School district calculations on an alternative transportation formula may bring retroactive reimbursements as far back as fiscal 2021, district officials told the W-H School Committee at its April 13 meeting.

“I don’t want to speculate to put a wrinkle in what we’re talking about tonight,” Superintendent of Schools Jeffrey Szymaniak said, thanking the residents who suggested new ways of looking at the problem. “But, I think this is positive for the district and for both communities in that we could get more mandates reimbursibles and we also cut the cost of non-mandated busing tremendously.”

The committee voted unanimously to amend the fiscal 2023 costs for non-mandated busing for Hanson at $55,234.19 and unanimously to amend the fiscal 2023 costs for non-mandated busing for Whitman to $216,059.44.

They also voted 8-1 amend the operating assessment to Hanson to $13,245,052.04 and to 8-1 set Whitman’s operating assessment at $16,741,119.30. Committee member Dawn Byers voted no to each operating assessment change.

“This is what being a good partner is, working together with members of the community, finding savings, passing them along,” said Committee Vice Chairman Christopher Scriven. “I don’t see the benefit to anyone of doing anything else at this time.”

After two recent Zoom meetings with DESE following a suggested alternative transportation funding formula, Szymaniak then had a conversation with “the men from MARS (the Mass. Association of Regional Schools),” who asked if the district had ever looked at busing and mileage.

“When you take an Über, you pay so much from Point A to Point B … and if it’s 10 miles further, Über charges you more,” he said. He and Committee Chairman Christopher Howard, after discussing the idea, asked Business Manager John Stanbrook to investigate the option.

“He spent quite a bit of time analyzing every student, where they live … and he came up with a theory on mileage and transportation, for mandated transportation and mileage,” Szymaniak said. “The goal … is to try to maximize the amount of state money we could get in reimbursement — and I think we found a solution.”

After running it by DESE funding expert Jay Sullivan, he suggested an easier way to do it.

“That methodology is accepted by the state, and retroactively to fiscal 2022,” Szymaniak said. When a Whitman Finance Committee member asked if the amended calculation could be applied to fiscal 2021 as well, Sullivan said it could.

“I don’t know what that means yet, so I don’t want to discuss numbers, but Jay has John working on fiscal ’21’s actuals to see what we can get for reimbursements,” he said. “Thank you [Kathleen] Ottina for throwing that suggestion out there.”

He also thanked Selectmen Randy LaMattina and Justin Evans, Town Administrator Lincoln Heineman and residents John Galvin — who also serves on the Finance Committee — and Shawn Kain for helping the district “look through a different lens” at the problem of non-mandated busing costs.

The “mile method” — assuming a 90-percent state reimbursement method and approval of the method — Whitman’s assessment could be about $17.3 million, the operating assessment $16,741,000, non-mandated busing $216,000, and capital assessments would stay the same. In Hanson, the assessment could be about $13,782,199, the operating assessment $13,245,052.04, non-mandated busing $55,234 and capital assessments would stay the same.

While the bottom line of the certified budget of $58,492,314 would not change if the mile method were approved, Whitman’s assessment would go down $420,603.92 and Hanson could see a $163,001.20.

Criteria for non-mandated busing services would not change, only the manner in which cost is calculated.

“This is a permanent change,” Howard said of the decision to be made. While that is good, the committee has to keep in mind that reimbursement rates change, he cautioned.

School district counsel, meanwhile advised the assessment breakdown forwarded to towns be continued so it is clear what the process will mean.

Committee member Dawn Byers suggested a single line item for the school costs in accordance with Mass. General Law, but member Beth Stafford urged that a detailed breakdown was needed this year to show the work the committee has done to lower costs.

“It’ just a matter of seeing it,” Stafford said.

Member David Forth, who has been critical of the implementation of the Regional Agreement in the past, suggested continuing the present method of calculating non-mandated busing costs until a Regional Agreement Amendment Committee could hash out what changes should be made.

Both Heather Kniffen and Fred Small expressed concern that the change could create an inequitable situation.

“The way it’s done right now is equitable for both towns, it distributes the costs where they should be distributed, and to whom they should be distributed,” Small said. “And that’s fair and I think both towns should feel that that’s fair.”

Forth said the 80-20 split, in place since at least 2001, is more of an inequity.

Hanson Selectman Jim Hickey agreed there have been problems with the regional agreement for a while and characterized the regional district as a “bad marriage for Hanson.” 

“I can tell you that people in Hanson think that the School Committee has somehow lost their way and forgot why they were voted into the seats,” he said. “I think it can be fixed. I think we have to sit down at the table and start from the beginning.”

He said there is a need to fix the system now in place.

“I’m a bit gobsmacked that I’m hearing for the first time about legal opinion that has been received about a busing issue, that have been received that our town has not seen,” Selectman Laura FitzGerald-Kemmett. “We have not been asked for an opinion.”

She said she has not seen either the Whitman town counsel or the school committee counsel’s opinion on the busing funding.

“That feels extremely wrong to me,” she said. Talk of breaking non-mandated busing as a separate warrant article does not help Hanson, either, as the town voted the night before to place articles onto their warrant with a deadline of Friday, April 15 to close it. Any additions past that date would require an emergency meeting.

“It feels very much like the line of communication is broken,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “What feels like a very unilateral discussion of the budget is not going to help heal the wounds that we’ve still got from the change in the methodology.”

She did agree with those who suggested the need for a new Regional Agreement.

