Superintendent of Schools Jeff Szymaniak gave high marks to the opening of school on Thursday, Aug. 31, despite some “blips in the road with busing,” thanking public safety personnel for participating in what has become their tradition of meeting incoming students at the schools for high-fives and smiles.
“The positivity from our emergency service workers is outstanding and I can’t thank them enough,” he reported to the School Committee at its Wednesday, Sept. 13 meeting.
New guidelines for buses went into effect this school year, and the Safety Committee met on Sept. 1 to review “each and every concern,” Szymaniak said, noting that panel meets annually.
“When parents have concerns around transportation, we gather the Safety Committee,” Szymaniak said. “It always includes public safety [officials], but this year, it included the superintendent, assistant superintendent, our building-level principals, the chair of the School Committee, and our two school resource officers, as well as our transportation director, her assistant and two members from First Student.”
Every complaint or busing issue was reviewed, Szymaniak repeated, changing or modifying some guidelines and not others. Both he and Transportation Director Karen Villanueva followed the buses around town to ensure the stops were safe.
“I ventured out and took some videos of some of the major concerns and I will be taking a couple of concerns back to the safety team,” Szymaniak said. He anticipated meeting with the Safety Committee again on Friday, Sept. 15 to make modifications based on his observations. “I have two public safety officers who travel the road, and we take it from an educational perspective, from a bus perspective and they take it from a safety perspective, and when they make recommendations or say that those stops are safe, we as a committee have to go on what they say.”
Szymaniak stipulated that some people are not happy with the decisions made, but he said he will review what he feels “might be debatable with the safety team.”
Additional modifications may be made to some stops when it snows, he said. “Even on sidewalks, if we’ve had heavy snow, we’ve had special bus pickups where parents can drop off their kids in certain areas for [safer] bus pickups,” he said.
During the course of the winter, buses will also stop to pick up students who are walking in the snow.
“I’m confident with the safety team’s decisions, although I looked at something today and I’m going to bring something back to the safety team,” he said. “I think we’re in a good spot with times. I haven’t heard many complaints about times in my travels.”
Szymaniak did hear, on a hot day, that it was hot on the buses and some drivers had the windows up, but a parent clarified on social media that the windows were not up and that someone was reposting incorrect information they had seen or heard.
Parents are encouraged to call the Transportation office at 781-618-7491 from 6:15 a.m. to 4 p.m., when the office is staffed.
“When the last bus is done, I have somebody on the phone,” he said.
School Committee member Hillary Kniffen noted that there is still a problem with motorists passing stopped buses, as email traffic has shown that to be a concern or something people have seen happen.
“Is there a way that we can get more police presence – more visual public safety out in the morning on these routed [such as routes 14, 18, 27 and 58] roads?” she asked. “People who live in these towns aren’t the ones we’re worried about.”
She suggested a safety sign such as those used in work zones might be something to remind people of the safety issues because the bus stops are new this year.
Assistant Superintendent George Ferro said it’s usually the overlap of the night shift officers to the day shift where police presence is not as available for school bus safety as they could be.
“We can ask them to be on those high-visibility roads because it is new for everybody,” he said.
“Nobody’s going to be happy with all the solutions,” Chair Beth Stafford said.
Committee member Fred Small brought up stop sign cameras as a possible deterrent, but he also said speed indicator signs also come equipped with cameras that transmit via cellular signal back to the police stations so they know when someone is speeding.
“You’d almost think they’d know when someone is going around a bus,” he said. “As far as I’m concerned, I’d love to see a police presence and I hope they throw the book at anyone who goes around a school bus like that.”
“We all know this is happening,” Stafford said. “It’s an ongoing situation. It’s awful.”
Szymaniak said the district’s legislators have reported that regional transportation reimbursement, meanwhile, has been level-funded for the third year at 79.5 percent, but Committee member Fred Small took issue with that.
“It’s time to dig up the votes,” Small said.
With an extra $2 million infused in regional transportation, Szymaniak said Rep. Josh Cutler, D-Duxbury, calculated that W-H could expect a reimbursement rate of between 85 and 90 percent this coming year.
