WHITMAN —The Whitman Police Department is actively investigating an allegation of inappropriate contact between a teacher and a student, according to Police Chief Scott D. Benton.

At approximately 9:45 a.m. Wednesday, May 15, a Whitman Police School Resource Officer was notified of alleged inappropriate contact between a teacher and a student at the Duval Elementary School.

“On Wednesday, the principal of the Duval Elementary School in Whitman, Dr. Darlene Foley, was informed of an allegation of misconduct by a staff member,” according to a statement issued by Superintendent of Schools Dr. Jeffrey Szymaniak on Thursday, May 16. “Dr. Foley contacted the Central Office Administration and the School Resource Officer. The allegation is being investigated by the Whitman Police Department. The staff member has been placed on paid administrative leave as the School District and police investigate the allegation.”

Because the alleged incident involves a minor, further details cannot be released at this time.

As of Thursday morning, the investigation remains ongoing and no charges have been filed.

“A positive learning environment and the safety of all members of our school community are a priority in the Whitman-Hanson Regional School District,” Szymaniak stated. “The District appreciates its strong working relationship with both the Whitman and Hanson Public Safety departments to ensure the well-being of our community.

WHITMAN — Voters in a lengthy Town Meeting Monday night approved the $33.4 million fiscal 2020 budget following nearly 90 minutes of deliberation on various line items — with concern centering on town administrative salaries and school budgets.

The session adjourned after voting to pass over Article 29, regarding the amended W-H Regional School District Regional Agreement — due to concern over how Chapter 70 funds would be allocated — with 29 more to be addressed when Town Meeting reconvenes at 7:30 p.m., Monday, June 17 after voters cast ballots on a debt exclusion to fund those articles at the Saturday, May 18 annual Town Election. Town Meeting convened nearly 20 minutes behind schedule, due to the time needed to check in the 369 voters who attended.

Zeroing-out?

Lazel Street resident Marshall Ottina started the budget debate with a request to amend the town administrator salary line to $1, which ultimatelty failed.

The Finance Committee had recommended a $129,000 salary for Town Administrator Frank Lynam, to send a message about what Ottina termed a failure to adequately prepare solutions to Whitman’s financial problems. Lynam’s fiscal 2019 salary is $126,900 and he earned $122,000 in fiscal 2018.

“A year full of negligence and broken promises have brought the town of Whitman to where we are today,” Ottina said. “At Town Meeting last year, and the lead-up to it, the messaging from our town administrator, Board of Selectmen and Finance Committee indicated we were heading to a financial crisis … We face tonight, a year later, departmental budget cuts across the board.”

He also noted that W-H schools, while seeing a budget increase, is still experiencing cuts that will reduce services next year and is losing 19 employees, along with cuts to DPW, public safety and library — among other departments.

“We were told [last year] that an operational override was how we could make these departments whole again,” Ottina said. “And then they sat. Where is our plan for the override?”

Ottina said the money itself is not the problem, he does see the salary as a “failed investment on our part,” charging that Lynam has “offered us less and less” for the salary increases he has received.

Forest Street resident Shawn Kain, however, disagreed with
Ottina’s amendment despite his own long-standing budget disagreements with Lynam.

“I believe that [this] is one of the most important items in the budget,” Kain said. “The town administrator plays a critical role in the budget process. The position should be paid for — for the well-being of the community very much depends upon this individual.”

Kain said it is obvious the community is in a precarious situation and financial crisis, missing “essential best practices to protect us,”

“I thought about this long and hard,” Kain said about the salary issue. “Should we take aggressive action, zero out this line and make demands of the Board of Selectmen? … I don’t think we should and here’s why — the solution to this problem is very complex and will demand cooperation and strategy where there are  logistical differences in plans and policy. It needs to be thorough if it’s going to be done right. It cannot be done by force, it must be willfully chosen by all parties involved, but especially by the town administrator.”

He advocated putting partisan and aggressive politics aside and directly asked Lynam to shoulder the burden and meet the community’s demanding expectations. While noting the large turnout, Kain also recognized the recent tension in the community.

