By Tracy F. Seelye, Express editor
[email protected]
WHITMAN – The Select Board hear – and expressed – concerns over the financial impact of changes to the host community agreement concerning retail cannabis business Berkley Botanicals, and over the effect of increased interest rates on the Whitman Middle School project at the board’s meeting on Tuesday, July 23.
“We recently heard from one of the holders of the host community agreement license – Berkley Botanicals, hoping to open a recreational marijuana store on Bedford Street – that the Cannabis Control Commission had rejected the host community agreement with the town of Whitman,” said Select Board member Justin Evans. “The short explanation for why is that, after we adopted the … agreement with Berkley Botanicals, as well as our other two licensees, the regulations changed.”
That left Whitman’s agreement with Berkely signed before the date of effective regulations with the state.
There are a couple of options open to the town, he said.
Town Administrator Mary Beth Carter outlined those options:

• Resubmit the existing host community agreement with a new effective date;
• Amend the existing HCA in a way that the town’s and Berkley’s lawyers negotiate and agree is “minimally compliant” with the law;
• Adopt the model HCA with modifications – adding some of the existing HCA provisions into the model;
• Adopt the model HCA. There are meaningful differences between the existing Whitman HCA and the model; or
• Waive the HCA requirement.
  Town counsel has made no recommendations about which option the town opts for, he is looking for direction from the board. The one recommendation he did make was to reject the last option.
  Evans recommended agreeing to the model HCA to get the business open. He said the town could use the revenue. He also noted that Whitman has spent a ‘fair amount of money’ negotiating with the business – as well as two others – and the town is effectively throwing that money away in signing the model agreement.
  The Select Board opted to table the matter until its Aug. 20 meeting in the absence of town counsel, ZBA Chair John Goldrosen and Select Board Chair Dr. Carl Kowalski. Evans said he would support drafting some points to discuss at that meeting.
  “There would likely be some benefit to adopting the model with some modifications, but it would likely get approved down the line somewhere not as quickly,” Evans said.
  There is also a provision in Whitman’s HCA that, if a more favorable agreement is reached between the town and any cannabis business, the town would reach out to the others and renegotiate their HCAs, he added.
  “We’ve seen very little progress with two of them and quite a lot of agreement in one of them – the one that’s reaching out to us to get open soon, so I think we may ‘feel out’ if the other two businesses are still interested in pursuing recreational marijuana dispensaries in town, or if they may want to turn their licenses back in,” Evans said. “That might be a side benefit of changing our HCA.”
  Putting it off for another six months or so does not benefit the community, either, he said.
  “What we’ve heard so far is that … the CCC has released the model and are only accepting the model to approve,” Evans said. “The thoughts of Berkley Botanicals’ lawyer is that, if the town were to adopt the model HCA and sign the agreement with them or waive the requirement that there’s an HCA – they’d get approved within the next round.”
  That round of agreements is expected to be approved in the next 90 days, Evans said.
  “If we did anything else, [town counsel] opinion, or perhaps gut feeling, was that they would reject it and, initially, we would have to submit some reason for why.”
  That could delay things yet another 90 days, he explained.
  The major differences, according to town counsel were a lot of zoning controls relating to noise, smell, Evans reported. He said he likes the timeline for effectiveness, which removes community impact hearings and vehicle management requirements.
  “Those are the kinds of things we put in to be over-protective that aren’t in the model HCA,” he said. “I know something that was close to [Select Board member Shawn Kain] when we were negotiating it, was some of the specific community impacts that we carved into our HCA to say, ‘This is something the town considers a community impact,’ they agreed to it, and would have theoretically mad it easier to have made it easier to collect for impacts they are having to the town that other, non-marijuana related businesses have not had on the community.”

Whitman Middle School interest rates
“Why I’m here is because I’m still following [the Middle School] meetings and trying to stay up with the information and over the last couple of months I’ve heard a lot of positive information from the middle school,” Galvin said
In a discussion not included on the agenda, the board heard questions raised by resident John Galvin concerning interest rate’s impact on the bottom line.
Galvin had served on the Whitman Middle School Building Committee, resigning when he no longer supported the project.
“But that’s not why I’m here,” he said, outlining his concern, despite good news he’s heard on the project’s budget. “The concern that I have is not the cost of the project, but the cost of the borrowing for the project.”
The building committee has been able to bond the amount of money that had arrived at this year and the interest rate that came along with that financing “is not pretty,” he said.
“It’s considerably higher than what we just recently borrowed for the DPW building,” he said. “I think it’s important that this board makes it a concern as well, because if we continue along this track, it’s my understanding that next year we will probably do another similar bond to what we did and then, the year after that, the big bond hits.”
Ending up borrowing against the same interest rate being paid now would cost taxpayers a “significant amount of money,” Galvin said, noting his rough calculations put that cost at almost $25 million more over 30 years for the same building if the bond percentage stays at the interest rate the district is now getting.
He also mentioned the district audit that both towns are demanding.
“I don’t know where that stands, but I would plead that both towns move forward with that as quickly as possible, because it’s not looking pretty right now with the borrowing for the Whitman Middle School,” he said.
Asked for a comment by Salvucci, Carter said she is very aware of the BAN taken out – expected to be at $4 million at 4 percent, the BAN the Schools took was $8 million at 5.87 percent, because more money had been needed up-front.
“Once [the towns] get both of their audits done, hopefully they’ll have their bond rating reinstated, allowing them to move forward with a more favorable rate,” she said, noting she has been told no additional borrowing until, at least, after the first of the year.
Salvucci – noting the Moody rating is down because the incomplete audits increased interest rates – asked, if a special Town Meeting would be required, should interest rates go up.
“Town Meeting voted the amount of the project,” Carter said. “The amount of the project they should stay on track with, however, the interest rate they applied to that project does make a difference in the end result to the taxpayers. … They’re waiting for a new cashflow for the financial adviser to update the strategy and planning on borrowing.”
Salvucci also asked if any consideration has been give toward making the project smaller.
Kain expressed hope that, after the audits are complete, the project can be “back on tract and rectified, adding that the issue “Is definitely on our radar.”

By Tracy F. Seelye, Express editor
[email protected]
WHITMAN – The Select Board heard a proposal for a new formula with the goal of creating a process that is “transparent, clearly defined and easy to understand” – a process that is fair to both the Whitman-Hanson Regional School District and to town departments and must be responsive to current data.
The 5-percent rule that emerged from the Madden Report, while transparent, was not that easy to understand, according to board member Shawn Kain, adding that while it was something discussed with financial consultant John Madden, he never actually included it in the report and guidance on how it should be implemented by the town.
“What I had hoped would have led to cleaning up the budget process with the school department, actually, I think, clouded the issue and made things really difficult,” he said. “Having a stagnant 5 percent doesn’t seem to capture the complexities of our budgets.”
Kain said he intended for own formula should also be a starting point for discussion.
The first step is to project revenue.
“We’ve done this over the last couple of years and I think we’re getting better at doing it,” he said.
The second step to Kain’s formula is calculating a 2 ½ percent increase for all departments, including the schools. In what he termed “Step 3A,” if there is a surplus, additional revenue, recurring revenue excluding one-time funds above 2 ½ percent, “the amount allocated to WHRSD will be proportional to the percent of the general fund expenditures that is spent on education,” currently about 50 percent.
“To me this is the baseline to calculate what we can raise the 2 ½ percent over what we raised the year before,” he said. “This is based on recurring revenue, not based on one-time revenue, which was a little bit of a bone of contention this last year.”
In deficit years, the percentage of decreases would also be felt equally until the budget is balanced.
“By no means is it the end-all, be-all – it’s just a starting point,” Kain said, as he provided the budget update during the Tuesday, July 23 meeting, focusing on the school assessment formula and the system through which the town monitors financial trends.
“The two do complement each other,” he said.
Kain said he was an advocate for hiring Madden, whose recommendations the town has been using as the basis for budgeting decisions.
“The process opened up a lot of healthy dialog, and his recommendations have really helped [us] move in the right direction,” Kain said. “For that, we should be grateful, but this last budget cycle has surfaced a vulnerability in our financial policy, specifically with the school assessment.”
