HANSON – The Select Board, on Tuesday, April 25, came to a consensus agreement to join with Whitman and the W-H School Committee in voting to require a two-thirds vote for all financial votes of the School Committee, rather than only financial votes, as part of a revised Regional Agreement.
“Although that doesn’t put us back to the per-pupil method, I think it does go a ways toward showing that there’s some partnership among the School Committee and the town of Whitman,” Select Board Chair Laura FitzGerald-Kemmett said, thanking Select Board member Jim Hickey for his “swan song” in persuading the other boards to agree to his proposal. “He really worked hard on it and it was very persuasive.”
Hickey was absent from the meeting.
Town Administrator Lisa Green added that a consensus document, with all the areas of the sections discussed and agreed on – dealing with transportation, building leases, the two-thirds vote and capital expenses – will be forwarded to the school district’s legal counsel for a review of language.
The Regional Agreement Committee will reconvene after town elections to discuss any questions or concerns stemming from that review.
Whitman agreed on a consensus basis to the revisions during their April 18 meeting.
“Every group brought their suggestions back,” Select Board representative Justin Evans told the Whitman board, reminding them there were not a lot of contentious issues. He reviewed the most contentious issues with his board – including the two-thirds vote.
Whitman Chair Randy LaMattina said Hickey’s argument that a two-thirds vote on the assessment method would “go a long way.”
Emergency capital expenses have been another concern of Whitman’s particularly the debate the board has had with the school district on maintenance responsibilities vs emergency repairs.
Evans reported the schools were concerned about the timeliness of doing emergency repairs.
“You’re talking about half an hour,” Vice Chair Dan Salvucci said, by the time the facilities direct can inspect a problem to advise the town administrator on whether or not it is an emergency.
“If something is an emergency, you have an obligation to act immediately to remediate it,” Former Whitman Town Administrator Frank Lynam said to help clarify the matter. If the expense involved a large sum of money the Select Board was uncomfortable approving the expenditure, one can always go to the director of accounts under Ch. 41 and seek an authorization for emergency spending. “It’s not a complicated process.”
Most emergencies are obvious, but he said he has seen some over the years that “were not that exigent.”
“It’s common sense,” he said.
Evans said the language concerning emergencies makes sense.
In other business, the Select Board also voted to appoint Laurie Cogan and Jason Green as caretakers at Camp Kiwanee. Green recused herself other than to say many caretakers are needed, because she filled out a potential conflict of interest disclosure on one of them. She said there are not enough caretakers to work weddings and other events for the upcoming season.
FitzGerald-Kemmett said she didn’t think Green needed to recuse herself, but that she didn’t think the optics looked good for Green’s son to be applying for the job since she is town administrator and, as personnel director, she would have to be involved in any performance issues that might occur.
Select Board member Ann Rein said she thought it was a “shame” that he could be precluded from doing something because his mother works for the town.
Select Board member Joe weeks said he understood the concern, but was feeling conflicted about it and Heal agreed it was a tough call.
“I don’t see a real issue, but I’m wondering,” Heal said.
Weeks asked if her son has financial ties to her or lives with her. She said there are no financial ties, but he does live at home. When Weeks questioned if it even mattered, FitzGerald-Kemmett said it could be argued that, because he lived at home, it could be argued that Green benefits financially from her son’s working for the town.
The Camp Kiwanee Commission has voted to hire both.
The Select Board voted 4-0 to hire Cogan and 3-1, with FitzGerald-Kemmett voting no and asking Green to not take it personally. Green said she did not regard it that way.
The board voted a conditional approval to the application for a Class II auto sales permit from: Limitless Auto Sales, 200 Liberty St. They are new owners of the property. The acting fire chief has to inspect the existing building to ensure it meets safety regulations before the board signs off on it.

Dollars for Scholars will hold its eighth annual “Bowling for Dollars for Scholars” from noon to 5 p.m., on Saturday, April 29, and Sunday, April 30, at the Hanson Bowladrome (adjacent to the Hanson AA) at 171 Reed Street in Hanson.