“If you are sitting in this hall, though, you have my respect,” Kain said. “Apathy and a lack of civic engagement is the true enemy. It’s an honor to be here tonight.”

Lynam responded that, while he “doesn’t make a habit of talking about my position or my salary,” the pointed comments prompted him to do so. He said there are things pending to help the town move forward, including last year’s contracting of the Collins Center at UMass, Boston to conduct a capital study and a budget analysis to enable a more thorough and supportable budget could be presented to the town. A draft that had been presented to him on May 1 had to be returned because some basic information was missing, Lynam said.

“If you’re unhappy with my performance, talk to the people who hired me, the Board of Selectmen, but you don’t zero-out a line, you don’t eliminate the possibility of having someone work — that’s just foolish,” he said.

While the salary amendment failed by 257 against to 82 in favor, but the $128,169 salary recommendation also failed 196 against to 156 in favor, until a resident on the prevailing side moved for a reconsideration, which passed by a vote of 259 in favor to 95 against.

Town Clerk Dawn Varley said final vote totals will not be released until after Town Meeting business concludes on June 17.

“I understand, as much as anyone, what’s going on,” said Animal Control Officer Laura Howe, noting that as a part-time employee with no benefits she practically pays the town to work for it. “I have never seen our town so divided in my entire 52 years of life. I am truly saddened and disheartened that we would discuss [zeroing out the salary line]. … Everyone who works for this town is a good person and I don’t know when we started picking up pitchforks and flames. … This man is a good man.”

After the meeting, Lynam said he was not surprised by the attempt to reduce his salary so drastically.

“I know that there was a small group of people who were discussing that,” he said. “It’s really the wrong way to do things. If you’re not happy about the way something’s done you advocate for change, you don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.”

Pay cuts

Finance Committee Chairman Richard Anderson and Fire Chief Timothy Grenno explained that, while union employees are receiving higher pay raises, administrators agreed to take a cut to an increase of only 1 percent to help the town save money.

“All of the department heads voted, because of the situation of the town, we’d take a 1-percent [raise],” Grenno said.

Because of the budget situation, a line item to fund a planned administrative deputy chief at the Fire Department was withdrawn as well, saving the town the planned $130,000 salary.

“There was a lot of discussion,” Anderson agreed. “The discussions were about reining in salaries and this Finance Committee is committed to making sure we make every effort to rein-in salaries. What we propose … is we are hoping that this 1-percent raise is the beginning of other departments and other collective bargaining units to consider reining in future salaries. This is something that the Finance Committee is wholly committed to.”

After Lynam’s salary was passed, challenges to several other administrative and non-union clerical salaries were set aside and those line items were passed.

WHITMAN — Selectmen agreed by consensus on Tuesday, April 30 to recommend the Finance Committee put forth an Article 2 budget with an 8.5-percent assessment increase for the schools — including $350,000 in estimated excess levy funds.

Selectmen did not, however, favor a 1-percent cut to non-union clerical and administrative staff salary increases, or reducing the health agent position to part-time status, and opted to leave the question of reductions to non-mandated school busing to Town Meeting.

Town Administrator Frank Lynam also asked the board to permit estimation of excess levy.

“As long as we vote to appropriate it, it will be used to set the tax rate, and I’m estimating $350,000,” he said. “If we take that number and treat that as part of our levy, then the value of that $350,000 is reflected in the tax rate we set.”

Lynam described it as a conservative number based on the last seven to 10 years.

The budget discussion followed a presentation on excess levy capacity — the difference between the levy limit and what the town ends up actually levying — by Assessor Kathleen Keefe. Lynam said the issue had been commented on over the last several days on social media platforms.

“It alludes to some nefarious plan on my part to keep the schools from getting additional money by not capitalizing on the excess levy number that we’re presenting when we hold a [tax] classification hearing,” he said of the posts. “I want to be clear on what our process is and what our process has always been.”

Lynam noted that Whitman does not typically hold a fall Town Meeting unless there is a need to make additional appropriations. Revenues presented at Town Meeting based on growth over the previous year’s tax limit and additional property development or construction.