“We need to sit down and have the hard conversations and come up with a regional agreement that we all feel accurately represents what each town should be bringing to the table, and then we just move forward,” she said. 

Howard noted that Whitman folks have been present at about four or more public budget subcommittee meetings where busing has been discussed. The School Committee received a letter from Whitman town counsel after its last meeting and then consulted its own counsel in turn.

He, too, agreed that a new Regional Agreement needs to be negotiated.

“The cleaner we can make this, the more better off we will be,” Howard said.

HANSON — The town’s budget gap has been closed to within $278,572 — down from about $1 million a little over a month ago.

“With the cuts and sharpening of the pencils that we’ve done and [despite] the surprise of the schools that came out with a 5.5 percent assessment to the town on March 16, we brought our budget deficit down,” Town Administrator Lisa Green reported to the Board of Selectmen on Tuesday, April 5. “The school assessment came as a surprise, where the assessment that was forwarded to us on Feb. 16 was 4.1 percent.”

Green said the jump in the school assessment was not expected. After further budget computations, the bottom line came to within $278,572 or balance.

“We do continue to look for ways to cut any way we can without impacting personnel,” she said. “It’s a work in progress.”

Green said she is still hoping the school district will lower the assessment a little bit.

She also spoke with Whitman Town Administrator Lincoln Heineman, who has indicated that, if there is a change in the non-mandated busing formula, Whitman will be able to afford their 4.87 percent assessment within their levy.

She said that would put Hanson in a difficult position.

“If Whitman is saying that they can afford their assessment within the levy, there’s not going to be a lot of leverage and ground for us to ask the schools to lower their assessment,” she said. 

Green had advised the school district that Hanson could afford no more than a 3.5 percent increase, and said 3.3 percent would work within the levy.

In speaking to district business manager John Stanbrook, Green reported he is not aware of any changes to any of the assessments at this time.

“Is there a way to reach out to Whitman, as a partner — and knowing, in part, why we are where we are — and ask if they will partner with us and ask them to lower the assessment,” Selectman Laura FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “Just because they can afford it, doesn’t mean they necessarily want to put things on hold and want to pay all of that money, as well.”

She noted there have been past years when Whitman could not afford what they were assessed and Hanson successfully worked with them to work with the district to lower that assessment.

Town Meeting
warrant

A week after closing the Town Meeting warrant the previous week, Selectmen voted on two articles one of which was inadvertently left off the warrant through a printing error and the other, which had been with town counsel for a clarification on wording and was returned after the warrant had closed.

One was a citizen’s petition about amending the town’s recall provision, including giving residents their own grounds for initiating recall, requiring 300 voter signatures on the requesting petition and must name the official being recalled, which is required to be on the warrant. The other would allow selectmen to enter into a lease for if an RFP was agreed to regarding the Lite Control building.

Selectmen voted to place both articles and to remove another one that would place a generator at the transfer station, but that had not originated with the Board of Health.

Another three capital articles had been previously withdrawn by the Highway Department after Green had instructed departments to pare down their budgets.

Selectmn signed the approved warrant.

Voters going to the polls in Town Elections on Saturday, May 21 will have fewer reasons to complain about a lack of choices on the ballot than in past years.

In Hanson, there are eight candidates in the running for two seats on the Board of Selectmen, and Whitman has four candidates running for two seats on the Select Board.

The lone incumbent in contention is Whitman Selectman Justin Evans, running for his second term. 

In Hanson, Water Commissioner and former Selectman Don Howard is running for re-election to the Board of Water Commissioners as well as making a bid to return to the Board of Selectmen, running for the three-year term opened when Kenny Mitchell decided not to run. Joining Howard in seeking that three-year term are Financial Advisor Kelly Woerdeman, ZBA member and Board of Health Vice Chairman Kevin Perkins and Edwin C. Heal of Pine Grove Ave.

Running for the two years remaining on Selectmen Chairman Matt Dyer’s seat are Health Board member Arlene Dias, Marc M. Benjamino, Ann M. Rien of State Street and Health Board member Denis C. O’Connell.

Candidates have until Tuesday, April 19 to withdraw from the race, if they so choose.

“It feels weird to say it, but now I’m a candidate with experience,” said Evans, who is completing his first term as a Whitman Selectman. “I was a fresh face three years ago.”

He said his plan is to focus on continuing to maximize state aid.

“Getting more bang for our buck has been a huge focus and I’m happy to continue to do that and looking at some new, let’s say, creative revenue opportunities,” he said. “We’re looking at revisiting the marijuana prohibition this year; expanding services for the first time since I’ve been involved, either on the FinCom or the Board of Selectmen, we are, I think, adding positions and we’re paying for the full operating budget, including the schools’ full assessment — we can pay for the whole thing without one-time money.”

He said he still has his eye on implementation of 40R development near the MBTA station, which had been derailed by COVID, but is now the focus of the state’s MBTA Communities Law, signed by Gov. Charlie Baker last year. 

“Navigating through COVID was an incredible experience and it put off a couple of priorities I’d like to get done,” Evans sad. “I’m not finished yet.”

Finance Committee member Rosemary Connolly, former Police Chief Scott D. Benton and Forest Street resident Shawn M. Kain are also seeking a three-year term. Incumbent Brian Bezanson did not return nomination papers.

Kain said his candidacy is an attempt to bring an independent voice to the Select Board as he continues his work bringing strategic planning to the town’s budget process.