While Madden’s information was a good starting point for moving the town in the right direction, according to Kain, but a lack of clarity and specificity has hindered completion of the budget process.
“For this reason, I’m proposing that we develop a new formula,” he said.
That need not be very complex, he said, especially since officials need to clearly communicate the budget challenges to the people of Whitman, assuring voters that they are working to improve the budget process.
“We want the people to know there is integrity behind our decisions,” he said, adding he was sharing the information to gauge the board’s support for those efforts.
“Hopefully, this is the start of a healthy conversation that will lead to a meaningful solution,” he said.

Financial trend monitoring
Town Administrator Mary Beth Carter, Assistant Town Administrator Kathleen Keefe, Finance Chair Kathleen Ottina and Kain met with financial consultant Zachary Blake from the state Division of Local Services on Tuesday, July 9 as part of a Community Compact Best Practice Grant the town received to help with making improvements in that area.
Blake and his team will help the town implement a financial trend monitoring system and to develop a financial forecast.
“He already has lots of data from Whitman though the Department of Revenue, and we are planning on developing a usable report for the fall,” Kain said. “This report will be essential for us to strategically address the upcoming budget.”
The monitoring system is intended to monitor factors that identify the financial condition of a community, arranging them into a more rational order so they can be more easily analyzed and measured, he explained. The goal is to predict and prepare so the town is better able to prepare for fiscal distress in order to prevent fiscal crisis.
The town of Northborough uses the system.
Select Board member Justin Evans said Kain’s presentation represented a great first start.
“The 5 percent has not necessarily been the easiest to stick to either for the town or for the schools,” he said. “It was a number based on some work that John Madden did a couple of years ago, but it’s time to rethink it.”
He agreed completely with steps 1 and 3.
“Finding a way to divide new revenue is the right way to do it,” Evans said. “I’m a little concerned in Step 2, because whenever the Select Board talks about 2 ½ percent to the schools and when the Finance Committee about 2 ½ percent to the schools, it’s not necessarily the same as the School Committee talking about 2 ½ percent budget growth.”
He noted that a 2 ½ increase in the assessment to the schools allows them to increase their budget to grow between 1 and 1 ½ percent, while permitting 2 ½ percent budget growth for the district, it breaks it away from Prop 2 1/2.
“That immediately takes some of our new revenue every year, but I think it puts a more equitable start to that system,” he said. “General government can grow 2 ½ percent, School Department can grow 2 ½ percent, new revenue above those parts can be divided up somehow, but that probably does lock us in somewhere around a 5-ish – 4- to 5-percent assessment increase every year until the schools come out of hold-harmless.”
School Committee member Rosemary Connolly thanked Kain for his work and said the regional agreement gives away the town’s educational rights under Chapter 71 and that training new school committee members take had stressed that the article at town meeting which tried to separate the two budgets was not legal.
“They had just come down, hot off the presses, with what they said, so I’m concerned that this gives the impression that we actually have control of this,” she said. “There is a financial process that we’re supposed to do to insulate and that is come to the assessor first, and at my end on the School Committee have a good sense of where we’re going … early in the fall.”
She advocated asking how much something is going to cost before talking about what the town has to spend.
“We’re going to have a big jump in the vocational, but it isn’t an unusual cost, when you spread it out and say ‘what is everybody paying for it,’” she said. “We may have to look at what did we overpay to another community and how can we get that [$4.5 million] back and then move forward in some sort of trending more appropriately.”
Kain said he does not want to send the message that Whitman is trying to develop a formula to coerce Hanson into a budget formula rather he was striving for a formula they could agree on.
“What I’d like to do is develop a budget formula that we can agree upon early in the budget process so that, when it comes time to actually compute the budget, we’re all on the same page,” he said. “I believe we are partners.”
Ottina said Kain has kept her informed and up-to-date on the proposal.
“Having this discussion in July is a lot better than having it in April,” she said.
School Committee member Dawn Byers, also of Whitman, asked if the Superintendent of Schools or School Committee was aware of the meeting, noting she had attended because she noted a budget presentation on the agenda.
“I’d be remiss if I didn’t say I’m disappointed that the agenda itself wasn’t more clear that, in fact, you’re talking about the school assessment,” she said.
She agreed with Ottina that this is a good time to be discussing next year’s budget, but noted Northborough’s budget may be different to W-H school deficit may be much different than it appears based on the budgeting formula.

HANSON – The Select Board on Tuesday, July16 grapples with the need to communicate the necessary operational override for the town next year, with the apparent logical conflict of spending ARPA funds to do it.
The good news, they were told as they met virtually with consulting firm Capital Strategic Solutions, was that those leftover federal funds are in an account that can only be used for municipal government purposes. The firm’s officials pledged to fine-tune cost estimates of about $50,000 plus an anticipated $5,000 for mailers – down to the $49,000 to $50,000 without an added cost for voter information mailers.
At the same time, they had another communication issue on their hands.
“We now sound like we’re on the Starship Enterprise,” Chair Laura FitzGerald-Kemmett said as she welcomed them to the meeting as an intermittent echo reverberated through the meeting room. “I have no way to control it.”
Whitman Hanson Community Access Television production assistant Paul Watson worked throughout the meeting to correct the problem.
Capital CEO Nicole Figueiredo led the presentation, which the Mass.-based, certified women-owned business specializing in municipal engagement and other forms of public administration, community engagement and project management – among other specialties – spoke to the firm’s expertise in Hanson’s need for explaining the need for an operational override for the town next year.
“Some of the key objectives in doing outreach and engagement for an override is explaining what an override is and outlining the specific needs the override will address, whether it’s funding for public safety, infrastructure and schools, etc.,” Figueiredo said.
While the Select Board has been emphasizing the need for such outreach, they also expressed concern about the cost.
“Your development of educational materials [is important], but then there’s an additional service for direct mailers, which would be delivering the educational materials to the townspeople,” Vice Chair Ann Rein said. “That’s an extra five grand. I noticed that – that wouldn’t come out of the cost of the contract.”
Figueiredo granted that would be an additional cost.
“That’s why I’m talking about costs, because we’ve been down this road before,” Select Board member Joe Weeks said. “[We] thought we had the costs figured out, and then, come to find out, it wasn’t what we thought it was. That’s why I want to be very clear what this is, because it’s going to be, already, a hard sell if we’re asking people for an override, by spending $15,000 that we say we don’t have to spend.”
“Which makes no sense,” Board member Ed Heal said.
Rein said Capital did a marvelous job getting the town social media running properly, proving themselves worth the money, but the question is, does the town have the money.
Town Administrator Lisa Green said leftover ARPA funds from the treasury bucket could be used for Capital’s costs as a general government services expense.
“That’s why we’re even talking about this,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said.
Michael Gallagher, a professional consultant with Capital Strategic Solutions, is a retired administrator in North Attleboro where he participated in the town’s change of government and a recent Proposition 2 ½ override.
“We were able to get an override passed because of the outreach we had done,” he said, noting he has a lot of experience in both the public and private sector.
“One of the things that was very important and a key to the process was part of our public outreach and making sure we were very open and had a plan in place,” Gallagher said of his experience in North Attleboro. “We also did a lot of making sure we were very specific about where every dollar went.”
He and the North Attleboro Select Board had provided a spreadsheet where every expenditure was outlined down to the dollar to show where the override would be spent for the following three years, he said.
Figueiredo agreed that municipal finance can be very challenging to explain to residents.
“We highlight the benefits and address the potential concerns,” she said, adding that press releases, the town website, media channels and community meetings are leaned on to get the word out.
Feedback from the community during the process is really important, Figueiredo said.
“You don’t really know what your community members do understand and don’t understand about an override,” she said. Both representatives of Capital Strategic Solutions have override experience under their belts.
They start with data-gathering centering on historical revenue and expense information, which they described as critical, then they can do projections on “what it might look like without any type of revenue enhancement through an override,” building their strategic plan on how the town intends to use that information.
“If you show them what’s happening to their town – because it is their town, it’s their money – people understand when you show them all the data,” he said.
“You’re giving them ownership on how these funds are being spent,” Figueiredo agreed.