For every string bowled during the event a donation will be made to benefit Whitman & Hanson Dollars for Scholars. The cost to bowl will be $10 per string with no charge for shoe rental. Door prizes and complementary food will be available throughout the two day event.
All funds raised during the event will benefit the Class of 2023 in the form of scholarships. For more information, please contact Mike Ganshirt at 781-252-9683 or visit www.WhitmanAndHanson.DollarsforScholars.org.

The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) and school legal counsel have determined the educational opportunities for fifth-graders in the W-H district meet minimum guidelines for equity.
Referring to previous discussions on the legality of inequities tied to educational opportunities of fifth-graders, since they attend the middle school in Hanson and the elementary schools in Whitman, Superintendent of Schools Jeff Szymaniak said on Wednesday, March 15, that he spoke with DESE officials as well as district legal counsel about the issue during the week.
The committee will likely revisit the issue on another agenda after the civil rights concern still remained for at least one committee member.
Counsel Andrew Waugh, who found “nothing in chapter law that what we’re doing is illegal,” recommended the calls to DESE, Szymaniak said at the Wednesday, March 15 meeting.
Heather Montalto, a problem resolution team specialist with DESE, and Ann Marie Stronach an administrator, who both said the district meets minimum requirement for the equity of instruction.
“I do want to stress this is the minimum requirement,” Szymaniak said. “That’s where we’re at right now.”
Stronach said it’s up to a school committee as to whether or not schedules are changed within a district.
“I just wanted to report back that we’re not doing anything illegal … but it is up to the school committee’s purview to change the schedules of the schools. That’s what we do,” he said.
Member Hillary Kniffen noted that the district actually exceeds the minimum time on learning requirements of 900 minutes for middle schools and 990 for high schools.
“The issue ant the topic that I brought forward wasn’t necessarily, ‘Can you ask DESE if we’re meeting regulations?’” member Dawn Byers said. “It was that there’s a Civil Rights Act of 1964, so I think the question really needed to be, ‘Are we violating a human being’s civil rights by not providing the same educational opportunity?’”
She said the district policy manual includes an equal educational opportunity policy (J-b), which references the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Agreeing with that point, Whitman Finance Committee member Rosemary Connolly said the 10-percent disparity in educational time afforded to Whitman students is a deficit worth $1.4 million taxpayers were charged, but school students did not have access to, suggesting that federal educational officials be called because “there are rules to Title 1 grants.”
“You can’t create inequities because of the way the regional agreement is written,” Connolly said. “Sometimes, it’s how you ask questions that gets you the right answer.”
Member Fred Small asked for the name of the DESE attorney Byers had said she spoke with on the issue as well as the date and time of that conversation.
“When I called DESE, they referred me to attorney George Hale, and when I explained the situation, his response was this is a school committee problem,” Byers said adding that she informed him that she is a school committee member and feels it is a problem. She said he did some quick research while she was on the phone and gave her the number for the Boston office of the Civil Rights Division, saying that someone could file a lawsuit.
Chair Christopher Howard said his recollection was that a concern was voiced from DESE that the district was doing something illegal, Szymaniak follwed up with DESE and they said that was not the case.
“Correct,” Szymaniak said.
“If there’s subsequent concerns, I’m sure they could be shared with the superintendent and he’ll look into it, but that was what was said last week,” Howard said. “Certainly, that could be done. … We could chase this in all different directions. Lawsuits can happen all the time for a whole host of reasons, that’s just the nature of the American legal system.”
Member Glen DiGravio argued that what’s happened shouldn’t matter.
“What we’re going to do should matter,” he said, adding that a solution would be to find some way to get the two schools aligned.

WHITMAN – The town will be seeing an “extremely lean” budget – at a 5-percent school assessment – according to town officials. The budget approved by the School Committee approved last week would mean another $560,351 will have to be cut.