“I’m really trying to do it right,” he said. “I’m from Whitman and I love our community and I love our traditions, so it’s not that I want to go into the role and change things in a big way — I really want to protect the traditions that we have and make slow improvements to the things that we can do better.”

He said the budget document remains something that requires work so the town can better communicate its financial needs.

“I think the town has made a lot of gains, financially, over the last couple of years,” he said pointing to the focus on the town’s finances as well as its relationship to the school district.

“The strategic plan and the financial policy that we recently adopted are both pieces of the puzzle that will really help us, moving forward,” Kain said.

Benton and Connolly did not return a request for comment. 

In Hanson, while there are some familiar faces running, they are pointing to the need to change things as their reason for seeking a seat on the Board of Selectmen.

“I’ve always said things need to change, and I don’t see that happening,” Dias said. “I’ve decided that maybe I need to help that change.”

She said conflict of interest in town is a problem.

“I feel like there’s so much of people being interested in doing things at Town Hall for their own personal benefit and I’m tired of it,” Dias said. “I’m tired of things being done behind closed doors and people have their little networks — and sometimes you have to break them up in order for the town to move forward.”

Perkins returned a call for comment from the Express via an email explaining why he was not in a position to be able to say much.

“Unfortunately I cannot comment due to the ongoing independent investigation the selectmen voted to conduct on the entire zoning board, myself included,” Perkins said. “It is very unfortunate that my hands are tied during a critical time where candidates are campaigning. However this investigation is still ongoing which leads me to think there is motive behind the prolonged investigation in order to sway potential voters.”

Howard, who had retired to care for his ailing wife, said he is ready to return now that she has passed and that he sees a lot of problems on the Select Board that he doesn’t like and there is a problem with water retention and detention areas not working properly. Heal, Rein and Benjamino did not return requests for comment.

Howard is not alone in seeking to take on extra responsibility in Hanson, as Selectman Jim Hickey — whose seat is not up for a vote this year — is running for Board of Health and Health Board member O’Connell is running for re-election to that board as well as seeking a Select Board position.

“I just want to give back to the community,” Woerdeman said.

O’Connell expressed concern with the possible loss of autonomy for the Health Board if Hickey wins a Health Board seat and Dias is elected to the Select Board.

“I just like to have a voice,” O’Connell said, noting that the Select Board would have a majority on the Board of Health should he lose. “I don’t like where this leads to. I feel the Selectmen have been micromanaging all the departments.”

A former electrician and 30-year resident, O’Connell characterized the situation as a “tangled mess,”

Hickey, for his part, cited communication problems at Town Hall as his reason for seeking a Health Board seat, noting if both boards meet on the same day, he could get information to Selectmen might need in a more timely manner.

“Nobody talks … I think this will help both boards tremendously,” he said. “It’s every department. … As a member of the Board of Selectmen and now a liaison to the Senior Center, with the population shift in town, it just makes sense.”

WHITMAN — Wear and tear, despite extensive efforts at maintaining and extending life of vehicles, equipment and facilities, has led to the School Department to make a half-dozen capital requests on the town’s Town Meeting warrant.

“When the report you see says, ‘potential fatality,’ it’s something that concerns me greatly,” Superintendent of Schools Jeff Szymaniak said of Article W-1, involving a combined $700,000 for playground safety issues at Duval School in particular. “Is it still serviceable? Yes. Has Ernie [Facilities Director Ernest Sandland] and our facilities group done a great job to make sure it’s safe? Yes, but it’s deteriorating by the day and, come next September, it would be outstanding if we could open up a new school year, post-COVID, with something for the children of Duval.”

Another playgroud at Conley School is in need of repairs and upgrades to make it handicap-accessible.

Szymaniak and Sandland met with the committee on Thursday, March 17 to review the district’s capital projects for the Town Meeting warrant.

Szymaniak said he had a “very good” meeting the previous day with Town Administrator Lincoln Heineman and state Rep Alyson Sullivan, R-Abington, to obtain at least an earmark in the state budget for playground projects at both the Duval and Conley schools.

“I’m really focused in on the Duval one, because it’s end-of-life and potentially dangerous,” he said, noting he would send Sullivan the same information he was reviewing with the committee, as she works to obtain state funding to help with it. “But our priority right now is with our capital items, is to really focus in on those playgrounds.”

A consultant — Playground Consultants of New England — has looked at the Duval playground twice, in 2020 and 2021, for an in-depth study the district had asked for to determine what was going on there in light of increasing complaints from the school nurse that children were getting hurt on the equipment.

“We had it inspected,” Sandland said. “When we have something like that done by an outside consultant, or an outside firm, we take their recommendations and put them in work orders.”

Problems seen at Conley, Duval and Indian Head schools had been addressed through work orders, then the consultant was asked out again to determine if there was something they missed or that needed correction, Sandland explained.

“When it came to the Duval School, they were just repeating themselves, because it’s at the end of useful life,” he said. “The issues that were there before have been resolved, but we have new issues at Duval School.”

Old construction techniques not used anymore, calling for the use of non-galvanized steel pipe wrapped in plastic for support structures, have begun to rot at the base up from the foundation.

“You don’t see it, because the plastic it looks great,” Sandland said. “But at stair steps, the leaping frogs that would just break off because the metal — the steel — would start to rust below ground and they would break off without any warning.”

Playground mulch is another issue.

Orders have to be timed  right so it can be leveled off before the start of school — a major safety issue. 