As the town moves into the voting phase, providing maximum access to that information ensures people know what they are voting for, encouraging as many people as possible to vote, regardless of which side of the question they favor.
Weeks, satisfied that leftover ARPA funds could be used for the voter education project, asked if there wasn’t a more pressing need in town for that $50,000 wallet.
“I have to ask the question, because someone’s going to kick me if I don’t,” he said.
“The most important thing is to collect the data and get the information out there,” Green said. “Given the staffing in the office, we can’t do this alone, we really need the support of Capital Strategic Solutions, where they have people who have been through this process, that have a lot more insight – this is what they do every day.”
FitzGerald-Kemmett also responded to Week’s question about whether there are more important uses for the money.
“I don’t think there is,” she said. “We are at a critical crossroads here, and if this does not happen, we are looking at catastrophic cuts – not just town government, but schools – the whole way across. This is it. … This year, we felt a little bit of the pinch and next year, we’re going to feel the full blow.”
She also pointed out that residents often complain about rising tax rates.
“No,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “The tax rate has not been raised. Your value of your property has increased because that’s what property values do. The tax you are paying is based on the value of your property.”
The Board of Assessors sets the property values based on state formulas, not haphazardly does.
“I wish they would realize they could work with us,” Rein said. “We all have to work through this. It is not an easy thing to do.”
Weeks said that, while he agrees the outreach is one of the only permitted uses for these ARPA funds, he wanted to ensure the cost would not increase.
“I just want to make sure that that $50,000 doesn’t turn into $100,000 or $75,000 and then we’re pulling it out of free cash,” he said.
“If we hold the budget, I think it’s a good thing,” Rein said.
Figueiredo said Capital’s goal is to work side by side with Green and the board to help them communicate the financial health of the community, its revenue sources and expenditures, and develop the strategic plan to get out before the voters.
“We’re going to provide the support services they need that they don’t [already] have,” Figueiredo said. “A lot of communities that do overrides have a lot of staff.”
They will review the data and financial reports with Green and develop a game plan for how the override revenue is going to get back to the community in a positive light, as well as what would happen if an override failed – from impacts on snow plowing and public safety to infrastructure permits that communities need.
“That’s the backbone of your community right there,” she said.
The town’s financial health – revenue sources, expenditures and capital projects – will also be reviewed in order to develop a comprehensive voter education and engagement plan, including meetings and forums with community members.
FitzGerald-Kemmett characterized the plan as “a little bit vague” in terms of numbers the town stands to receive and she asked Capital to reconsider – after seeing what officials have already done with other consultants hired with ARPA money to do some fiscal forecasting.
“I’d like to see the mailer included in the $49,000,” she said. “Clearly, we have to do a mailer and we don’t have another $5,000 kicking around. That may be the only way to reach all these people.”
Figueiredo agreed to re-examine that and come back at another meeting or otherwise submit a clear, concise plan for what they need to do in terms of public meetings and the number or mailers needed.
“I think we’d like more meat on the bones in terms of a project plan and timeline, with costs,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “We’re really excited about our staff … and us having support in trying to educate people and get the facts out there.”

HANSON – Police Chief Michael Miksch said salary issues have already motivated one police officer to leave the department, acknowledging to the Select Board on Tuesday, July 9 that the main reason was money.
Despite the sobering personnel news, Miksch saw reason for optimism in how the department handles persistent issues of addiction and mental health needs of residents.
“It is what it is,” Miksch said of the salary motivation behind departures, adding that the department’s shared clinician, who often accompanied officers on non-violent calls involving mental health issues, also departed for the greener pastures of higher salaries city departments could offer.
“Obviously, the budget is a challenge, every year maintenance on the building is difficult,” he said. But despite two of the HVAC systems going down on the first day to go over 90 degrees, there were funds in the fiscal 2024 budget to fix it.
“Eric, don’t panic, I’ve got some money to turn back to you,” he said to Town Accountant Eric Kinsherf.
While the grant which four towns used to fund the clinician they all shared, Miksch said his department would not be able to replace the officer who recently left.
“It’s very difficult,” he said. “I can’t fill that position, at least until January.” The departure also left a supervisory position [that of a sergeant], vacant.”
During the next two weeks, he plans to hire a consulting company to come in and give a written exam, based on policies and procedures, Massachusetts case law and criminal law, followed by an assessment center for those passing the exam, which puts them through real-life scenarios geared toward assessing their skill. Within three or four months, the process should yield a new supervisor, which Miksch had already planned for and budgeted, meaning the vacancy would then be that of a patrol officer.
Another lieutenant or deputy chief assessment center may also be needed, but that would be further into the year, he said.
In the meantime, calls for service remain a challenge. But where there was some concern about the numbers, Miksch focused on the positives in how his department approaches the people making those calls, or who are the subject of the calls.
making a difference
Miksch said there have been 5,640 calls so far this year.
“Which is actually up a fair amount from last year at this time by 800 to 900 calls,” he said, chalking up some of that to the department’s increased traffic enforcement this year. But while calls are up, arrests have decreased this year, according to Micksch in his regular report to the Select Board. To date there have been 26 arrests this year.
“One of the main reasons those numbers are down is there’s been a shift – and we try to do that through training, too – to some minor, non-violent offenses, we try not to bring anyone in the station,” the chief said. “We’re doing the same amount of work, whether we summons somebody to court or we lock them up.”
Cases involving violence, obviously call for talking a person into custody, Miksch said, but charges stemming from someone not having their drivers’ license, unless the suspension involved OUI or another substance issue where they don’t present a danger to the public or a similar offense, may skew the numbers away from the higher numbers of people in custody Hanson had seen in the past.
As the Police Officers’ Standard Training (POST) Committee, established a couple of years ago to certify officers, enters its third year, Miksch said he thinks complying with the new requirements should prove to be getting easier.
“It’s not that difficult, but it is time-consuming,” he said of procedures demanded of department leadership, rather than patrol officers, and May and June have proven to be their busiest months because of training deadlines.
Hanson has partnered with Halifax, Plympton and Carver to obtain a grant to hire a clinician, who was in place for a few months.
“She was absolutely wonderful,” Miksch said. “I’m a huge fan of this co-response model … if there was a nonviolent thing, we’d bring her along and she was extremely helpful.”
But Braintree had an opening, and she took that job.
“What tends to be a problem in the small communities, we’re not going to compete with them financially, so she left” he said. “Mental health right now – if you’re trying to find a clinician or anybody in the mental health field, good luck – they’re few and far between.”
The four communities are still looking and trying to find another clinician.
The department has also partnered with a new group in the area called The Loss Team, trained volunteers who come in to assist victims of suicide, the family members and friends of people who have committed suicide, Miksch said.
“Sadly, I’ve had to already use them,” Miksch said. “But, once again, it’s another great resource. [We’re] constantly trying to find those other groups, those other entities that can help us and still serve the citizens of the town.”
Hanson has for years, also part of East Bridgewater Hope, the substance abuse interdiction program, which has received another grant for training of Hanson officers.
“The good news is our fatal overdoses last year, were zero,” he said. There were 17 overdoes that required sending an officer out with a recovery coach.
“Most of the county was up a couple of percentage points, even in fatalities,” he said. “So, we’re doing well there.”
The office of District Attorney Timothy J. Cruz is working on a grant that would enable bringing community resource dogs in with the recovery coaches to help people with their anxiety and trying to work their way through their addiction problems.
Select board member Joe Weeks lauded Miksch and his department’s support for mental health services.
“A lot of people are afraid to access [these] services because they’re afraid they’re going to be arrested or penalized, or it’s going to follow them the rest of their lives,” Weeks said. “They’re isolated for a thousand different reasons, and you’ve really tried to make sure that people feel safe – and I feel it has to be said out loud – that I really hope that this legacy continues, because you’ve done an amazing job.”
Miksch said it is the “connection with the other chiefs” in the area that has done that. The big push for the clinician, for example, came from Carver, he said, noting that the officers have bought in and understand the need.