Department of Revenue software is used to show the town’s potential tax rate and would the levy would be and to indicate any excess levy the town may have.

“In order for us to utilize that money, we have to appropriate it,” Lynam said. “We can’t just spend it. … We would have to hold a Town Meeting to make appropriations and there is insufficient time between the time we become aware of what that number is and the time we need to set a tax rate.”

The town holds its tax classification hearings in late October to mid-November, largely because the town contracts with Patriot Property to conduct assessments of property, new construction and renovations in town. Patriot typically files that report in August, because the contract payment limits the firm to beginning July 1, according to Keefe. In Hanson, where Keefe serves on the Board of Assessors, the town uses in-house staff in the assessor’s office to inspect for the building permits as the permits come in, allowing them to “capture that growth as it comes in.”

New building permits from July 1 from one year to June 30 the next are included in the calculation.

Selectman Randy LaMattina estimated that “left $4.1 million on the table” over the last several years in Whitman and asked how the town could get that information sooner.

“The answer to that is to try to get these numbers sooner,” Keefe said, noting it would involve more collaboration between Town Hall departments. “If we get these numbers sooner, then we know where we are going into things.”

Keefe agreed “100 percent” that Lynam has been, as he described, “border-line harassing” her for the excess levy capacity figures.

The DOR requires that information by at least Thanksgiving Day to provide the town’s revenue information by December to permit the town to set a tax rate by Jan. 1 to permit billing for third-quarter taxes — or the town will have to wait until April to bill semi-annually.

The levy limit is calculated based on new growth, non-allocated local receipts, enterprise funds and free cash not yet certified until the fall.

Budget
recommendations

The Finance Committee last week voted most of Article 2, with the exception of the issues from which they sought recommendations from selectmen, including school assessment — where they support 8.5 percent — non-mandated busing, cuts to non-union clerical and administrative pay increases from 2 percent to 1 percent, and reduction of the health agent’s hours.

The Finance Committee’s recommended amount for the schools line is $14,398,151, which represents the 8.5-percent assessment increase over last year, Lynam said. Lynam said any proposals the Selectmen wanted to keep would not affect the 8.5 percent.

The requested number for non-mandated busing was $396,604, which the Finance Committee reducing to $173,471 to cover the need for transport children whose parents might not be able to afford other means.

“The decision on that is obviously one that would have to be made at Town Meeting,” Lynam said.

School Committee member Fred Small said Commissioner of Education Jay Sullivan has told him that pupils on the Free and Reduced Lunch Program would be eligible to ride the bus free of charge, but Lynam said he has not received confirmation on that information. Selectmen also wanted to know more information on the number of families potentially affected as well as any need for more crossing guards.

“We have to deal with the schools on some items like that, and we haven’t done it yet,” said Selectmen Chairman Dr. Carl Kowalski, citing inequities between Whitman and Hanson on how programs, including foreign languages, are offered. “It doesn’t seem right to me that the kids in Hanson don’t have to be in a lottery [to win a seat in a Spanish class] and the kids in Whitman do.”

“It’s pathetic,” Small agreed.

The requested budget for a full-time health inspector was $66,789 — a 1-percent increase over last year — with the Finance Committee’s recommended budget being $40,531, reducing it to part-time status.

Selectmen objected to the cutback, citing concern for public health and the need for timely food inspections as well as the increasing number of condemnations and two hoarding situations within the past year.

The DPW superintendent’s salary was also recommended by the Finance Committee to be trimmed from the requested $100,356 (identical to the Parks and Highway superintendent’s pay) to $90,000 — a 17-percent decrease.

HANSON — Selectmen have tabled a vote on joining the  Regional Old Colony Communications Center (ROCCC) for 911 dispatch services over lingering questions of cost and equal representation for the town.

The concerns, voiced again Tuesday, April 16 by Selectmen Matt Dyer and Laura FitzGerald-Kemmett came after the board had a chance to review the contract they were slated to approve and sign the agreement.