“Conley’s a little bit different,” Sandland said. “There’s some work there that can be done to save that playground.”

But the interior playground, relocated from the old Park Avenue School has to be removed.

At Indian Head, problems were resolve with a new playground placed there three years ago, but they are already seeing maintenance issues there.

“It goes back to the useage,” he said. “Indian Head was used very heavily. After school. Summer months. Vacation times. That playground is used.”

Playgrounds and Conley and Duval are also used constantly.

“Duval is used more heavily than Conley because of the area,” Szymaniak said. “After school we’re seeing heavy use by community members and, I think, that led to more rapid deterioration than the Conley large playground.”

Szymaniak said, however, that his priority is the Duval playground, because Conley’s main facility is still serviceable with some modifications. The interior playground, however, has to go.

“If I have to go on a need or want [basis], the Duval is need, the Conley interior playground is a want,” he said. “If that one [Duval’s] goes, the children have nothing. At Conley, at least they have the other playground.”

He added that he and Sullivan had brain-stormed fundraising ideas, in case that route is necessary and said the Duval PTO is also working on a fundraiser, but is low-level — envisioning that a couple of thousand dollars could be raised on a project that could cost between $300,000 and $400,000.

Talks with vendors have been used to get a cost estimate,  but a contract would go through the state bid list, according to Sandland.

Committee Chairman Don Esson asked what $300,000 — which he characterized as basically a repair — extend the life of the Conley playground to compared to a $400,000 total replacement?

Sandland said the Conley playground, which was designed for kindergarten and first-graders, the price would be different. At Duval, pupils using the equipment would range from kindergarten to fifth-graders, so there would be different price tags. The size and footprint of the equipment would also be a lot different than at Conley.

Work to make the Conley playground safe and handicap-accessible is estimated to cost between $50,000 and $75,000, the district is working with a vendor right now because the goal is to make it safe. The manufacturer of the Conley playground is also different than the company that made Duval’s, Sandland said.

“I’m hearing if we do the repairs and make it handicap-accessible, we can get another 10 to 15 years out of [Conley’s] play structure,” he said. “To dump a boatload of money and not make it handicap-accessible, I think, is setting us up for a problem down the road, especially with the population and if we have full-day kindergarten.”

Szymaniak said the two playground projects were combined because, if Town Meeting approved the lower cost for the Conley repairs and not the funds for new equipment at Duval, it would create an equity issue within the school district.

At the moment, according to Town Administrator Lincoln Heieneman, the school district’s capital requests have been divided into three articles.

“That’s what I would recommend, but we’ll see how the Board of Selectmen feel regarding the draft warrant,” he said.

“I think we need to go back to the charge of the committee as to recommend or not recommend a project, regardless of the cost,” Committee member Fred Small said. “That’s what my interpretation of our charge is.”

Selectman Justin Evans asked if the Duval playground was the same one installed in 2000, when the school was renovated. Szymaniak confirmed that it was installed 22 years ago.

“I was moved from Holt to Duval as a fifth-grader, so this is the playground that I had at Duval?” he asked.

“So, it’s your fault,” Small joked.

“I was a big fifth-grader, I probably did some damage,” Evans replied.

Committee member Justin Casanova-Davis agreed the playgrounds are a public safety issue and getting Duval done is important, but indicated the data on the Coley equipment was insufficient. Member Josh MacNeil asked how often the playgrounds are inspected and if there would be recommended maintenance if new playgrounds are installed.

Sandland said they have had inspections of the equipment four or five times and noted the state does not require playground inspections. The district insisted on the 2020 inspection because they were receiving complaints. Any new playground equipment will be manufactured under new technology standards, for example the plastic-coated steel pipes are no longer used, replaced with electrostatic paint, which lasts longer.

Heineman suggested the School Committee might use a portion of excess and deficiency for some portion of the capital plan projects at the high school so both towns could share costs.

He suggested that perhaps use of a portion of the remaining $255,000 in the Other Schools/Capital Needs line for the Duval roof article, which is currently the largest outstanding capital article for the schools.

Esson said funding decisions were the turf of other committees, but the information he was hearing made him more comfortable about supporting the requests.

Warrant Article W-2 of the school department’s requests involves $181,000 for repaving the high school roadway and parking area, which are riddled with potholes. 

“[On] most of the roadway, both layers [of asphalt] are shattered.” Sandland said. “It’s a mess.” 

Because of the damage, parts of the pavement are plowed up during snow removal and nearly six tons of patch material has been used to make repairs at the high school alone.

“This winter, for some strange reason has done a number on the roadways, and we all see it, especially in Whitman and Hanson,” he said. “There were some roads I thought were pretty decent last year, today, not so good.”

Article W-3 is aimed at curtailing mold issues in the Whitman Middle School gym.

“I know we’re looking at a building project, but this we don’t want a recurrence of what we saw this fall,” Szymaniak said of the $100,000 sought. Consultants and other experts in the field have informed the district that the existing system is not working properly and needs to be replaced, Sandland said.

“The humidity that gets locked in there in the summer is brutal,” he said. “I ripped up some of that floor to see what was underneath, because we were having problems with dead spots … there is no vapor barrier.”

Moisture and heat comes up through the floor and needs to be ventilated out. Estimates are being gathered to determine a final cost estimate.

“It’s probably not going to be cheap, but it’s not going to be $100,000,” Sandland said.