“But that’s a legacy, too,” chair Laura FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “You’ve now got officers [for whom] this is a routine part of what they’re used to – what is part of the job. It’s destigmatized [mental health], that’s important, so that’s a legacy.”
contract votes
In other business, the Select board voted to reaffirm executive session votes on:

• A three-year contract, July 1, 2024 to June 30, 2027 for Deputy Police Chief Michael Casey involing the compensation rate of $147,900 per year and a $2,00 stipend for inservice training each year; paid the last payroll each August, he is allowed detail work, but only after all other officers have been offered the details.
• A three-year contract for town Administrator Lisa Green, July 1. 2024 to June 30, 2027 to include: a 2-percent pay increase to $151,541.64 in the frst year, $154,571.88 n the secnd year, $158,43.18 for the third year; an educational stipend of a juris doctorate degree, which she holds, of $5,000 for each of the first two years and $4,500 for the third year, payable in the first payroll date of December each year; 30 vacation days with a possible carryover of not more than 10 days or a buyout with permission of the Select board; sick time accural of 1.25 days per month with a maximum carryover of 30 sick days per fiscal year and professional development and fees for professional memberships.

HANSON – The Select Board, on Tuesday, June 25, discussed next steps in the wake of the previous week’s Town Meeting vote to accept budget cuts to fund the WHRHS operating assessment.
Among the suggestions was Chair Laura FitzGerald-Kemmett’s proposal to approach School Committee Chair Beth Stafford to meet with Hanson’s representatives on the committee to discuss the competing town and school needs. The board also suggested it might be time to take another look at K-8 de-regionalization.
In the meantime, Town Administrator Lisa Green said she was beginning to meet with Town Hall union representatives and briefed the board on them during executive session.
“Conversations need to happen with the departments that are impacted, as far as hours,” she said. With a new assessor coming on board [see related story, this page], that conversation was scheduled for June 26.
After those meetings take place, proposals will go before the union and then come back to the board.
“We’re still taking these small steps, coordinating everyone to meet,” she said, with the aim of having things wrapped up by July 1 or shortly after.
Board member Joe Weeks said he appreciated the selfless efforts of residents who tried to suggest funding options from Town Meeting floor as a way to try to save jobs, but noted the work the Select Board has done over the past two years to add hours and positions to better serve the town.
“It’s recognized, for the most part universally, that those hours and jobs were needed,” he said. “Now we find ourselves in a position where we’re taking two steps back.”
Just as hard as it’s been to recruit people, Weeks said burnout and being stretched too thin causes retention problems and suggested more ideas for funding options should be brought forth and discussed now.
“We made a decision to cut staff based on [the School District] budget, which is not written in stone yet,” member Ed Heal said, noting that more state funding will be headed for the district. “What does that do to the jobs we just cut?”
FitzGerald-Kemmett said there is no do-over for the town.
Additional state funds for busing reimbursement and per-pupil costs will kept by the district and will not come back to the town.
“People need to know who they are voting for,” member David George said of School Committee members who are or have family members who work in education. FitzGerald-Kemmett said she wanted more clarity over administrative costs at the schools and senior administrative contracts and said she would like to get some Freedom of Information Act requests into the district to ask about those contracts and any re-negotiations.
“I don’t want to micro-manage the School Committee,” she said. “But what I do want to know is what is it that they’re looking at vs what we’re looking at and how is the conclusion that us cutting our staff is appropriate in light of what I believe are extraordinary increases as we have been led to believe.”
“We need a good School Committee,” George said.
Weeks, who wants to have a meeting with the entire School Committee, said he can’t understand why the board can’t have a meeting with even Hanson members. FitzGerald-Kemmett said that is something they can do.
“We need to,” he said. “We need to find a way to support them in giving the entirety of the townspeople their voice.”
Otherwise the responsibility for an override, budget management and job cuts would be shouldered by the Select Board alone, he said.
“I’m OK with taking the heat, but only when it’s appropriate,” Weeks said. “For whatever reason, we’re kind of falling on the sword in a way that I don’t fully understand why we’re not pushing this harder.”
FitzGerald-Kemmett then asked Green to reach out to Stafford or inquire if the board should reach out to Hanson’s four School Committee members directly, to discuss their concerns.
“I don’t know if we can effectuate any change in the way that people are voting or the way they’re thinking about it, but I certainly like to educate people about what the downstream effect is if they continue down the road that has been [followed],” she said.
Weeks expressed frustration over that disconnect between conversations with school officials during the year and the resulting budgets.
“The disconnect is, they are not here at the [Select Board’s] meetings,” said Vice Chair Ann Rein. “We have a couple of people that frequently come to our meetings and they know what’s going on – they’re hearing what we hear. Everybody isn’t, and then they make decisions on what I consider to be faulty or inadequate information
She pointed to Facebook posts in which irate residents express the opinion that the Select Board should be “reining in that School Department.”
“They don’t get it,” she said. “We do not control the school board.”
FitzGerald-Kemmett asked rhetorically if anyone thought that town jobs would be cut if the Select Board had control over the school district.
She also brought up the need to revisit the de-regionalization study and consider at least kindergarten through grade eight de-regionalization.
“I’m not talking about extremists talking about this,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “I’m just talking about ‘average Joe’s,’ the average person, saying ‘this is befuddling, I feel like the town of Hanson has no control over the fiscal spend through the schools.’”
She said that, in a sense, they are right other than who the town elects to the School Committee.
“I think we have to talk about all of it, because one of the things that stood out was just the act of the five of us voted to kick the assessment back, but the townspeople overwhelmingly voted to approve the assessment, and it makes it look like somehow we were against the schools,” Weeks said. “We all have our individual reasons for why we voted to kick it back … we were trying to strategize every which way, to do what we could to get the spending under control and to have some understanding of what the future might look like. Now, we’re playing catch-up and trying to work on Plan B.”
Master plan
The board also heard a presentation on the town’s Master Plan by the senior Comprehensive Planner Rhiannon Dugan of the Old Colony Planning Council, the regional planning agency serving Hanson.
“It’s an intense document, but hopefully everybody will have an opportunity to read it, and I would really like to use it as a reference document for our future strategic planning sessions because I think this has got a lot of good info for us,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said.
“The Master Plan is designed to be a comprehensive plan that encompasses all other government plans that the town has put forward and is a guide for creating any bylaws or zoning changes in the future,” Dugan said. “It is also a recap of historical change in town and future projections in terms of population, land conservation, businesses … the Master Plan covers housing, economic development, land use, open space and recreation, and natural and cultural recreation resources as well as public services and facilities and public transportation.”
Hanson’s Master Plan will also include a chapter on sustainability and resiliency for the town to meet its commitment for hazard mitigation and municipal vulnerabilities. The plan will serve as a guide not only for the Select Board, but the Planning Board, Conservation Commission and all other land use boards for at least the next 10 years.
The plan includes a list of goals and actions for the town to strive for, based on community input. It also includes a community profile.
Dugan said the process included a community survey, which brought in 267 responses with each chapter of the written plan containing a preface covering relevant responses.
Three public meetings have been held, one hosted by the Planning Board and the other two held at Camp Kiwanee and the Hanson Public Library.
Information can be found on the project’s website, which has been active throughout the process, according to Dugan.
“It was one of the most-visited web pages for the CPC last quarter,” she said. “There will be digital access to the plan in PDF form there.”
It will also be posted on the town website.
Hanson was lauded for its “excellent job in having permanently conserved land” and a lot of goals work with other up-to-date plans such as the housing production plan and the creation of affordable housing and a diverse housing stock for young families and seniors in need of affordable housing in Hanson. They also spoke of the High Street Park draft plan and hopes to seek funding for it going forward.
“Funding remains elusive, particularly in light of our MBTA vote,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said.
In other business, Health Board Chair Arlene Dias updated the board on the process and cost involved for residents to obtain new stickers for the Transfer Station.
The stickers are available online or in the office beginning July 1, she said, for an extra $3 fee online ($68) or at the office for $65.
Residents may get one sticker per vehicle, which are valid for one year with a maximum of three, and vehicle registration is required for either method of purchase.
Dias said the town tries to keep the price low, but the hauling fees keep increasing.
“We’re always trying to keep up with the costs,” Dias said.
“You are always struggling with costs,” FitzGerald-Kemmett agreed. “I think the plan is to incrementally increase it.”
Dias confirmed that the pricing change to meet costs is a three-year program.