Business Manager John Stanbrook said Cherry sheet figures show revenues up $620,825 over last year and assessments are up by $308,444 for a total increase of $3122,381 – or 1.25 percent.
However, the district receive $21.799 on revenue and an additional assessment of $220,000 over what was voted – down $242,391, “which is almost the entire amount of regional transportation,” he said. “We overbudgeted actual costs … and the reimbursements will be at what the commonwealth decides to give us.”

HANOVER — As South Shore Tech plans its addition/renovation – or possibly new construction – the regional vocational high school has already expanded its membership once, with the addition of Marshfield, and is hearing of potential interest from another town that could raise the membership roster to 10 in time.
The aim is for a ribbon cutting somewhere in the 2028-29 school year, but there are some issues to be solved in the meantime.
It’s happening at a time when school officials are looking at new ways to serve students who wish to attend, but are wait-listed, and the Biden Administration is boosting vocational education as a road to the middle class that does not require a traditional college degree.
“Part of what we’re factoring in is there’s a great demand for kids to come here,” Superintendent-Director Dr. Thomas J. Hickey said Friday, Sept. 8. “We do well with the kids who want to come here. … We know the state would support a larger enrollment.”
It’s very early in their exploration, but Pembroke has formed a regional planning committee to explore vocational education options, and have toured SST as part of that process.
Right now, Pembroke students would only be able to attend as sophomores or higher, if there is space. The average waiting list stands at about 75 students each year, which is also expected to increase with the addition of Marshfield.
“With a new facility, we intend it would be open to adults [as it is now],” Hickey said, noting he was speaking of more than the adult night-school students looking to update their skills. “I’m talking about a future where, if you didn’t come to South Shore as a rising ninth-grader, there’s a place for you as well.”
Giving community college-bound students in the member towns’ other high schools a dose of technical training while still attending their current school is his goal.
“Imagine a program, where we had a kid in grade 12, come from a traditional high school, where they designed his or her schedule to … get half their senior year credits there, then come over to [SST] and go into one of a few programs and start to get some basic skills training, if we were trying to make it during the day,” Hickey said. “We are not going to be able to build a school that’s going to eliminate our waiting list, no matter what we build.”
It’s a plan that doesn’t have to wait for the new building, either, he explained.
“With the state grants we’re getting, we are right now able to open these doors to current seniors,” he said. “I don’t have the fine print, but that’s something they’ve adjusted slightly.”
He would like to pilot it with one school district to start off in able to determine interest.
“If you attach it to incentives like day credit for the high school or an internship is baked into it … and some externships, I feel an obligation,” Hickey said. “Regional voke-techs are not going to sustain the regional economy, there’s going to have be [other] kids not coming to regional vokes, who want and will end up being the future economic drivers in a lot of these industries who don’t get outsourced. We have to be the hub of that in this area.”
While it doesn’t guarantee a job after graduation, it instills confidence and focused direction in students who need it.
Pembroke also has to be willing to join a region beginning a building project that does not yet have a price tag. Marshfield was willing to join under those conditions.
“It’s basically a pay-as-you go number,” Hickey said, with the understanding that, after five years SST would revisit the number of Marshfield students, divided by the total enrollment with the resulting percentage representing their share of the cost.
“We should hopefully have a design project, a voter-approved project and be nearing the end of construction,” he said. “We will know, hopefully in early 2025 if this project is going to be supported by the voters.”
To get there, a preferred design must be decided by this December. Another six months will be spent on the final package, to be submitted in June 2024, and they anticipate final MSBA approval next August.
“I would say we are about a year behind Whitman,” Hickey said.
Then they would have to negotiate a fair amount for Pembroke to come in and support a new building to divide that cost by 10. Right now, it’s a pie with nine slices based on enrollment.
“We’re going to need a lot of information from a lot of smart people,” before a design is selected. he said. “We’ve got three designs [for new construction options] that all follow roughly the same design.”
Their architectural firm the district is working with, Drummey Rosane Anderson Inc. [DRA], has worked with them before and know the district’s needs.
“We worked with DRA five years ago, when we were trying to become a candidate for this program, and they helped us do some visioning, so some of these ideas – especially the addition/renovation ideas – are similar to what we’ve seen a little while ago,” Hickey said. “I think what’s going to come of these options is some feedback … maybe it will generate an additional option, or maybe they’ll take an existing option and modify it.”