“If we do that, I feel that we’re looking, without a doubt, at layoffs on police, fire, DPW, Town Hall,” she said. “I just don’t know where … in this budget there is not an extra $560,351 to skim off this.
While it still needs “tweaking,” Carter said the budget is balanced at this point, with more articles yet to be voted, but that all but $316.25 of the town’s free cash has been used at this point, Carter reported.
Not all town officials see such a dire picture, but agreed more work needs to be done.
“It’s clear that the number they submitted, given the current levy that we have, is not going to work,” said Select Board member Shawn Kain, who also serves on the Budget Subcommittee, but he disagrees with the School Committee and district are making decisions solely through the lens of being an advocate for students. While admirable, he said he has to balance that with his role of being an advocate for all departments.
“The vibe I got the other night was, [the schools] are willing to come in high again and go back and forth for a couple of weeks,” he said. “It’s the old game that, we’ve played over the years that I’m hoping we can move away from.”
Kain, who is also an educator, said the subcommittee was not there to make decisions, but to do due diligence so the town’s financial team could be more informed about the decisions they make.
He argued that the best option, until the town knows with certainty that hold-harmless might end next year, the town should stick to the policy it has put in place, calculating the yearly increase of 5 percent.
“I’m looking at more slow, incremental, positive change,” he said. “No drastic, big change and I think that’s what the policy is allowing us to do.”
Not all members of the Select Board took such a negative view, however.
“This feels like a workable budget,” said Select Board member Justin Evans, who noted this is his sixth budget process. “The town has dialed back all of the department requests to level service with free cash. … I think it would not be unreasonable to ask the department to take a look and to the same.”
Evans said the current financial climate in town feels more like fiscal 2019 and 2021, than the 2020 budget when deep cuts were needed. He added this year’s budget could work if everyone worked together.
After a week of number Town Administrator Mary Beth Carter informed the Select Board, in a joint meeting with the Finance Committee on Tuesday, March 21, that with a 5-percent assessment from the schools, which they had calculated for, the town was “not close” to a balanced budget for the coming year.
“I went line-by-line with [Town Accountant Ken Lytle and interim Town Administrator Frank Lynam] and cut everything that we could possibly cut without hurting the departments,” she said. “We used the free cash that we had available for the articles.”
There were also a couple of warrant articles that have been removed and the town now plans to use ARPA funds to fund.
The budget does include 2.5percent salary increases already negotiated with the unions, as well as for department heads unless they have contracts, which might have different salary agreements.
The joint meeting was attended by several town department heads, held a sobering discussion of the municipal budget for FY 2024.
Police Chief Timothy Hanlon and Fire Chief Timothy Clancy each made presentations to the two boards during the Select Board meeting. [See page 3]
“I think we’re in a better place than we were last year,” said Finance Chair Rick Anderson, noting that they have been meeting with all departments – a process that is still ongoing. Anderson said the FinCom has been concerned from the start about the sustainability of the budget, and recognized the Budget Subcommittee for its work.
“It’s not easy to separate the wants and the needs, but I really think they did an exemplary job taking the budget submissions that were provided by the town departments and coming up with some middle ground,” he said.
Select Board Chair Randy LaMattina said there was no intention when it was formed, to have the Budget Subcommittee draft the town’s budget, but that it was designed to help develop a budget and clarify points when needed.
“That budget that you’ve all received shows some pretty key points, that diligence has been done, that budgets have been scraped to try to make this within our levy,” he said. “This is a budget created by a professional financial team.”
LaMattina said another key issue is revenue analysis.
“I don’t think you’ll see any fictitious numbers in our revenue,” he said in the first of many references during the meeting to Finance member Kathleen Ottina’s comment at the March 15 School Committee meeting that preliminary town budget figures represented “fictitious numbers,” because the town’s projections have been stable, except where the town has had to “push it a little bit more” to barely accommodate everyone.