WHITMAN – As the town approaches its 150th birthday celebration in 2025, the Historical Commission is using a budget of in $40,000 in grant funds to survey historic properties not currently researched to protect the properties and document their roles in Whitman’s history.
“With the results, we will submit the properties to the Mass. Historical Commission for nomination to the National Register of Historic Places,” the Whitman Historical Commission’s new chair Mary Joyce told the Select Board at its Tuesday, June 18 meeting.
The funds come from a $20,000 grant from the Mass. Historical Commission, paired with a $20,000 grant from the Community Preservation Act.
Molly Schnabel, who has been chair of the Historical Commission before informing its members at a June 4 special meeting that she is stepping down for personal reasons, spoke to the Select Board about a grant pending from Community Preservation Committee and the Mass. Historic Commission.
“That involved time constraints,” she said, having suggested reorganization and then present its decision to the Select Board. “It was unanimously voted that Joyce become the chair and that Sean Simmons’ request to be a full member be granted, since he [has been] active as an associate member for several years.”
Schnabel had also requested to move to an associate membership, where she could serve as an archivist.
“All three suggestions were unanimously approved by a quorum of six,” she said. “It has been an honor to serve as chair of the commission and I feel strongly that [Joyce and Simmons] will provide important skills to the WHC and the town of Whitman.”
Referring to the survey’s time constraints, Schnabel said the grant will continue the work of surveying Whitman’s historic sites and Joyce would provide a copy of the project deadlines to the Select Board to obtain their necessary backing to bring in the grant. The board was also provided with information, as Schnabel said the work would be helpful to people who own the survey sites.
“We [also] hope to provide information on restoration grants and visual history of the town,” she said.
According to Joyce, the grant aims to assess and document a number of sites in town – how many depends on the budget – for historical resources not previously surveyed, but that could be considered endangered.
“We will provide the Town Meeting, an article in the 2024 warrant, that will provide the town of Whitman with a demolition delay bylaw; we will establish community resources for the school system an interested public on these resources; we will provide plaques to indicate the history of Whitman and we will present the inventory as part of the 150th anniversary of the town of Whitman,” Joyce said.
Project deadlines are outlined by the state and the Mass. Historical Commission.
“We need support from the town’s senior management team to meet our milestones,” Joyce said of the need for a town single audit, a point person for other items and questions that the Historical Commission has and to ask if the Select Board wanted progress reports on the grant and how often the board wanted to hear updates as well as a point person to sign off on their work.
“When we’re successful with this grant, there’s opportunities to bring in more dollars to Whitman with other grant proposals from [the state] so we can make sure we are documenting all of Whitman’s history,” she said.
Assistance from the town’s IT resources was also requested to ensure the commission had the resources to print, copy and distribute materials to meet their deadlines.
Select Board member Laura Howe thanked the Historical Commission for the presentation.
“I was unaware of any of this,” she said. “This is very informative.”
Select Board Chair Dr. Carl Kowalski said the board had been unaware the presentation was planned, as it was not on the agenda.
“The issue is, what went out to the public wasn’t aware that we were going to have this discussion,” he said after a few questions he allowed led to more details that he felt the public should hear.
The discussion is being continued to the Select Board’s July 23 meeting, as well as Simmon’s official appointment as a full member of the Historical Commission.
Schnabel said there were two items on the project timeline that are due on July 1 that start the funding rolling.
Kowlski asked what was needed from the Select Board at the June 18 meeting.
Joyce said the single audit, IT support and appointment of a point person from the Select Board.
Assistant Town Administrator Kathleen Keefe was named as point person, and she indicated she would check with the IT department about the project.
Howe also asked how many unknown historic sites were in Whitman.
“We have a pretty extensive book of all the old homes, and some of them aren’t even there any more, that’s why I ask,” she said.
Schnable said about 170 such homes have been documented and about 140 have been targeted for the current project.
“We’re already into writing the scope of work with the Mass. Historical Commission,” she said. “We have 95 on the target now and we have to do approximately 50 more.”
Since houses are not entered, the commission does not require a homeowner’s permission to do the survey.
“What benefit of the town comes of it?” Howe asked, assuring the commissioners her questions were not intended as criticism.
“The homeowner can benefit because they can get grants as they are updating their homes,” Joyce said, adding that the survey also adds to knowledge about the history of the town.
Howe also asked what limitations the survey work might impose on a homeowner seeking to renovate a property.
“None,” Schnabel said. “You have some towns that have serious restrictions that [require] going to Town Meeting – Lexington, Concord, Hingham – but once you have these surveyed, then you are eligible for restoration grants.”
One such restoration Schnabel said she would like to see is the silo at Hornstra Farm, which is on the National Trust and is also eligible for such a grant.
“Putting them on these surveys makes them eligible,” she said of the program started in 1981. “It’s a federal survey.”

HANSON – After a lengthy discussion with town finance officials and two members of the School Committee, the Select Board on Tuesday, June 11, approved cuts to the budget [See list, page 15], including reductions in hours to several town employees, which will go before voters at next week’s special Town Meeting.
Town Meeting will be held at 6:30 p.m., on Monday, June 17 in the Hanson Middle School auditorium, with accommodations for an overflow crowd, if needed.
The warrant will present two articles to voters. Article 1 is the May 6 vote including the 5-percent increase in the school district operating assessment. Article 2, should Town Meeting decide they want to fund the school district at a higher level, makes the cuts recommended by the Finance Committee.
“If you want to keep the budget the way that it is, the motion is going to be to accept the reduced budget for W-H Regional Schools,” Select Board Chair Laura FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “If you don’t want to stay the course and you want to make cuts, then you vote no [on Article 1] and vote yes to Article 2.”
Town Counsel has worked with the Select Board on the wording of the articles, but FitzGerald-Kemmett agreed it is a difficult concept.
“It is confusing, I wanted to do it as multiple articles,” FitzGerald-Kemmett. “But we were told, no, we shouldn’t do that, so we’re taking the advice of counsel.”
Moderator Sean Kealy will work with Town Counsel on an explanation that will make the meaning of the votes clear to voters, but it boils down to: “Instead of coming [to Town Meeting] thinking, what am I voting against, you’re coming to ask, which of these options am I coming to vote for?” FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “You vote yes to vote no.”
FitzGerald-Kemmett described the cuts as proposed by the Select Board/FinCom.
“We don’t have any discrepancies,” she said before the vote.
The reductions will be shown as Option 2 in the warrant.
Finance Committee Chair Kevin Sullivan listed the cuts he and Town Accountant Eric Kinsherf outlined, and the Select Board approved them by a 4-0 vote. Member Joe Weeks was absent from the meeting.
“The way I look at the warrant is this is an opportunity to amend those already voted on the budget,” Kincherf said, referring to the May 6 Town Meeting. “In order for us to fund the $372,141 for the W-H appropriation, the FinCom has recommended $207,194 in budget cuts, the use of an old article for purchase of the Sleeper Property for $126,000 and then the Local Aid, [state] Senate Ways and Means version, showed an extra $38,000 coming to Hanson.”
Those three revenue sources are being used to fund the school operating assessment appropriation as recommended by the Finance Committee.
“Obviously the Select Board can opine and weigh in,” Kinsherf said.
“I’m hoping we can align,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “That’s my ideal scenario, but I don’t know if it will happen.” The Select Board did vote in agreement with the Finance Committee recommendations.
“There seems to be a narrative that this can be done without a tax increase,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “Well, it certainly can, but it can’t be done without cuts.”
“We looked at spreading cuts across all the town departments with the exception of public safety,” Sullivan said.
The town is also looking to Beacon Hill, meanwhile, for an anticipated increase in Local Aid, but that has not yet settled out.
“It was a matter of the House and Senate coordinating and fine tuning, etc,” said FitzGerald-Kemmett. “That was going to be a boon to Hanson, potentially, if those numbers stuck for the increase in the reimbursements for busing and per-pupil of roughly $190,000.”
She said she reached out to School Committee Chair Beth Stafford to see if the budget could be reconsidered in light of that, but she said Stafford felt uncomfortable doing that because the numbers had not been locked down yet.