When Marshfield freshmen walk through the doors for the 2024-25 school year, Hickey said he anticipates that their share of the student body at around 18 or 19 percent – or about 30 students – affecting the other eight communities “a little bit.”
“We have historically had a couple of towns not us their allotments,” he said. Norwell and Scituate are allotted space based on the size of the grade eight class, but by mid-winter there are usually left-over seats.
“There probably won’t be many leftover seats because we’ve got six communities that are filling their slots,” he said. “We’ll have to see how many Marshfield kids come.”
But at the moment, Pembroke has not even made a specific request.

HANSON – Sometimes the wheels of government turn slowly, other times it just seems that way.
The Select Board held a layout hearing for Alden Way, Gray Lane and Stringer Lane Tuesday, Sept. 5 as a protocol step before the Oct. 2 special Town Meeting. Working to fill the time before starting the hearing scheduled for 6:15 p.m., became a demonstration of the adage that time is an illusion.
“What can we talk about?” Chair Laura FitzGerald-Kemmett asked.
“Committee updates?” Vice Chair Joe Weeks said.
“We could do Committee updates,” she said. “That’s a great idea, Mr. Weeks, did you have any?”
“No,” he said.
“Oh, OK, you’re just being controversial,” she joked.
Once underway, the hearing lasted about five minutes.
“We’ve already done this,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said of the process ahead of the May Town Meeting when the article was passed but ran into some clerical issues. “But it’s required anytime we have this type of an article.”
Once open, it became apparent that even the citizen’s petition article sponsors had no questions remaining. After reading the article, FitzGerald-Kemmett was met with silence when she asked for public comment.
“This is new for us, too, and we hope that we never have to have another second layout hearing for anything like this,” she said. “We’ll just give it a couple of respectful minutes because it’s a hearing.”
To help fill in the time, Weeks read out the motion.
“Well done, sir,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said.
“I used to be afraid to read [aloud] in elementary school,” Weeks said.
“Well, you seem to have gotten over that impediment,” she replied. “We’re proud of you.”
After a pause, board member Ed Heal asked if they were going to vote on it.
“We are going to vote on it,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “Did you know some show tunes? We need to fill a little bit of time.”
Weeks reiterated that the issue was something the town had already voted on at the last Town Meeting, but clerical errors had resulted, and the board wanted to make sure it was done correctly so the people get what they asked the board to do, which was accepting the streets.
“It’s really more of a housekeeping issue,” he said. “I think we all support it, and we’re going to support it at the October Town Meeting.”
FitzGerald-Kemmett then determined they had stretched the time as long as they could, with no questions or concerns brought forward and called for the vote. The board unanimously approved the article.
Slated for a 6:15 p.m. start, FitzGerald-Kemmett had found it tough going to fill the time before the hearing began. After ticking off appointments and resignations, and an event approval, she asked what else might be addressed in the five minutes remaining.
Member Ann Rein mentioned the town’s website has an Economic Development link that FitzGerald-Kemmett had not been aware of, but she took the opportunity to announce the Hanson Business Network “really, really, really are not accepting anybody else [as a vendor] for Hanson Day.”
She’s extended it before, but the space is “maxed out” and cannot accommodate any more.
There will be 60 participants sponsoring booths at the Saturday, Sept 16 event, including Tick Races by Plymouth County Entomogist Blake Dinius to draw attention to the need to be aware of Lyme Disease and other tick-borne diseases. The event is from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., on the Town Hall Green. The Rain Date is Sept. 23.
Several food trucks will also be on hand.
“Essentially, no healthy food choices will be available, but you can come there, knowing that and plan accordingly,” FitzGerald-Kemmett quipped. “Does anybody else have any committee updates? …

The School Committee on Wednesday, Aug. 23 heard some welcome news about the Whitman Middle School project and a Seal on Bi-Literacy program and a time on learning grant worth $1 million over five years Whitman Middle School.
Committee members David Forth and Hillary Kniffen were absent and Glen DiGravio attended remotely.