Article W-4 is seeking $78,780 in funds for new F250 trucks for the district’s maintenance fleet. The current vehicles are breaking down as a result of age and use.

The district has to spend money out of the operating budget to make repairs to have the current vehicles pass inspection.

Evans also noted that both towns have Green Communities designations which require new vehicles to be more fuel-efficient than the ones they are replacing.

“Our police department has been quite happy buying hybrid vehicles recently, just due to the long idle times [and] the way we run them,” he said, asking if that was being considered. “They’re seeing reduced maintenance costs.”

Sandland said it was and that a dual-fuel vehicle was purchased for food services.

Article W-5 asks for approval of $45,000 for the replacement of rooftop units and chillers for the high school.

Article W-6 is seeking to transfer $6,060 to prepare a replacement schedule for rooftop units and chillers.

Whitman residents John Galvin and Shawn Kain were given the opportunity to provide the School Committee with a brief presentation on Wednesday, March 16 about the non-mandated busing funding formula they had discussed with Whitman’s Board of Selectmen and Finance Committee the previous evening. Szymaniak said he had also received guidance on the matter from the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) and Mass. Association of Regional Schools (MARS) to present at the meeting.

The session devolved, however, into accusations of whether the committee or town representatives were presenting a complete and accurate portrayal of the issue.

“The bottom line here is — and I appreciate Mr. Kain and Mr. Galvin doing some work, they did a lot of work,” Superintendent of Schools Jeff Szymaniak said. “It’s awesome to see somebody looking at things through a different lens.”

But Szymaniak said state education officials told him that, the way in which the scenarios were presented were not necessarily good for the district. 

If the committee chose not to pay for non-mandated busing costs, it goes to the Board of Selectmen for their vote as to whether or not it is placed on a Town Meeting warrant, according to the regional agreement. That is how the committee voted later in the meeting. The committee voted against paying non-mandated busing costs — $121,475 for Hanson and $487,839 for Whitman — sending the cost to the individual towns as has been past practice.

“We also have to have a follow-up conversation on how the article is presented to the community,” Szymaniak said. 

He said that examination from outside affords them the chance to vet and think through the issue.

“On the short list of things the Finance Committee in Whitman has been concerned about, non-mandated busing has been one of them,” Kain said, noting that their study gave them a solid idea of how non-mandated busing worked, and the numbers behind the methodology. Previous consideration of transportation costs did not consider that cost savings did not equal is being paid for with non-mandated busing.

When Business Manager John Stanbrook recently discussed numbers, Kain said it provided further insight into the numbers and calculation method used to determining the cost of non-mandated busing.

What “didn’t sit well,” with him, Kain said, was that if the committee decided to discontinue non-mandated busing, the district could receive “significantly more” mandated state reimbursement. He said they approached it from an interest in simply finding inefficiencies, not to play a “gotcha” game with the district.

Szymaniak said he reached out to DESE and, during a “spirited conversation,” they discussed the idea. MARS, when he spoke with them, recommended using the terms eligible and not eligible rather than mandated and non-mandated. The discussions focused on a figure of $1.8 million for everybody.

“Then we bill the town[s] … the difference of  $1.8 million to what non-mandated folks are,” he said, but it wouldn’t be cut. “For Whitman that would be $400,000, and for Hanson it’s $100,000-plus.” After that deduction, the state would be billed $1.3 million.

Szymaniak said they were told that, unless the district can justify how other students were transported on the end-of-the-year report. 

He outlined the proposal to bill the state for $1.7 million, but would like to transport everyone.

“We can continue to look, but we can’t bill for one and do both,” he said, noting the DESE representative told him: “If John submits the annual report, and you have $1.3M instead of $1.7M this year, I’m going to flag you for an audit,” not giving out any money until the district could justify it.

Every student must be accounted for.

“If we make a change like this, we are going to proactively share with DESE what we’re doing, and then do it, not do it and create god-knows what kind of issue after,” said School Committee Chairman Christopher Howard.

Committee member Fred Small asked for a vote to place the recording of Szymaniak’s Zoom call with DESE and MARS on the district’s website in the interest of transparency after discussion with the DESE. The committee approved the posting. 

Whitman Selectman Randy LaMattina argued that it was a public meeting and should be posted in any case. Szymaniak said it was not a posted public meeting, but he would request permission from DESE to do so.

“There seems to be a lot of confusion in the initial proposal and how it was presented to DESE,” Galvin said. “I’m disappointed that, as the author of that proposal, that Shawn and myself weren’t invited to that meeting and possibly could have had a different way of explaining it to them.”

He said their examples were not “scenarios” but were actual costs of eliminating the programs, and disagreed with Kain that their proposal can’t be used.

“I find it odd that you’re not willing to share the video [of the Zoom call],” Galvin said. “It just doesn’t sit right with me.”

Information they could obtain from the call would provide the opportunity to modify their proposal, if necessary.

They are not advocating use of a new formula on the end of year fiscal 2022 report. He had emailed DESE for guidance while compiling the report and was told they had none.

“Now all of a sudden, they do?” he said.

LaMattina stressed that the numbers at issue came from the district business manager, not Galvin and Kain.

“I think we would welcome an audit at this point, because, clearly, what we see is the town of Whitman is subsidizing mandated busing,” he said, noting the public doesn’t know how the question was presented to DESE. “I’m sorry, but this feels eerily similar to a couple years ago where, [he heard] ‘It’s legal, folks. What we did was legal. We talked to DESE.’”