“[That] is understood, but if they are uncomfortable doing that, why would we be comfortable hedging a bet that we’re going to get that $38,000 [in Local Aid],” FitzGerald-Kemmett said.
“The honest answer is we need the money,” Kinsherf said. “The second answer is, I was looking at the history: unrestricted local aid was one number, the House reduces by $38,000 and the Senate increases it by $38,000, so it is a little bit a roll of the dice, but …”
“We were in a meeting today – part of the Association of Town Finance Officers in the state and the lieutenant governor and they seemed to think that was a certainty,” Sullivan said to finish the thought.
In terms of stabilization accounts for both the district and Hanson as well as the town’s free cash outlook, Kinsherf said there is $627,000 in unexpended free cash, but financial officers do not want to touch any of it because the towns fiscal 2025 operating budget used $794,000 in free cash and they have an eye on next year’s budget. While there is $227,000 in the school stabilization fund, but an October 2014, special Town Meeting voted that those funds must be used for capital projects only. The school district is also planning to have capital requests on this October’s special Town Meeting warrant, and using the school stabilization for that would save free cash.
The town also has to prepare for the January vote on the proposed South Shore Tech school project, Sullivan said.
The complete discussion can be viewed on the WHCA-TV YouTube channel and will be rebroadcast on the cable access channel.
“We’re going with the numbers we have here,” Sullivan said of the Finance Committee’s recommendation going into the special Town Meeting. “This is our best and final offer.”
Kealy suggested that someone be prepared to explain at Town Meeting why the town cannot touch free cash.
“At the current pace that were at, we’re looking at an override next year,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “If that override does not pass, this [budget problem] is just going to be a drop in the bucket on the cuts we’ll have to make – we’re going to eviscerate Town Hall … get ready for your worst-case scenario.”
She said she was not threatening.
“It’s just realistic,” she said. “It’s just the way it’s going to be, because we just don’t have that money anywhere else.”
FitzGerald-Kemmett said that was the thinking in both towns as they went with the 5-percent budget increase, with the rest dependent on an override, but Whitman’s Finance Committee then offered a free cash and stabilization proposal on Town Meeting floor.
“That was not what their accountant had suggested, what their Town Administrator had suggested, or what the Select Board had suggested because they’re looking at the same fiscal cliff we’re looking at next year – not the same dollar amount, but essentially the same severity.”
She said the Select Board has a responsibility to everyone in town to be fiscally prudent.
“This has been a very thoughtful analysis, involving weeks of department head, accountant, FinCom and [Town Administrator] Lisa Green’s involvement,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “This isn’t willy-nilly.”
School Committee member Hillary Kniffen reminded the Select Board that, should the schools be placed on a 1/12 budget in the event that the budget is not balanced after Town Meeting, the Commissioner of Education can set the budget – and can increase the budget from what the school district is now asking [see related story, page 1].
FitzGerald-Kemmett said the Select Board understands that, and suggested the School Committtee have someone available at Town Meeting to explain it to voters and answer their questions.
“There’s lots of grenades, with lots of pins to be pulled here,” she said. “At the end of the day, it’s up to the voters, but I do think it’s important that, when people make their vote that they understand there may be unintended consequences and what at first blush might look good may not get you what you were ultimately hoping to get with that vote.”

HANSON – The outcome of Hanson’s special Town Meeting on June 17 will hinge on how effectively the sole article is explained to voters as to exactly what “yes” and “no” votes mean, and will do, regarding the fiscal 2025 budget and the W-H school assessment’s effect on it.
Select Board, in an emergency meeting on Thursday, May 30 voted final approval of the warrant article, contingent on minor language changes being made, for the June 17 special Town Meeting Town Administrator Lisa Green attended the session remotely via phone.
A lack of clarity, particularly centering on the explanation of the article which allows voters to have another conversation about the fiscal 2025 budget, which passed May 6, but after the May 18 Town Election result shooting down the Proposition 2 ½ override, there remains a $350,212 budget that has already been established with the deficit, and asks them to examine an insert outlining cuts the Finance Committee is working to recommend. The third option would be the discussion of other amendments from the floor.
“The article itself is just a recitation of what we already have, and what we have every year as the budget item in the warrant,” Select Board Chair Laura FitzGerald-Kemmett said.
“If they vote no on this article, it means we do not reconsider the budget, we do not talk about it anymore and then we have a $350,000 shortfall that we have to figure out on our side how to resolve and it goes back to the School Committee for a third assessment and a super Town Meeting,” Board member Joe Weeks said. “I understand that it’s frustrating to talk about this now, but I’m telling you right now, there’s a whole bunch of people saying ‘I’m voting no for this because they think no means [it rejects the assessment].”
“This is not clear,” Vice Chair Ann Rein said, agreeing with Weeks’ point. “People out there think no means no and it doesn’t. Voting yes means we stick with the budget as voted in May and they don’t get it.”
FitzGerald-Kemmett said people have to come not thinking what they want to vote against, but what they will vote for.
Both FitzGerald-Kemmett and Select Board Administrative Assistant Lynn McCowell reviewed the budget article and Town Counsel Kate Feodorff was asked to do the same and made some minor changes.
Noting her own suggestion at the last meeting that two warrant articles be used, FitzGerald-Kemmett said that after speaking to Feodoroff, who thought the approach would be more confusing to voters, it was decided that the article’s wording and an insert covering the board and Finance Committee’s recommendations, would “really be driving it and the way that it would be voted.”
Feodoroff, who joined the meeting late via Zoom, also “very strongly counselled” the Select Board that a single article was preferable to avoid confusion as to what voters would be asked to decide according to FitzGerald-Kemmett. Before she did join the meeting, FitzGerald-Kemmett suggested any tweaks to be made be done that night.
“We need to have this on lock-down so the warrant can be delivered by the constable tomorrow morning [Friday, May 31],” she said.
Member Ed Heal had already voiced concern over the final paragraph: “The purpose of this article is to deliberate on the budget as a whole to determine whether or not to ‘fully [missing word]’” and insert the word ‘fund,’ “the Whitman-Hanson regional School budget,” FitzGerald-Kemmett read. The board voted to make that change.
“I’m still kind of caught off-guard,” Weeks said, noting that on May 30, they discussed three options that do different things. “If we were to just vote ‘yes’ on this article, given that we have three options drastically different things. … I wish we just had something that says, a ‘yes vote does this.’”
He asked if the votes would cover two options.
FitzGerald-Kemmett said there would be just one vote.
“To approve the budget as it is, as it was voted at the last Town Meeting, and that is the way Mr. Kealy’s motion will be updated,” she said. “We are keeping the W-H regional school budget as the budget that was voted at the last Town Meeting.”
Heal asked whether it makes sense to declare it to be a yes vote.
“How do you get to a vote?” he asked. “How do you get to item one?”
“Through the motion,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “Mr. Kealy will read the motion.”
“How do you get to item one?” Heal asked.
“It’s through the motion,” FitzGerald-Kemmett replied. “If option one carries, there is no need for further discussion because we [would have] voted to stay the course. If option one doesn’t carry, then we go to Option two, which is the potential service cuts that will be outlined, but not necessarily recommended by us or the Finance Committee.”
To help clarify it further, Weeks said “If you vote ‘yes’ on this, then Option 1 is going to carry.”
FitzGerald-Kemmett said the article would not require multiple passes if Article 1 passes with the motion that the town will not back away from officials’ stance that they will only fund what Town Meeting has already voted.
“In other words, we’re saying we’re not changing anything,” she said. “We had to get together. We had to present other options, but what we’re moving tonight is ‘stay the course, then there’s no further discussion needed, and then we adjourn.”
Feodoroff, joining the discussion said if Town Meeting does nothing than the budget is approved.
“Since they sent that assessment back, if we do nothing, then their budget is approved,” she added. “We have 45 days – use them … without having a source of funding, you become obligated legally to fund the whole budget. … So you have to do something.”
The failed override would have created additional revenue capacity, but since it failed, Feodoroff explained, officials need to bear in mind that a different group of people show up at Town Meeting and would be well within their rights to vote to fully fund the schools. The situation demands that it be counter-balanced with budget cuts.
The Finance Committee is meeting to determine where they would prefer those cuts should be made.