Director of Equity and MTSS, Dr. Nicole Semas-Schneeweis and district Family Liaison for Multi-lingual Learners Felicia Barboza introduced the Bi-Literacy program discussion and what it means for students.
Barboza made some introductory comments in Portuguese, noting that, while it may have been surprising to hear her do that, it is one experience that many of the district’s multi-lingual learners have when they come to school every day when teachers, staff and other students speak to them in English.
She translated her Portuguese remarks, saying her name, title, and her background as a one-time WHRSD student. She said she was there to discuss bi-literacy.
“Regardless of the challenges of many of our multi-lingual learners face, they still rise up to the challenges many of them are presented with,” Barboza said, noting many are proficient in English by the time that they leave WHRHS. “We want to be able to honor them and award them for how much they have achieved by [attaining] proficiency in English.”
Being a multi-lingual learner is an asset and a huge part of the reason why she has the job she does, is because of her capability in speaking two languages. When Barboza was a student, the Seal of Bi-Literacy was not available, but was an opportunity she said she would have loved to have.
Unlike many of her students, English was her first language and Portuguese her second language which she started learning at age 7, while her students are learning English as a second language.
“Our hope is that by offering this distinction, it will encourage students to pursue a second language, while also maintain their proficiency in their first language,” she said.
Semas-Schneeweis said the Mass. Seal of Bi-Literacy recognized high school graduates who attain proficiency in English and one other world language by graduation.
“It is a credential that is recognized by both colleges and employers as a skill,” she said, noting that WHRSD now joins more than 170 other districts in the Commonwealth offering the seal and also recognizes the English language achievement of students who speak another language first.
Committee member Dawn Byers asked if they could predict how many years of a second language English-first students would need to study to attain the seal.
Semas-Schneeweis said it would be offered to seniors in the spring to give them the best opportunity as the program was piloted with juniors last year, but ideally, they would like to see some sort of world language program returned to the middle schools to help with the achievement.
Going into next year, the seal will be part of the senior-year curriculum, she said. It was piloted with the juniors because it was not something the seniors were expecting this spring – it was only something extra being asked of them.
Time on learning grant
Assistant Superintendent George Ferro announced the district has received a 21st Century CCLC grant of $214,000 to fund an additional learning time program for the Whitman Middle School for the next five years. Of that, $154,000 will fund programs during the school year and $60,000 for summer programs.
The total value of the grant over the five-year period is more than $1 million.
“As you know we’ve had what’s called an additional learning time grant at the high school for years, where we are able to offer [support to] students from eighth grade, coming into ninth grade who are identified [as] needing extra support,” he said “They have a summer program here, they earn some credits here and then during the course of the school year, students who are either identified, or self-identify, as having some academic or social-emotional needs … we always offer four days a week an after-school program.”
Ferro said late bus transportation offered to those students is a highlight of the program with no budgetary impact.
That type of enrichment will now be offered at WMS through the federal competitive grant offered through the state.
WHRHS Math teacher Christopher Szkutak, who has run the high school enrichment program, applied for the grant to bring the program to the Whitman Middle School, where a separate site coordinator will be appointed with Szkutak in charge of all 21st Century remedial and after-school learning.
Ferro said there are no funds at this time, through the grant, for elementary grades. The high school program also offers credits, called floating credits, to participating students.
“There was a decision made, with Chris Szkutak in looking at our numbers and in talking to the middle school principals, that at this point in time due to the needs of the Whitman Middle School – you can only go for one school at a time – we chose Whitman Middle,” he said. When the application period opens again next spring, they would apply focused on Hanson Middle School, according to Ferro.
The committee unanimously voted to support Committee member Fred Small’s motion to send Szkutak a letter crediting and thanking him for his initiative and efforts. Byers added her thanks and stressed that, for working parents like her, the transportation piece of the grant was invaluable.
Bus routes
While on the subject of transportation, Superintendent of Schools Jeff Szymaniak said some guidelines have been formed to help reduce the time students are spending on buses.
“It’s not door-to-door service, it’s a school bus,” Szymaniak said after parents complained when some children were on the bus between 45 and 50 minutes. He had called other area superintendents to see how they were dealing with any similar extended bus rides.