“To basically stand up in that meeting and draw a line in the sand between departments, the town and the schools … I was just in shock,” he, criticizing Ottina’s standing to make her comments to the School Committee as a representative of the Finance Committee.
Ottina explained that she realized immediately that she had unintentionally used the wrong word, meaning to say “preliminary.”
“There’s nothing fictitious about them,” she said. “We’ve been living with these numbers every Tuesday night for the past three months, but I do believe some of these figures are preliminary.”
Anderson said Ottina was representing the Finance Committee at the meeting and, as such presents her opinions as the liaison to the committee, but there are eight other members of the Finance Committee which is still preliminarily evaluating that budget.
She said town departments should mirror the schools and present higher budgets to the Finance Committee, so decisions can be made on those needs.
LaMattina argued that the School Committee is vastly different, in that they certify a budget.
“Our department heads simply make an ask as a presentation of where they’re looking to go in the future,” he said. “[The Select Board] has the ability to tell our department heads, ‘You will not get that this year.’ We do not have that same luxury with the schools.”
Vice Chair Dan Salvucci recalled a meeting held a few years ago in which department heads had “cut their budgets to the extreme,” noting the cuts had almost been dangerous – especially where police and fire services were concerned.
“I don’t ever want to see that happen again,” he said. “I will not support a budget that the town has to cut so deeply that we lose people. That’s not what we’re here for.”
Salvucci mentioned that the fire department incurs added costs and ambulance availability for having to transport patients to hospitals further away because Brockton Hospital is temporarily closed due to recent fire damage.
“The revenue is the revenue, and I think that’s a piece that has been sadly overlooked this year,” LaMattina said. “Sadly.”

HANSON – The Hanson Select Board, on Tuesday, March 7, held a strategic planning session with other boards and department heads at Camp Kiwanee.
The goal, according to Select Board Chair Laura FitzGerald-Kemmett, was to review the results of last year’s initial brainstorming session to avoid having that work wasted by tucking it on a shelf and forgetting it.
The meeting broke up into groups to discuss where progress had been made and where it is still needed.
“We want to come out of tonight with some solid action steps,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “We don’t want to be just talking in circles.”
The areas in which goals were being discussed were:
• Public facilities for improvement to meet the needs of citizens and town departments;
• Public programming and recreation to develop programs and opportunities for citizens of all ages;
• Economic development to mitigate tax increases while providing first-class services to Hanson citizens;
• Citizen engagement to build participation in town government by filling volunteer positions and increasing Town Meeting attendance; and
• Town administration to make town employment more attractive to qualified candidates.
“One of the loudest cries that we heard was about communicating with citizens and engaging citizens and, of course, that got back to our website and how we do things,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said, introducing Town Administrator Lisa Green, who described the Select Board’s contracting of Capital Strategic Solutions to assist with that civic engagement effort.
“They have revamped and redesigned how [we] post things,” she said of examples the consultant has posted on social media. “So far, we’ve heard very god feedback.”
They’ve only been at work on the project for about three or four weeks, Green said, but what town officials have seen is excellent.
The Economic Development Committee is also hard at work. Town Planner Antonio DeFrias outlined the group’s economic manual. Completed a few months ago, it provides a step-by-step handbook for the steps new businesses coming into town need to get inspections done before opening and other information.
The facilities group’s discussion yielded a monthly follow-up schedule of meetings to identify all current and future public facilities to discover, among other things, the exact use of the facilities and how they fit into the capital matrix and whether they have ancillary support groups or foundation. Archiving and publishing the information is another goal.
Under Recreation, one of the goals is to return to a Recreation Committee, in place of the Camp Kiwanee Commission. It’s five members would serve one-year terms to establish policies and procedures and establish a business plan to help make it self-sufficient and to create a revolving account to support the programs and prevent using it as an enterprise fund. An events calendar is one way of publicizing programs.