“We don’t want people just randomly deciding they want to cut the whole thing out of police or the whole thing out of fire, without knowing what the impact is,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said.
By presenting a budget and moving it the exact same way that you did [at the May 6 Town Meeting] – the exact same budget, with not even a period changed and is resubmitted to the schools – it reaffirms what you did and that budget schools.
“But the option has to be given to the voters to make a different decision,” she said.
Rein confirmed that “staying the course means the 5-percent increase, and that’s it.”
“In order to revisit the budget, you have to say this language that’s in Article 1,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “It allows the conversation about any potential change to the budget.”
Weeks summed up that the average voter is going to want to know, if they’re voting “no” on this, they’ll want to know what kicks it back to the School Committee for the potential of a lower assessment.
“People that want to keep the assessment, know they are going to vote ‘yes,’ is what I’m guessing,” he said. “The people who vote “no” will want to kick it back to the School Committee for the potential for a lower assessment. … I’m just hearing a lot of people saying they want to kick it back.”
FitzGerald-Kemmett said the only way the issue avoids going to a super town meeting is if it’s voted to appropriate more money for the school district budget.

HANSON – The warrant article for the June 17 special Town Meeting was reviewed by Select Board on Tuesday, May 28, but no vote has been taken as of yet due to questions over the clarity of syntax and the need for Finance Committee’s recommendation.
Finance Committee was also meeting on May 28 and Chair Laura FitzGerald-Kemmett said by next meeting the Select Board will have that committee’s well-thought-out cuts.
The Select Board plans to meet again at 7 p.m., Friday, May 30 once the articles are revised and clarified, with a tentative fallback time set for 5:30 p.m. Friday, May 31, if needed. The Town Meeting Article must be posted by June 1.
“Basically, what we are doing is we are having a special Town Meeting to vote the budget with the school assessment minus an override question,” Town Administrator Lisa Green said. “The budget that’s going to be presented will show approximately $372,141 in budget cuts, with the numbers they will be getting. The Finance Committee is meeting this evening to discuss those.”
The initial language of Article 1, as drafted by Town Counsel Kate Feodoroff asks the town to vote in Town Meeting whether it should “rescind its approval of the town budget under Article 5 of the May 6, 2024 annual Town Meeting and to determine what sums of money town will raise and appropriate by taxation, transfer from free cash, transfer from town ambulance funds, Water Department revenue, water surplus, the Title V special revenue fund, MWAT loan repayment receipts reserved for appropriation, Conservation Notice of Intent fund, overlay surplus and unbalanced reserve for reduction of future excluded debt to defray charges and expenses of the town.”
Those expenses include payment of debt and interest while providing for a reserve fund for fiscal year 2025.
Feodoroff’s original text of the Article 1 explanation reads that on May 6, the town approved the “FY 2025 annual omnibus budget in Article 6, and disapproved the contingent appropriation for the W-H regional school district.
“The disapproval of Article 6 resulted in the rejection of the budget as assessed by the district,” Feodoroff wrote. “The original budget request was $14,974,735; but $14,602,595 was approved at Town Meeting and the contingent appropriation of $372,141 failed.”
The School Committee then met and revoted to resubmit the school assessment of $14,974,735 “for this town meeting’s consideration,” the explanation continued. “The purpose of this article is to present and deliberate upon the district’s reassessment and determine whether to approve:

• A reduced budget for the W-H regional school district as previously approved which would be sent to the School Committee, which would determine whether to accept the reduced amount or reject it, forcing a district-wide meeting;
• Approve the full school assessment with reduced services in the town’s budget; or
• Approve such other budget as may be deliberated upon by Town Meeting.
  “I don’t want people to need a decoder ring to make it through this explanation, FitzGerald-Kemmett said, suggesting that it be edited by making bullet points of the options “so it reads, ‘here’s a choice, here’s a choice, here’s a choice.’”
  She argued that would make things more apparent.
  Board Clerk Ed Heal said the “decoder ring” issue for him was in the main text of the article where it said the original budget was approved, “but then, they came back with the same number,” he said.
  “It’s not the same number,” Rein said.
  “It’s not crystal clear, the way it’s written,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “Why are we using the words ‘omnibus budget?’ Does anybody even know what the hell that means? I’m not saying I don’t know what the word omnibus means, I’m saying it just adds extraneous words that don’t need to be there.”
  After discussing the vocabulary used the Board composed a more direct way of explaining the article for submission to Town Counsel for approval.
  “This is where I think it jumps the track,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said about the original legal syntax of the article. “Can we just say ‘did not approve the contingent appropriation?”
  “It’s not wrong, it’s convoluted,” Vice Chair Ann Rein said. “It’s too wordy.”
  “You’re all in the know, you pay more attention to this than the 300-plus people that are going to show up [for Town Meeting], said Board member Joe Weeks. “The more information and the more [direct] you could make the language, the more you’re going to have informed voters.”
  Heal suggested that the language make clear the difference, making clear that the $372,141 is the difference between what was requested and what was voted upon.
  FitzGerald-Kemmett said the board has consistently outlined the difference between what was described and what was requested and what we appropriated.
  FitzGerald-Kemmett wanted to try a different approach providing more clarification of the articles.
  “We need it to be clear,” she said.
  The final language the board worked out for town counsel approval reads: that “on May 6, the town approved the annual budget and did not appropriate the contingent appropriation for the W-H Regional School District. The disapproval of Article 6 resulted in the rejection of the budget as assessed by the district. … The original budget request was $14,974,735; but $14,602,595 was approved at Town Meeting and the contingent appropriation of $372,141 failed. (The contingent appropriation ‘the delta’) between the School District and municipal budgets.”
  The Town Meeting options here are:
• A reduced budget for the W-H Regional School District as previously approved;
• To present and deliberate on the district’s reassessment and to determine whether to approve it;
  Appropriate a full schools assessment amount with reduced services in the town budget; or
  Approve such other business could be deliberated on Town Meeting floor.
  FitzGerald-Kemmett said even that language seems to be contradicting ourselves, because we say that we approved the [municipal] budget in Article 6 and disapproved a contingent appropriation, but in the next sentence talks about, the disapproval of Article 6.
  “It’s like, pick a lane,” she said. The two lanes should be Article 1, tied to an explanation in Article 2 is no change, the budget is the one passed May 6.
  Heal and Weeks suggested the contingent appropriation was Article 7 of the May Town Meeting.
  In the June 17 warrant.
  “I really want to go into this meeting without using ‘lawyer speak’ to pull something over on people,” Weeks said, noting the three possible outcomes if the budget passes. “Which of the possible outcomes are we going to get? Heal asked if each of the options would be voted on.
  “We are absolutely trying to avoid making cuts from the floor,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “We want to be thoughtful about what the cuts are. We don’t want to be flying by the seat of our pants and cut the Veterans Agent or some other crazy thing that we haven’t all thought about and [asked ourselves] what are the ramifications?”
  The Finance Committee’s meeting that night was for just that thought as they advise the Select Board on cuts and the Town Accountant is also going through that process with the aim of those recommendations reviewed by the Select Board Thursday or Friday, May 30 or 31.
  “Ideally, we’ll align, but we may not,” she said, adding the Town Meeting will have two choices in the end:
  A budget with no cuts – in essence, another “no” back to the school district; or
  Not saying no, but saying yes to the budget by making cuts in services and other budget line items.
  “Those will be presented side-by-side, just like we presented the line budget at Town Meeting, we’ll have a line budget for this, which will show where we’re cutting,” she said.
  A third option is because someone could stand up at Town Meeting and cut things the board had not anticipated or planned to cut.
  “If we vote yes on Article one, what happens,” Weeks asked. “The explanation is supposed to tell me what happens, but it’s not. It’s giving me every single option under the sun, which is obvious… If I was the casual or semi-casual [resident] coming to Town Meeting, knowing this is something I’m passionate about and wanting to know exactly what I’m voting for … Even me reading this right now I don’t know what I’m going to explain to people.”
  In unison, Heal and Weeks suggested that, instead of a list of options for cuts, it be presented as “a yes vote means this and a no vote means this.”