Howard responded “because I’m not going to have things made up.”

He said the request that was made was — what would it look like if we eliminated non-mandated busing?

Whitman Finance Committee member Rosemary Connolly pointed out there is a video, from when the schools attempted to split busing costs 60-40, only to be told by former Town Administrator Frank Lynam that the towns had elected to pay more. She added that, while she is uncertain the schools did anything illegally, there is reason to question past practices in the town.

Unanswered questions about one-time federal funding, long-term financial planning and some initial budget calculation errors were the focus of the W-H School Committee, on Wednesday, Feb. 16

Superintendent of Schools Jeff Szymaniak said he had three goals for the meeting – to hear feedback from the School Committee, to answer any questions about the district’s budget presentation and, looking ahead, what to do when federal funds run out in fiscal 2025 to maintain sustainability of programs. The meeting can be streamed at youtube.com/user/WHCA9TV/videos and is rebroadcast on the WHCA cable access channel.

Szymaniak also indicated there was “a couple of calculation mistakes” to clarify where assessments to the towns announced at an earlier meeting were concerned.

“We’ve gone through this a lot,” he said of the budget figures. “We try to do the best we can and give accurate information, and we found another [figure] doubled up today.”

Two people included in the ESSER figures had also been calculated into the district budget when it was presented on Wednesday, Feb. 9.

The new calculations, using a bottom-line budget of $58,543,037, put Hanson’s assessment at 4.51 percent and Whitman’s at 3.67 percent — including full-day kindergarten paid for with half of the funds in excess and deficiency and $400,000 for Chromebooks. Depending on what the committee wants to do with the budget, some things may still have to be moved around, Szymaniak said.

The bottom line figure is still 3.07 percent higher than last year’s budget.

Hanson’s original assessment had been 5.74 percent and Whitman’s had been calculated at 5.16 percent. The new budget document includes $370,000 for full-day kindergarten, $400,000 for Chromebooks and $123,885 for the Whitman water bill.

There is $974,000 remaining in excess and deficiency (E&D).

Without E&D, the assessments would be $5.66 for Hanson and $5.07 for Whitman, Szymaniak said. Using all of E&D, the assessments would be $3.35 for Hanson and $2.28 for Whitman, which is not sustainable.

Committee member Hillary Kniffen expressed concern about the sustainability of full-day kindergarten if it is started with E&D funds. Chairman Christopher Howard noted the start-up cost would be $740,000. The second year is forecast in the five-year plan at $763,000; the third year would be $785,000. The numbers reflect salaries.

Previous full-day kindergarten discussions had presented the start-up costs as high, but that subsequent years would be lower.

Committee member Christopher Scriven said deciding how the committee wants to proceed is vital.

“It’s not only about having enough information to vote for it or not,” he said. “It’s about voting something we believe in and going into the community and supporting it. So its very important that we have an accurate and understanding what we’re trying to accomplish.”

Howard asked Szymaniak to continue crunching the numbers.

“I really want to thank [Business Manager John] Stanbrook,” Szymaniak said. “He’s kind of been working tirelessly since January putting documents together.” Szyamaniak said he and Stanbrook would try to answer as many questions as possible during the meeting.

“Last year, when we were here, we were projecting a budget for kids to return to school,” he said, noting there are still a “lot of moving parts” in the budget. “We still weren’t in school yet. We were in a hybrid mode. I still had home-school students, and I had more than 500 students in a remote program that we were paying for.”

Committee member Dawn Byers, while lauding the reports, asked if they could be consolidated into a booklet of PDFs.

Effects of ESSER

The district had some federal money that “came out of the blue” [ESSER II and III funds], but they didn’t provide any rules to follow.

Howard noted that, as long as he had been on the committee, there had not been any long-range financial planning.

“I think one thing that we’ve all collectively introduced to the process this year is that long-term planning,” he said. “Some of the challenges that we may have in doing it right now are probably helpful because it’s ‘pay me now or pay me later.’”

Howard noted that the long-range planning being undertaken made for a very different budget process. 

Committee member Fred Small stressed that, for the short-term planning they still have to think of next year and the year after.

“I think a long-term plan is a great thing, but we have to be cognizant of what we may do now that can affect next year and the year after,” he said.

“To me that is the definition of long-term planning,” Howard said. “I couldn’t agree more.”

Committee member Beth Stafford, pointed to the changes COVID has brought to teaching over the last two years as an illustration of how difficult long-range planning is for schools.

“It’s more difficult, I think, than a town budget because we’re talking children’s needs and we never know,” she said. “If you had done a five-year plan four years ago, it would have fallen apart because [of] COVID.”

While long-range planning is needed, Stafford said, she also wanted to talk about what is being done now.

Howard replied that he just doesn’t want to be sitting at the same table in three years discussing lay-offs because of any decision made today, even as he recognizes the need for the programs they are discussing.

“If we’re saying there’s a need today, and we’re falling into the trap of using one-time federal funding to support that need, I can assure you that we’ll be sitting here in three years and we’ll be cutting positions,” he said. “The money is not going to just flow from the sky.”

Szymaniak said the budget process has taken into account the current program needs plus the committee’s wish to offer full-day kindergarten while maintaining reasonable assessments to the towns. He added that interventionist/coaches were included in last year’s budget prior to knowing the ESSER III guidelines because they couldn’t get it into the operating budget.