Economic Development requires a huge partnership between land use groups and the EDC, according to that working group, and should start on the MBTA Communities 40R overlay and extending the flexible overlay further down Main Street, as that is their area of focus. Zoning bylaws should also be reviewed in an effort to make the town more business friendly, while reconvening the EDC.
Capital Strategic solutions’ help with improving the website Citizen engagement is a key, but getting town representatives out to holding both hours at events like Hanson Days and other town events. A discussion of sign bylaws so an electronic message board could be placed at Town Hall was also considered.
Town administration’s mission to take care of Town Hall staff, needs a human resources position – an HR generalist working out of the Select Board office, working with the town administrator. One suggestion was to use funds such as the cannabis impact fees, meals tax and tax title properties could be used for that salary. A clear, concise and easy to understand employee handbook was also recommended.

School Committee chair Christopher Howard wrapped up the Wednesday, March 1 meeting by announcing his resignation, effective following the Monday, May1 Hanson Town Meeting.
“I’ve personally reached a point of disappointment and frustration to where it’s time for me to step off the committee,” he said, adding that he would be delivering a letter to Hanson Town Clerk Elizabeth Sloan the next day. “It’s seven years, it’s time. I think it’s important to stay with the committee through Town Meeting, we have a lot of work to do between now and then.”
He added that he wanted to give the town a chance to prepare – placing someone on the ballot – for the Town Election and give Hanson voters the opportunity to weigh in.
Committee members expressed surprise at the announcement and, while Howard discouraged professional euologes, Vice Chair Christopher Scriven said he intended to thank Howard for his time and service.
“I’m going to say out loud that the transition from the last regime, let’s say, has been drastic,” Scriven said. “We’ve been more aggressive, we’ve been more transparent, we’ve been more open to feedback from the public, we’ve worked collaboratively in a better manner and we owe you a debt of gratitude.”
“It’s a committee of 10,” Howard said. “We’ve got a lot of work to do between now and then.”
Committee member Beth Stafford attended the meeting remotely via phone and member Steven Bois was absent.
The committee also heard a budget update, as new Cherry Sheet figures became available from the state since the Feb. 22 meeting.
District Business Manager John Stanbrook said school choice and charter schools are the two figures hitting the expense side of the fiscal 2024 budget.
“Those were general fund Cherry Sheet charges, state aid charges,” Stanbrook said, noting he had placed $200,000 as a place holder for school choise on Feb. 15, and it ended up being $208,962 – or an $8,962 increase to the budget. He had calculated $950,000 for district-wide charter schools, but Cherry Sheet figures put it at $1.19 million, up more than $240,000.
Under revenue changes, Chapter 70 funds went down by an estimated $18,000, while charter school reimbursement went up $40,000. He had caluclated regional transportation reimbursement at 90 percent when it was actually adding up to 87 percent. An error in carrying over non-mandated busing costs for both towns has also been corrected, at $8,000.
Operating budget changes – as a result of Gov. Maura Healey releasing her budget numbers March 1 for minimum local contribution also had minimum local contributions down slightly, while student enrollment rose a bit.
Hanson student count went from 1,344 to 1,390 and from 2,068 in Whitman to 2,180 for assessment percentages that shifted from 39.39 percent to 38.94 percent for Hanson and 60.61 percent to 61.06 percent for Whitman.
Hanson’s operating assessment would now be a 6.47-percent increase
Whitman’s would be a 7.70-percent increase on a $60,484,108.69 budget, which is a $249,276 increase.
The overall budget is up 3.41 percent over last year as of now, he said.
Superintendent of Schools Jeff Szymaniak said an update on hold harmless, which is decreased significantly, would be available Wednesday, March 8 after the budget subcommittee addresses it on Monday, March 6.
“The Cherry Sheet does reflect some change to hold harmless,” he said, noting Stanbrook was pretty accurate in his estimates.
While it has been cut to $500,000 because of the addition of universal free all-day kindergarten and low-income student costs into the foundation budget.