  FitzGerald-Kemmett instead suggested that it be presented as two articles, with Article 1 carrying the explanation “we’re not going to rescind anything” but rather the choice should be to approve the school assessment with reduced services in the town budget.
  Article one is the explanation, and if Article 2 is rejected, it would lead to article 3 to the information of where the cuts will be made, Weeks suggested.
  “… You have to arm people, in a very specific way,” he said.

HANSON – Now begins the work of meeting the W-H Regional School District’s operational assessment in the wake of the second failure to pass an override – at Town Meeting on May 6 and at the ballot box Saturday, May 18.
A funding gap of $372,141 remains.
The Select Board on Tuesday, May 21, met with Superintendent of Schools Jeff Szymaniak in an effort to better understand what drives rising school budget costs and what the defeat of the override will mean for Hanson’s finances.
Now that the ballot question failed on Saturday [see related story], the Select Board discussed what comes next since the “override question is dead,” she said.
“That’s one path that’s been eliminated from the map,” she said of the override. “Now what we have before us is a question of how do we fund that delta between what we had budgeted for and what the school [operational] assessment was. … We’re in the same position we were in without any method of paying that difference.”
Select Board member Joe Weeks asked for a bumper-sticker view of what the current budget situation would mean to the district’s schools.
“If I don’t have a budget in place by July 1, the commissioner of education takes over and I have no say in what he decides on giving us,” Szymaniak said. “It can be even to fiscal 2024, or he could decide it could be more.”
What the bumper-sticker would say is: pink slips for staff, according to Szymaniak
“The challenge is, once you get a pink slip, you don’t have a job and you qualify for unemployment,” he said. “On July 1, if those are 60 folks, they will qualify for unemployment until I can give them a contract, and I can’t give them a contract until I have a certified budget.”
Szymaniak said the district is OK until July in paying teachers according to their contract.
“It gets a little gray by August if I don’t have a budget,” Szymaniak. “The day that a teacher doesn’t have a contract, they’re eligible for 40 percent of their salary going forward. Some would call that double-dipping because they’ve already gotten paid.”
The district had challenged the practice during COVID, but lost.
“We learned a lot during that time-frame just because of that situation,” he said.
Where things stand
Town Meeting voters were told at the May 6 Town Meeting that balancing the municipal budget was dependent on the $372,141 increase for the W-H operating assessment being “expressly contingent upon passage” of a proposition 2 ½ question on the May 18 ballot.
This time at Town Meeting, the question will be structures such that there will be two options – voting no and voting to fund the difference with various budget cuts the Select Board will explain, according to Chair Laura FitzGerald-Kemmett. At that time, voters will be provided a line-by-line look at what the board has voted.
On Tuesday, May 14, she had advised the board that “there’s only so many things we can do to fund this budget,” while ticking off the options. They remain: drastic across-the-board cuts; funding some of the gap with free cash and make modest cuts at Town Hall and other departments; fund a bit more with free cash and make; use of free cash and more drastic cuts; free cash or even more drastic cuts or just cuts.
The Finance Committee has not yet voted on the new warrant article being drafted for the June 17 Town Meeting, FitzGerald-Kemmett said.
“Again, saying no is not an option,” she said. “We have to present some option to Town Meeting, or de facto that assessment is in place and we just don’t have a method anyone’s voted on to pay it.”
In fact, Hanson’s available free cash is $627,000. “To pay $350,000 for the assessment would perilous,” FitzGerald-Kemmett May 14.
Town Accountant Eric Kinsherf has cautioned that “It would be irresponsible” to balance the budget with free cash now.
Kinsherf, Town Administrator Lisa Green and the Finance Committee are all looking at whether there are open positions that the town should not fill right now or positions where hours can be trimmed back without drastically impacting services.
FitzGerald-Kemmett also put to rest – again – the rumor that the town has $1.4 million in free cash.
“We do not,” she said. “We have roughly $600,000 in cash.”
Kinsherf and Green are also meeting with department heads, considering options including whether it could be a lot of little cuts that could fill in that dollar amount.
“Some of it may be free cash, but we’re going to use as little free cash as we possibly can,” she said.
The board will be meeting again on Tuesday, May 28 to review and sign that warrant then.
It has been considered whether the meeting could be made to the high school…. but that option in recent years was permitted by the state because of COVID and may not be available again.
In the past, when a high turnout was anticipated at town meetings at Hanson Middle School, the gym or cafeteria had been configured to handle overflow crowd with a TV screen for people to follow the meeting and a teller to track questions and votes.
“We were caught flat-footed at the last Town Meeting,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “We didn’t anticipate that number of people and we need to do better.”
The town is planning on having the meeting at Hanson Middle School, but having the gymnasium in place with plenty of printed materials available for voters.
Budget craft
School budget is based on an estimate of funds the district expects to be refunded by the state.
“Every year, it’s a bit of a crap-shoot,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “It’s the best guess that the School Department can do.”
This year the important funds the budget was based on was $30 per-pupil reimbursement and a 74 percent reimbursement on busing. But right now, both the House and Senate on Beacon Hill have increased those numbers to $104 for per-pupil costs with an 84 percent transportation reimbursement. Those two budget bills translate to a $190,00 in state funds.
“However, that is not a sure thing,” she said, calling on Szymaniak. “It’s not on lockdown and it probably won’t be until mid-July.”
FitzGerald-Kemmett said the clock on the wall should make town and school officials look at the timing of everything.
“I don’t know if we’ll ever get to a point where we could have Town Meeting so late that we’d know [the state budget] numbers,” she said. “But there’s got to be a better way of doing this.”
“We don’t have those numbers, but they look encouraging,” Szymaniak said. “Last year, we expected a little bit more and when the budget came in on Aug. 5 with less, so we had to make cuts on the fly.” The state is asking the towns to pick up more funds and the towns say they can’t, he said.
“If they came back with $300,000 more in [reimbursements], we wouldn’t be here,” he said.
Those cuts amounted to $250,000 in personnel cuts.
There are two bills, with some teeth to them, on state Sen. Mike Brady’s desk to increase regional transportation and special education 100 percent, he said, urging people to call Brady and other state senators to support them.
“Regional transportation and special education reimbursement are the core of our funding,” he said. “If we can get more from the state, it will help us out.”
But there are four or five more conference committees to go through plus objections before it goes to the governor’s desk, Szymaniak added.
“There’s no way that we could time a super Town Meeting before July 1 at which point, you must go into the 1/12 budget,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said.
Ed Heal asked how the public could get salary information, to which Szymaniak said teachers are listed by unit salaries in Town Report. Complete budget information is available at whrsd.org.
“We’re looking at cutting staff also,” said Select Board Vice Chair Ann Rein. “It seems to me the School Committee needs to look at that themselves and not try to force us to go onto this fiscal cliff every year.”
Later in the meeting, Weeks also requested more meetings — joint sessions with the School Committee — be added to the Select Board’s schedule with the specific intention of making formal requests of the School Committee.
“We all know this isn’t going anywhere anytime soon and we had discussed last year being more diligent about being more transparent about having these financial meetings,” he said. “It’s really hard to put somebody on the spot when we didn’t provide them with an agenda, we didn’t provide them any materials to get ready. They weren’t here for this.”
Weeks said that kind of scenario can lead to people putting their foot in their mouth or promising something off-the-cuff that they cannot keep.
“Everybody here has had questions they’ve been asking to cameras and they haven’t had the ability — quite frankly, we haven’t done a forma request … and then we can have our questions answered.
FitzGerald-Kemmett said it makes sense for January or February.
“What’s stopping us from having a meeting in a couple of weeks that the superintendent was asked on the fly?” Weeks said.
Rein said it makes more sense to get throught the special Town Meeting first.
Member David George said he primarily wants to speak with the Hanson School Committee members about their support for the budget because he is still looking for an answer as to why 31 staff members were added with one-time money.
“I think you have to meet all of them,” Rein said.
“I don’t know the ask,” Heal said.
Weeks said he envisions a joint meeting with Whitman Select Board and the School Committee several times during the budget season.
George said he doesn’t see why it wouldn’t help just to get the Hanson members of the School Committee at Select Board meetings to ask the questions people have.
“We’re not asking them to make decisions or change anything, we just have some questions that we need answered,” he said.