“Tell me what you want me to spend, or tell me what you don’t want me to spend and I can make those changes,” Szymaniak said.

Committee member Steve Bois said he had been asked what the total expenditure of everything sought in the budget amounts to. 

“I seem to hear that we’re looking for more, but it’s not coming out of the general fund, per se,” he said, asking for a comparison or all the revenues and all the spending included in the FY ’23 budget. [Budget documents are accessible on the school district website whrsd.org].

Vice Chairman Christopher Scriven suggested that the question might be closer to whether one-time funding sources are being used for funding, which is inflating the overall budget for future years. 

The district received a total of $3,608,374 through all three Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) programs over three years.

“I am concerned about the ESSER funds going away in FY 2025, but if we look at it big picture again, that one-time money is for learning loss. … we’re looking to do that through our coaches [interventionists] and special education.”

In fiscal 2022 a total of $1,881,655 in one-time grants and federal program funds (largely from ESSER II) were spent on technology, para-professional support and tutors, employee benefits, data and technology software, according to Szymaniak. The district is looking to use $1,305,385 million in fiscal 2023 allocations to add interventionists — now being called coaches — and staff to help students catch up in the classroom, substitutes, para-professionals, supplies, COVID cleaning, and summer buses all of which — except benefits —can be moved within a budget by an amendment through DESE. ESSER II funding goes away in 2024, leaving $1.3 million in ESSER III funds. The plan to pull expenditures for inclusion, a curriculum director for special education and the Hanson Middle School TLC program with the aim of integrating them into the general budget. 

“Most of those people were integrated into this budget,” Szymaniak said. “We would like to see them maintained, and through this FY 2023 budget we may move some of those folks over … and keep the assessments to the towns as low as possible.” 

Other federal programs, such as Title 3, for which the district my soon qualify due to an increase in ESL students, may also help the budget picture, Szymaniak said.

“I’m really cautious about FY ‘25, because I don’t know what we’re going to need in ’25,’ he said.

“To me, there’s a real danger if we’re using one-time federal money to satisfy those positions,” Howard said of special ed positions paid for through ESSER funds. “You need to make that decision. Are they real positions that we’re going to maintain, because then, to me, they should be in the operating budget.”

Other federal funds

Szymaniak said there are seven positions being funded by federal dollars in the FY ’23 budget, including two English language teachers, a behavioral specialist, a technology coach, two interventionist/coaches and a math interventionist/coach position not yet filled.

Kniffen said the ESL and behavioral positions can’t be paid for with one-time funds.

“I have significant concerns about providing services to students who need them,” she said. Szymaniak agreed that the use of para-professionals does need to be re-evaluated. “We front-loaded this year and we front-loaded for FY ’23, and it’s going to give us two years to really evaluate if we need the amount of paras that we have.”

Regarding the behavioral specialist, Szymaniak said that, while there is a need for on this year, it isn’t clear if it will be needed by 2025. Small said he was not questioning the need, just whether there is another dollar source to fund it. He suggested looking the ESSER funds as a two-or three-year plan the district can wean itself off.

Szymaniak termed ESSER funds a “blessing and a curse,” because they are sent as “free money” but can only be used once, leaving school districts trying to decide how to spend that money.

While there has been an overall decrease in the number of special education students, there has been an increase in needs among the students in the district, Szymaniak said during discussion of the program’s budget impact. Stanbrook said $1.7 million projected to be left in Circuit Breaker is the amount forecast to remain in the account at the end of fiscal ’22 as the amount the district is required to spend in fiscal ’23. The official filing for fiscal ’23 has not been done yet, so a definite figure is not known at this point.

Whitman Selectman Randy LaMattina said that, the school budget as presented would deplete E&D by 2025 and creating a $1.5 million deficit.

“I’m not here to speak on the validity of the services you’re asking for … I truly believe they will make our district stronger,” he said. “I’m here to speak on how reckless this budget actually is. You will not only put services at risk by using one-time money, you’ll be putting teachers’ careers at risk.”

He said a plan is needed and suggested that the obvious plan is that an override would be needed.

“As a citizen of [Whitman], I ask you to come up with a better plan to put forward, rather then risk services, because I think that is what this does, ultimately, in 2025,” LaMattina said.

Szymaniak agreed that sustainability and planning are important.

School mask mandates are being reduced to a recommendation after Feb. 28. Mask requirements on school buses, by federal mandate, and in school health clinics, by state regulation, are still in force. In the meantime, the School Committee is taking another budgetary look at non-mandated busing costs, a decision that ultimately lies with the boards of selectmen in each town.

Superintendent of Schools Jeff Szymaniak said his recommendation has been that the school district should continue to follow state education and health guidelines, as it has done since August 2020. 

He stressed, when asked how masks would be enforced for unvaccinated persons, that the policy was a recommendation — not a requirement.

Szymaniak during the Wednesday, Feb. 9 School Committee meeting, said he had a Zoom call with Education Commissioner Jeffrey C. Riley, who indicated he is not asking to renew the mask mandate after Feb. 28.

“What that means for us is that after Feb. 28, DESE and MDPH are recommending masks only for students who are unvaccinated and staff that are unvaccinated,” he said. “They’ve pretty much dropped the recommendation for other folks attending preK to 12 — preK to 22 — schools, with the exception of buses.” 

Because of HIPAA and other privacy rules, no one could really ask others about their vaccination status, making enforcement nearly impossible.