Headquartered in Duxbury, the ROCCC already handles 911 calls, police, fire and EMS dispatching for the towns of Duxbury, Plympton, Halifax and Rochester.

The cost for Hanson would be $400,000 minus $200,000 received through a grant from state 911 officials, the result of a meeting between state and officials and ROCCC.

Before the discussion over the vote, the board, in executive session voted to approve memorandum of agreement with the dispatchers’ union to pay a one-time severance payment based on their years of service with the Hanson Police Department in anticipation of acceptance of the ROCCC contract. Dispatchers working four years or less would receive $2,500; less than six years, but more than four would receive $4,000; six years or more would receive $5,000 — a stipend for them to stay until the end of the transition period to ROCCC. The union has agreed to stay on during the transition period — if the board was to vote to join ROCCC, which is planned to go into effect by July 1, 2020.

The talks for the transition began more than a year ago.

“I think this board and all the departments, the chiefs, have done their due diligence to look at making a change in our dispatch,” Selectmen Chairman Kenny Mitchell said. “Our dispatchers are great and they do a great job, it’s just sometimes they get multiple calls and one person can only handle so many calls at one time.”

All five Hanson Selectmen have toured the facility.

“There are a couple of concerns to overcome, and I believe we can, but at the end of the day, I truly believe this is a better decision for the residents and a public safety decision,” Mitchell said.

ROCCC staff in Duxbury, Mitchell, Town Administrator Michael McCue, Police Chief Michael Miksch and Fire Chief Jerome Thompson Jr., Police Lt. Michael Casey and Deputy Fire Chief Robert O’Brien Jr., would all be involved in the transition work.

“I’m very happy with what I’ve seen so far,” Mitchell said of what he termed a “standard agreement” for all member municipalities.

Dyer questioned a contract provision that Hanson would be responsible for maintaining service or support agreements that Hanson may have for it’s own radio or computer equipment, for which the town would continue to be responsible.

“When we went and toured the facility, I thought the chief over there and the director said that we wouldn’t have to worry about licensing or anything like that for software, that we wouldn’t have to worry about maintaining our radios here in Hanson, that they were all going to take care of it,” he said.

Mitchell said that provision involved radios the town already has.

FitzGerald-Kemmett questioned what software Hanson would need if the ROCCC was going to be operating it.

McCue agreed with Mitchell’s assessment that the clause meant ROCCC is not going to assume responsibility for equipment Hanson already owns.

“I respect the questions that some members of the board have in terms of [the clause] being a little too loose,” McCue said, suggesting the board vote the contract and he would work to clarify the language.

Dyer also noted he had also requested “hard math” on the cost of maintaining operations in Hanson, bringing on extra dispatchers and ensuring that the police station does not go dark.

“We both asked for that, and we were told that they couldn’t give us the numbers until they applied to the state and heard back from the state,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “Now that they’ve got [the $200,000] we need the information we asked them for.”

She also questioned who would be staffing the station and how often it would be staffed as well as her continuing request for Hanson to have equal representation.

“I specifically asked that, in this agreement, that there be a stipulation that, as soon as they can, we have an equal seat at that damn table to be voting,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “I don’t see anything in here that says that. This is acting like, forever and a day we’re going to be under Duxbury’s domain, and I am not OK with that.”

She reminded the board that she has mentioned her concern about representation every time she has talked with ROCCC officials.

“It’s not going to go away,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said, suggesting language supporting equal representation as a goal would be sufficient. “I’m OK with it if it’s temporary, but the way this is structured, that’s not the way it reads.”

Selectman Jim Hickey, who also opposes a dark police station, said he wanted to see cost figures and expressed concerns about a 90-day transition if Hanson opts to leave the center.

“That seems like a steep hill to climb,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said.

Budget questions

In other business, the board tabled Article 5 on the annual Town Meeting warrant — the budget — over uncertainty surrounding the assessment the town faces over school costs.

McCue also reported to Selectmen that the town could support a 6.5 percent assessment for the schools, a figure recommended by the Finance Committee.