One modification would curtail the practice of buses entering cul de-sacs, in agreement with state guidelines, unless it is “really necessary,” he said noting that there could be a person in the area who should not be near children.
Elementary students would be asked to walk as much as .7 miles to a bus stop. Right now the furthest any student is walking is .61 miles. Middle and high school students would be walking up to one mile.
“Doing that changed some of the routes,” he said, noting Indian Head had some routes of about 28 to 42 minutes, now he said the longest ride for Indian Head students is 32 minutes and the shortest is 28. “The longest ride at Hanson Middle is 34 minutes,” he said. “The longest ride at Duval is 27 and the longest ride at Conley is 23 minutes.”
Szymanian said it should control dropping off at the end of the driveway.
“That’s the number one thing I seem to get phone calls about,” Small said.
“This is a change, but it’s a change for the good of all,” Szymaniak said, because ridership is tied to state reimbursement. The state requires buses to run at 75 percent of capacity.
The change would have no budgetary impact.
The School Committee’s discussion of meeting protocol and norms was postponed to the next committee meeting on Wednesday, Sept. 13.
“We would really like everybody to be present when we’re discussing the norms, because then everybody … would be in the game,” Stafford said.

HANSON – The October special Town Meeting ballot will include a space-saver article addressing a potential change in school transportation costs.” Town Administrator Lisa Green said.
The town will seek some guidance on the issue before its Tuesday, Aug. 29 meeting.
“We’re going to have to figure out transportation,” she said of the need to transport a student to Norfolk County Agricultural High School. “I need to fashion an article that’s going to provide that extra money. … This is going to cost the town about $54,000.”
Select Board Chair Laura FitzGerald-Kemmett asked if Green has checked with legal counsel as to whether the agreement in question with the school in question includes busing.
“Did I not read that there was an article for out-of-district busing thoroughly being contemplated by the legislative body?” FitzGerald-Kemmett asked.
Green said she didn’t know if it would happen in time, before the beginning of the school year on Aug. 30.
“I want to bring to the board’s attention a situation that came to light today,” Green said during the Tuesday, Aug. 15 meeting. “It has to do with transportation for a student.”
“That’s a lot of money,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said. Initially hesitant to entertain the issue, she asked if it pertained to the Town Meeting warrant.
“Information was brought to my attention today regarding additional money that we’re most likely going to have to expend on transportation per student,” Green said, explaining there had been an issue pertaining to the town having to pay transportation costs for one new student from one new location to the school.
“It was brought to my attention today that the situation continues” she said. It leaves the town in a situation of having to figure out student transportation and where the money is going to come from. She said she needed time to write the article that is aimed at proving that need while she works with the town accountant to prove the need for it.
“I did make a call to DESE (the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education),” regarding what we can do regarding the situation,” Green said. She was expecting a call back from them.”
Town Accountant Eric Kinsherf said that when the numbers become known they can be entered into the agricultural line item.
“I’m curious,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “I’m seeing a lot of money articles in the warrant, and I’m curious as to whether you think if we have the money to pay for all of these?”
Kinsherf said he didn’t at that time, as he is in the process of closing the books. He said he would know more when he got an initial look at free cash.
“It just struck me as a lot of money for an October Town Meeting,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said to the agreement of other board members.

Maquan Street
The town has receive some good financial news recently.
Green announced that, thanks to the efforts of Hanson’s state Rep. Josh Cutler, D-Duxbury, and state Sen. Michael Brady, D-Brockton, a fiscal 2024 budget earmark of $100,000 has been received to finance a subsurface enginering work on a water pipe below the road surface – which had delayed progress on the road work being funded through the MassDOT Transportation Improvement Project (TIP) program.
The subsurface work is required because of where the pipe, which supplies water to Abington and Rockland is located. Those communities were not interested in joining Hanson in having the engineering evaluation done, Green said.
“That was huge,” she said. “So a very big thank you to our legislators for helping us obtain this money.”
“Fortunately, our legislative partners stepped in and put in for an earmark of $100,000 and the governor just signed that budget, including the $100,000,” she said.
That engineering study can provide the town the green light to move forward on the $13 million road project funded by state grants.
