the terms and conditions of the agreement. You still have to identify the impacts in your own town.”
Sumners said he did not think any of the changes would be objected to by any of the applicants seeking an agreement and did not require a vote on the changes unless the board decided to enter into an agreement with any of the applicants by the end of the meeting.
The board concurred that the agreements would be in the form reflecting those corrections.
“At our last meeting, we heard four presentations from four very qualified applicants,” Chair Randy LaMattina said. “The town Zoning Bylaw only permits up to three recreational retailers. The mission of the board this evening is to determine which of the interested applicants … with whom it wishes to execute a host community agreement.”
Voters at the May 2022, accepted an amendment to the town Zoning Bylaw to allow siting of marijuana businesses within Whitman, with the condition that applicants must execute an HCA with the town. The decision to reach an agreement is at the discretion of the Select Board.
Sumners said the board must have a rational basis for its decision under the standards for accepting any retail marijuana businesses.
“This is a discretionary decision for the board,” he said. “You should have a reason for doing that.” The selection of any applicant over any other should also be based in a reason, he said, noting there is no specific criteria the board has to consider, but there are things the board should not consider, including any personal reasons based on personal relationships or discrimination on any basis toward any protected class.
Each board member went over the applicants they felt met the criteria before a consensus was reached and LaMattina asked for a motion to adopt a new HDA and to execute it with up to three applicants. Ranking of the applicants was permissible, Sumners said.
Shawn Kain pointed to his support of only two of the applicants; Flowers & Soul – because of its location 356 South Ave., in Whitman (operating as SoulFlower), in an area of Whitman identified as one the board wanted to see developed, its layers of a new and professional business and the fact that owner Brian Wall is from Whitman, has a strong financial background and currently owns another retail store in Halifax – Berkely Botanicals – because of the strong industry experience of the owner/mangement team, the location 305 Bedford St., is a good complement to the Regal Shoe building and the research put into their presentation.
“For a lot of reasons Shawn said, I thing Flower & Soul … differentiated their business,” said Justin Evans, of the proposal for three distinct businesses in an area the town wants to develop. He also favored Berkely Botanicals, which “had a great team, great location [and] a lot of experience,” with a good business plan and Stories.
“I really believe in their mission,” he said and cited their great management at security teams. “It also helps that those were, sequentially, the first three teams to apply.”
Vice Chair Dan Salvucci also preferred the Flowers Soul presentation as well as Berkely Botanicals and Stories.
“They’re on three ends of the town, and I think that that would cover the needs of the town in all areas,” Salvucci said.
Dr. Carl Kowalski concurred with the choices of Kain, Evans and Salvucci.
“I live in the neighborhood where Flowers & Soul is going in, and I’m really happy about that,” he said. “I was particularly impressed by the philosophy that Stories described.”
Kowalski noted that his wife had worked in the substance abuse field for nearly 50 years, and the emphasis on their knowledge of the opioid epidemic discussed by Stories affected him.
“I like their philosophy,” he said, adding that Berkely Botanicals also knows what they’re doing. “So does Mitchell Cannabis Co. All four of the applicants are qualified to have a position here.”
Kowalski leaned on the order in which the businesses applied to make his final decision for Flowers & Soul, Stories and Berkely Botanicals.
“When I thought about it, it was all about impact for me community and financial,” LaMattina said he said in support of Flowers & Soul. “Growing up in the east end, I worried about what happens to that building down there, and I think the development and the investment in that piece of property is absolutely outstanding.”
He also echoed Kowalski’s concerns about the opioid issue in preferring the medical aspect of Stories’ business plan at 769 Bedford St..
“I do want to thank everyone who applied and has an interest in this town,” he said before announcing his third choice. “My decision, again goes back to impact, community and financial. I would rather keep this in a commercial area, not so much between homes. For that, I would go with Berkely Botanicals.”

WHITMAN – The Select Board on Tuesday, Nov. 29, heard a sobering viewpoint about work being done on the fiscal 2024 budget by the working group of interim Town Administrator Frank Lynam, Treasurer/Collector Ken Lytle and Select Board member Shawn Kain.

“It’s not going to be the easiest conversation, but it’s certainly necessary,” Kain said. “I feel like there’s kind of three options. … We could hold firm to our financial policy and make up that gap through efficiencies and budget cuts. A second option is we could potentially use some one-time funds to bridge that gap, which is against our financial policy … or we could potentially look at an override.”

Lynam noted that the town has been “dancing around this thing for five years.”

“Talking about overrides in November, when no money has been finalized [and] the school budget hasn’t been set, is far too preliminary,” said Select Board Chair Randy LaMattina.

The budget working group was started a few months ago to determine the town’s fiscal outlook before entering budget season.

“A financial forecast is part of the strategic plan and we want to start to formalize that process,” Kain said, noting the school district has been doing similar work. “It’s been helpful for us to work together.”

Looking at the current tax levy, plus 2.5 percent, is a little over $700,000, Kain reported, with new growth totaling just about $380,000.

“We’re talking about new revenue of about a little over $1 million,” he said.

Other revenue sources such as meals and excise taxes, ambulance receipts and the lottery funds available from the state are governed by a policy of being conservative in making projections – with which Kain agrees.