Selectman Wes Blauss asked what would happen if Town Meeting approved the 12.5 percent currently being sought by the schools. McCue said that scenario would require an override in October. The Town Meeting cannot adjourn until the budget is balanced, meaning cuts would have to be made on the floor with an override needed to make up any cuts, in the event that a 12.5 percent assessment were to pass.

“I don’t feel comfortable voting on this until the eagle’s landed and I just don’t think the eagle’s quite landed yet,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said.

But he also stressed that the School Committee is slated to discuss the budget again before Town Meeting.

“It feels weird to be voting on the 6.5 percent and I’m not seeing anybody from the School Committee here or [Superintendent of Schools] Jeff Szymaniak here to talk to us about what will happen if we go with 6.5 percent,” FitzGerald Kemmett said.

McCue said school representatives had met with Hanson’s Finance Committee last week.

“I think because we’ve been quite clear from the beginning of what we could afford — and that number has not moved — that they know where we stand,” McCue said.

WHITMAN — Selectmen on Tuesday, April 9 approved the presentation of a debt exclusion question at the Monday, May 6 Town Meeting and on the annual Town Election ballot on Saturday, May 18 — and to wait until the fall to seek an operational override.

The debt exclusion removes the cost of the new police station and renovations made to Town Hall and the fire station from within the levy limit. Selectmen faced an April 13 deadline to approve a ballot question. The planned pre-Town Meeting informational session has been moved to 6 to 8 p.m., Wednesday, April 17.

In an often-contentious joint session with the Finance Committee — attended by a large crowd of department heads, town employees, School committee members, educators and school supporters — the question of whether to seek both financial approaches at the same time or the order in which they should be approached separately.

“We’ve gone through several iterations of budget estimates,” Town Administrator Frank Lynam said. “We’ve had differing opinions on how to proceed, based on at least in part, whether we believe we will get the support we need.” He reminded Selectmen that a long-term capital plan and budget model is in the works, with completion expected at the end of the month. That work would provide an idea what kind of override would be sought in the fall.

Lynam suggested a debt exclusion would be the most effective method to start with the aim being to free up some capital money and to build a long-term plan based on increased revenue from an override.

Free cash and capital stabilization would be used to pay for previous budget commitments, which would leave a balance of $460,000 in free cash and stabilization.

That would fund essential warrant articles through Article 29, include the debt exclusion to fund the bond and adjourn the Town Meeting until June 3, after the Town Election decides on the debt exclusion question, either funding the remaining articles if it passes or making cuts if it does not.

The budget under current consideration by the Finance Committee would include $13,800,992, a 4-percent increase to the W-H school assessment — and a request that Lynam recalculate the remaining lines on Article 2. Lynam countered that his proposal gives the schools a 6.5 percent assessment increase.

Finance Committee Chairman Richard Anderson and Vice Chairman David Codero expressed reservations with the approach taken.

“The day after the Selectmen’s meeting of last week, I sent an email to the members of the board to relay the unanimous concern we have for the newest direction you appear to be taking with respect to a recommendation to Town Meeting,” Anderson said about the new Article 2 based on a meeting called by department heads and to which Selectmen Chairman Dr. Carl Kowalski and Vice Chairman Dan Salvucci were invited. “The biggest concern we have at this point is eliminating the Proposition 2 ½ override as part of the recommendation.”

Anderson said the Finance Committee views an override as a critical component of this year’s budget discussion. Codero was more blunt, while he commended department heads for their budget cuts made to avoid layoffs.

“It’s not a sustainable approach, that’s the headline,” Codero said of the new Article 2 recommendation. “It’s my understanding that the department heads’ Article 2 is reliant on both passing the override and the debt exclusion. It’s a dangerous way to play with the sustainability of our future.”

He also characterized the department heads’ meetings with Kowalski and Salvucci as being done “in the shadows of [the] Open Meeting” law, and that the first such meeting excluded the schools. Lynam vigorously countered that department heads are not governed by that provision.