“That, for us is a benefit, really – going forward, not in FY ‘24,,” Szymaniak said. “We haven’t got much state aid in Chapter 70 because we’ve been at a $3.6 million or a $4.6 million hold harmless rate over the past couple of years. … Moving forward, hopefully, we will join the ranks of our next door neighbor Abington, getting $1.2 million in State Aid, Bridgewater-Raynham $3.2 million in State Aid in the future to help the towns out.”
A larger kindergarten enrollment because of full-day kindergarten, low income levels and the larger English learning population counts for the district in State Aid calculations and help get the district out of the hold harmless situation.
Committee member Dawn Byers said the larger enrollment didn’t exactly mean 150 more kids were added to the district.
“It’s a formula with the foundation enrollment where, a kindergarten student the prior year, was actually only counted as a half a student for enrollment numbers,” she said, explaining that the state looks at half-day kindergarten pupils that way for calculations. “Now they’re counted, enrollment-wise, as a full person.”
Stanbrook said the district’s 2022 excess and deficiency numbers have not yet been certified by the Department of Revenue, but he expects that information will be available by next week.
In other business, the district’s transportation department included the extra buses needed to realign the school start times between the elementary schools within the scenarios Szymaniak had presented the previous week, he announced, recommending using E&D to offset the cost.
“If we choose to not align the elementary schools, I have to go back to the financials about non-mandated busing,” he said.
While he wasn’t looking for a vote, Szymaniak said he was seeking three “asks” – to consider start times that give school-aged children more time at home; to align elementary schools to permit coordinated professional development with faculty and to add time to the school day.
Parents have been asking about the intent behind a longer school day, which he said could allow social-emotional learning as well as more instruction time. Some also noted that, as a financial decision, it is isn’t done, “where are we?”
Committee member Fred Small said he did not see how a decision could be made until all the information is available.
“I don’t know how you become Solomon and satisfy everybody at the same time, but without having all the information so we can make an informed decision, I just don’t think we can,” he said.
Vice Chair Christopher Scriven said finding the right decision is worth taking the time.
Committee member Beth Stafford said she felt very strongly that the elementary school starts would have to be aligned if the district is going to change start times.
Howard said the shortened Hanson bus trips can’t be sacrificed in the attempt to align start times.
“They’re separate, but they’re linked, and I’m sorry if it’s confusing,” Assistant Superintendent George Ferro, noting it makes it harder to leave the meeting without guidance from the committee.
“What I’m hearing is you need more information and this isn’t happening in the next two weeks,” Szymaniak said.
Byers had questioned the legality – from an equity standpoint – of treating fifth-graders as middle schoolers in one town and elementary students in another, which makes it hard for teachers to collaborate for the benefit of their students.
“I think people are concerned about the equity and the life experience,” Szymaniak said, noting that he would have to consult with district counsel on the question of legality. “That was a decision that was made in 2018, and I would have hoped it was run by counsel because, again, the committee made this decision then, aligning the schools.”
Szymaniak was not superintendent at that time.
“We can consult counsel on that,” he said.
“I do know that a parent called DESE to ask about inequity in the district and DESE’s answer was, ‘Do you have a parent who’s an attorney in the district? They may want to file a lawsuit,’” Byers said, admitting that she did not know what statute would cover it. “That’s all I’m saying.”
She said, referring to data-driven decisions, that a 7:05 a.m. start time is also not healthy and asked what is involved in the $1.7 million line item as far as the bus routes cost is concerned.
Scriven asked for a scheduled commitment going forward, if the committee was not taking action at this time.
“I just want to rest assured that we’re going to chart a course, so to speak,” he said, including a suggestion that all students be bused.
Szymaniak said that, too, was something that could be done.
“I think we need a plan,” Howard agreed. “We started this conversation in the fall last year. Here we are today [and] we need a thoughtful plan. And, if that thoughtful plan is we need a third-party consultant, sobeit. … We need a clearly articulate and defined plan – without the pressure of this budget cycle.”