“We’re looking to be relatively conservative, especially given the economic times, about how much we can realistically depend on or expect from those things in FY ‘24,” he said. 

Running a simulation of Article 2, including basic assumptions of costs and revenue, Kain said, the schools’ preliminary projections are a little over 6 percent – which in itself is a little over $1 million.

The budget group also ran a simulation at 5 percent, which the Madden Group consultants said should keep services level-funded without an override, and that comes out to about $850,000.

Lynam said that, in a regional school system, town officials don’t have that control, specifically hot-button issues like the starting times, which could have a significant financial impact should they be changed.

“All things being equal, 5 percent would be a balanced budget, but there’s one particular line that’s killing us – Plymouth County retirement,” Kain said. “We thought it would be 8 percent, and were hoping for 4 percent.”

What it will likely be, according to numbers received in the last couple of weeks, is 17 percent  – or  $457,000.

“That’s not good news,” he said.

Not calculated at this point is marijuana revenue, which could begin coming in near the end of FY ’24.

“This is the time to really start thinking about what do we want our future to look like,” Lynam said.

LaMattina bristled at talk of overrides so early in the budget process.

 “When you start talking about overrides to people and you get that panic based off running speculation,” he said. “I stood in a School Committee meeting and told the superintendent last year what he was doing was wreckless.”

He reminded the board that the schools put one-time funds into recurring cost programs, which the Select Board has pledged not to do under the Madden group’s recommendations.

“I will not see a single member of this town get laid off because of poor decision-making,” LaMattina said. “If they’re going to do an override, then it should absolutely be on them to do.”

Lynam and Salvucci agrees with LaMattina, but Kain respectfully disagreed, noting that the schools have made a lot of their preliminary budget work public this year, and the town has been mirroring that. Before hearing what department heads need, which Kain said would likely include some big asks, there are things that can be calculated now and come up with a forecast under the strategic plan. That forecast can spur earlier budget conversations in the late fall that were previously taking place just before Town Meeting in the spring.

“I’m not saying we should have an override,” Kain said. “I’m saying is what we’re seeing right now … is our FY ’24 budget [with] our initial projections, is not balanced … and it’s fairly significant.”

LaMattina stressed that the town was poised to take in slightly over $1 million while the schools have already projected a $1.4 million – not including the retirement increase.

“And they’re talking about adding,” he said. “They’re not wondering, ‘how are we going to pay for this?’ It was wreckless last year and I knew it was going to happen.”

Resident John Galvin, who attended the School Budget subcommittee meeting earlier on Nov. 29, said another preliminary forecast, not much different than projections the district was making back in June.

“The good thing discussed that the superintendent plans for sometime in December is to … have a preliminary look at the budget,” Galvin said. “It’s basically going to be expenditures.” The schools revenue forecast is going to be difficult because incoming governors receive extra time to work up a state budget.

Schools were told that day that Gov. Healey’s budget would be released March 1 including Chapter 70 funds. Fiscal 2022 property evaluations instead of fiscal 2020 and fiscal ‘20 income values will be used to calculate the town’s hold harmless formula. He said the new formula could mean a “significant increase” in the required contribution from the town.

“I think the schools are trying to make an effort, to come forward, so hopefully we do have an idea sooner rather than later,” he said, repeating that the later governor’s budget release, Chapter 70 funds won’t be available.

“I’m looking at department heads in the back of the room right now, and the School Department thinks it’s OK to take every single dollar,” La Mattina said. “We have residents asking for sidewalks … we have residents asking for a littany of things.”

Sidewalks

Lynam told the board earlier that he and the board had received two emails from a resident of an over-55 community on Auburn Street concerning

“Apparently the folks have attempted to involve our various elected representatives at the state and federal level to participate in a discussion with a small group of people from that development who are seeking to have sidewalks installed on Auburn Street,” he said. “My original understanding was, they wanted it from the over-55 community to the Brockton line. As we all know, the town is working on a number of plans to develop sidewalks and better roads.”

Lynam said there are several areas in town that have lacked sidewalks for a long time, including Pleasant Street/Route 58 where there has also been a new residential development with absolutely no sidewalks.

The projected cost for sidewalks requested along Auburn Street is about $1.3 million, according to DPW Highway Supervisor Bruce Martin’s calculations. Federal funds are being looked at, Lynam reported.

“But we are not aware of any federal funds that are going to help us get there,” he said. “Nonetheless, they have requested an opportunity to meet with the board publicly to address their concerns for the sidewalks and to invite other elected representatives.”

He suggested looking at scheduling a session sometime in early January.

LaMattina, who said he also reached out to Martin about the concern, said he saw no issue with such a meeting.

“I was somewhat puzzled by a statement in that email that the state was going to fund those sidewalks,” he said. “In no uncertain terms, Bruce – [who] has checked with state officials – they will not pay for those sidewalks. … I would hate to see a mix-up and people starting to think the state was going to pay for this, and they’re not.”

Select Board Vice Chair Dan Salvucci added that, while Auburn Street residents might not like to hear it, funds are already committed to projects out to 2026 and there are more important projects concerning road safety that need to be taken care of first.

“I agree, but nonetheless, we will listen,” LaMattina said.