School Committee Chairman Christopher Howard said that, unless the committee disagreed with the DESE/MDPH recommendation and wanted to revisit an earlier vote to abide by them, no action was required. If they wished to reconsider that vote, the only other meeting scheduled before Feb. 28 was the Feb. 17 meeting, which was planned exclusively as a budget session. 

“The uses of masks is a polarizing issue,” Howard said, noting that the committee received about 600 comments the last time feedback was sought.

“I can’t tell you the number of emails I’ve gotten from happy parents wanting to know how soon the masks can come off,” said Committee member, Fred Small, who was attending remotely be phone. He also reminded the Committee that the earlier vote was to abide by MDPH recommendations, not DESE.

He also said parents contacting him wanted to know why masks could not come off as early as the next day.

Committee member Heather Kniffen suggested that all Szymaniak needed to do was communicate with families about the latest information available so they can make an informed decision.

The Committee then followed Howard’s suggestion to amend the August 2020 vote to read that they would follow the recommendation of MDPH or DESE. That vote was unanimous.

Non-mandated busing

Szymaniak noted that the district is mandated by law to bus all K-12 students who live two miles or farther away from a school to school each day.

“This is not your vote, but I want you to be aware,” Szymaniak said of the options open to the towns. “Things shift at Town Meeting [and] it does change the assessment that we can control.”

The district received regional transportation reimbursement for anyone living 1.5 miles and out, he said. They also provide non-mandated busing for students living .5 miles to 1.5 miles around a school, with the towns picking up that cost.

“Questions have come up in the past about non-mandated busing and do we need it? What can we do?” Szymaniak said. “We truly have local regional elementary schools. There’s a lot of kids that are [within] a mile and a half to the school.”

School Committee policy also requires that all kindergarten students, whether they live within 1.5 miles or not, are bused to school,” he said. “It’s our rule that we do that.”

While there has been occasional discussion about whether Whitman should consider halting non-mandated busing, Hanson has not done so and no calculations have yet been done for Hanson as a result of that fact.

Calculations on whether to keep non-mandates busing within a certain distance from a school takes into consideration whether students within walking distance are kindergarteners, have to cross state roads [routes 14, 18, 27 and 58], where there are no sidewalks or where there are registered sex offenders living in the area, Szymniak said. It creates a tier system for bus ridership on which the budget is based. Each tier represents a school to which a given bus drives students. Four-tier buses drive students to the high school, a town’s middle school and each elementary school. Of the 20 buses contracted from First Student, six are four-tier, 12 are three-tier and two are two-tier.

School Committee member Steve Bois said traffic at the intersection near WMS has been increasingly clogged and he wants to see the state address it.

“There’s no way I’m voting to get rid of any non-mandated busing,” he said.

First Student plugs data into software that makes bus assignments within the parameters of school start times and making sure they arrive safely.

It costs $9,747.20 per day for 20 buses to transport students to school in the district. For 180 school days, that totals $1,753,329.60 plus $10,000 for a fuel clause allocation in the First Student contract.

Byers wondered if there was any way, keeping in mind the time restrictions concerning how long students are on buses and the number of students assigned to each bus, the number of buses could be used in Hanson.

“We could continue to look at this,” Szymaniak said about keeping the committee informed.

“If we increased the ridership on a bus in Hanson, that bus would take longer to do its route,” Small said. “We would probably run into some contractual differences as far as start times go within the schools.”

He also suggested the high school might have to start even earlier to get a jump-start, because the same buses are used in both towns. He suggested a Finance Committee motion last year advocated that the non-mandated bus cost not be recommended for passage. 

Pulling Whitman non-mandated busing out, the service costs $9,606.90 while changes the scheduling. Cutting out all Whitman non-mandated busing reduces the number of buses to 19, and costs $9,011.36.

Removing Whitman Middle School non-mandated busing saves $24,087 from the transportation budget and removing all Whitman non-mandated busing saves $131,284 in the overall transportation costs.

The number of students whose parents have opted out of bus travel to school in Hanson is 253 and in Whitman, it is 400.

“I have a concern, as a superintendent of students getting to school if non-mandated goes away,” he said. It would also increase vehicle traffic around schools as parents drop students off.

“It would [also] shift our assessments to the towns, because our transportation costs would remain high even though Whitman or Hanson wouldn’t be paying a line item in the budget,” Szymaniak said.

Complex calculations based on three scenarios have to begin with the fiscal ’23 general fund transportation budget, according to Business Manager John Stanbrook.

Scenario 1 starts with the assumption the non-mandated busing is as submitted in the fiscal 2023 budget at $1,7603,329.60. Scenario 2 assumes a cost of $1,739,242.69 with no Whitman Middle School busing — a savings of $54,680 — and Scenario 3 assumes a cost of $1,632,044.80 — a savings of $292,345 — with non-mandated busing for all of Whitman eliminated. Hanson’s costs would increase by $30,593 in Scnario 2 and $161,000 in Scenario 3.

“There’s still transportation costs,” he said.

“I want to get out in front of this with the committee,” Szymaniak said, indicating that traffic studies could be required if Whitman’s non-mandated busing is eliminated. “We’re trying to do our best.” 

He said getting all parents to respond to any kind of survey is difficult, so it makes it hard for the district to make substantive decisions.

“I think it will be really important for you to build scenarios for Hanson,” said Committee Chairman Christopher Howard. “Based on how things have gone in the past … I would think, if this was to happen in Whitman … it’s going to cause a chain reaction.”