“The fact that they held a meeting and I wasn’t aware of it and wasn’t invited to attend, does not shake me as being something inappropriate or untoward,” Lynam said. “If they choose to meet that way, then they meet that way. They are not obligated to post meetings, they are not obligated to invite the public, they have an opportunity to sit down and plan together.”

Whether or not the schools were invited was up to the organizers of the meeting and Lynam made sure school representatives were invited to the second department head meeting.

“We had town employees that were fearful of losing their jobs,” said Salvucci, who attended both department head meetings. “They took … your Article 2 and made cuts where they could to save people’s jobs.”

He said they agreed to make additional cuts to bring the school increase up to the 6.5-percent level Hanson is offering.

School Committee member Fred Small vigorously argued that the schools are part of the town, too.

“We’ve got high school students going to school in the black of the dark of morning because we’re able to save $300,000 on busing,” he said. “We have done so many things over the years — cutting, cutting, cutting — the only thing left to cut, for us, is bodies.”

Small also said he understood the 4-percent increase was only intended as a discussion point.

“I certainly never intended the number to be used by department heads to formulate a separate Article 2,” Anderson said. “We’re working on two separate budgets. … This is not the recommendation to Town Meeting. This is a working document for the Finance Committee and the Board of Selectman.”

He said the Selectman and Finance Committee are basically in agreement over what needs to be done, it is just a question of when.

Superintendent of Schools Jeffrey Szymaniak echoed Small’s commending of town departments, but said the 6.5 percent assessment would mean the loss of three non-union employees, middle school foreign language, six paraprofessionals, three duty aides, the part-time elementary music teacher, a guidance staff member and 19 teachers — with 4 percent meaning an elementary math curriculum and 23 teachers in addition to the other cuts. Special education costs have run over by $630,000 this year. There are 82 staff members paid through federal grants.

Rosemary Connolly noted the Finance Committee makes decisions based on demographics, rather than a whole town.

“They did it in a bubble,” she said. “It will not be in the best interests of the town … and I hope to not see things like this in the future.”

Kowalski said that, at some point the residents of town will have to agree to spend more money, but that the department head meetings could sustain the town for awhile as they build the budget sustainability by increments.

“There’s a fear that a Proposition 2 ½ override will not pass,” he said.

Selectmen, for a time Tuesday night, seemed close to opting to seek both and override and a debt exclusion at the same time, or to look toward an override first.

“I, for one, am not willing to wait to fix it in the fall,” Anderson said.

Selectman Randy LaMattina said the debt exclusion option works because departments would use it to fill their budgets and he has “seen a budget that works with a debt exclusion.” He has also advocated for the debt exclusion for years.

“The problem with an override is you can’t just ask for a blank number and that’s what I think we’d be doing with an override,” he said. “I have faith that we can pass an override. It needs to be completely detailed where the money’s going.”

LaMattina also said he had concerns after hearing about the first department head meeting, but after attending the second one, he could “only applaud the department heads.”

“I could understand where they are coming from,” he said. “When your back’s against the wall you want to fight your way out of it.”

Whitman Middle School

In other business, Selectmen approved beginning the statement of interest process to the MSBA for a new or renovated grade five to eight Whitman Middle School. The School Committee has already approved the SOI.

Szymaniak said ongoing issues represent challenges for the future health and safety of students and teachers as well as ongoing repair costs.

“This could be a short-term process — probably not — but it could also be a five- or six-year process before they accept us,” Szymaniak said. “It depends on the severity of what they deem is important to our middle school.”

South Shore Tech has been in the queue for five years on a renovation project for which they are seeking MSBA funding.

Facilities Director Ernest Sandland offered a lengthy explanation of the selection process, including the forms that must be submitted to the state. Need outlines, budget process, history of the school and past upgrades, safety concerns such as mold and vermin (termites, bees and mice) problems, and the timeline proposed must all be submitted by April 12. The MSBA Board of Directors will comprise a list of approved projects in December. If Whitman is approved, selecting and creating a schematic design and budget could take about two years more.

“We’re spending so much on repairs over there, that it’s a budget-killer,” Sandland said.