A $90,000 grant,provided by the Mass. One Stop for Growth program and applied for by Planner Anthoney DeFrais, has been received by the town to begin engineering work on the pedestrian improvements at the Hanson Commuter Rail station on Main Street/Route 27.

HANOVER – Marshfield is one step away from becoming a member of the South Shore Tech region, and another community has also expressed interest in exploring such an opportunity.
The Commissioner of Education approved the amended regional agreement with Marshfield, Superintendent-Director Dr. Thomas J. Hickey reported to the region’s School Committee on Wednesday, July 26.
“[This] is the final step in the lengthy process that all of our communities and the town of Marshfield participated in,” Hickey said. “We’re in the process now … of some paperless method by which we will have a representative from each of our towns sign the document, as well.”
It all becomes official with the commissioner’s signature and all of the amendments will be approved and Marshfield’s membership in the district confirmed, effective July 1, 2024. The amended agreement will be posted on the district website southshore.tech.
Hickey said he also gave a tour SST in mid-July for Pembroke town representatives.
Pembroke formed a regional planning committee at their spring town meeting to “begin the process of having their own conversations about the merits of seeking to join our school district. The committee was made up of Pembroke Public Schools officials, a parent representative and the town manager.
“It was a great conversation,” Hickey said. “They asked a lot of great questions about the process [of joining the region], and about our plans going forward.”
He said the next step would be to activate SST’s regional planning subcommittee should Pembroke wish to pursue the prospect of joining SST.
“I was pleased to be able to have them,” he said.
While it is summertime, Hickey also said the district is “not taking its foot off the accelerator” in its plans to renovate and expand the school.
“Since the close of the school year, we’ve had multiple visioning sessions with our project manager, design team and consultant,” Hickey said. “Visioning sessions are opportunities for parents, students and staff to talk about what we would like to see in a new school. … We’re pushing to think about the design of the school and what we value in the school.”
The visioning sessions were recorded and are being posted on the website: southshoretechproject.com. Hickey said it is typical for school building projects to use a web address separate from a school district.
“You want to house all the important video archives and documentation in one location,” he said. “We will start work with the design team on taking the vision and putting it into an educational plan.”
The School Building Committee will ultimately include that educational plan so the design team can see what the district’s priorities are and begin to put it into various models for the expansion/renovation.
“We’re still a long way off from knowing that we’re going to do this design at this price, however, we should be able to start getting a picture of that close to the end of this calendar year,” he said. “The conversations will become less abstract and the options will become more clear.”
The website will also contain feedback from participants in the visioning sessions.
A series of School Building Committee meeting dates will be posted at a rate of about one per month, from August through December, with the August meeting devoted to what is going into the timeline over the next six months.
School officials and members of the School Building Committee will be making a site visit to Cape Tech in Harwich later in August, as SST’s architectural firm was the firm that built Cape Tech in 2015. A second site visit may be planned for early September.
“If we’re going to talk about how we prioritize what we value, it would nice to be able to set in a structure that represents some of what has probably been adopted by other schools,” Hickey said.
SST has a late September deadline for its first submission to the Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA), which will include the educational plan.

HANSON – Town officials have been seeking a forensic audit of the regional school district since the statutory funding formula began to be used to calculate assessments, but there have been no takers in reply to request for proposals (RFP) issued several times for the work.
Town accountant Eric Kinsherf knew consultant Mark Abrahams, who had made a presentation on the formula Abrahams to the Select Board on Tuesday, July 11. Abrahams indicated he is willing to conduct such an audit for Hanson.
The Select Board voted 4-0 to have Kinsherf approach Abrahams with a scope of work for such an audit. Vice Chair Joe Weeks was absent.
Town Meeting had voted to allocate $120,000 to conduct the forensic audit after the Select Board had approved it, but Chair Laura FitzGerald-Kemmett wasn’t sure of the status since Randy LaMattina is no longer serving on Whitman’s Select Board.
“I would think Whitman would want to partner on this because we’re both users of the Whitman-Hanson school system and we’re funding the school system,” she said.
She did ask what Abrahams would charge if Hanson decided to go it alone on the audit.
“The original RFP was everything but the kitchen sink,” Kinscherf said.
“Which might have been why nobody responded,” said Chair Laura FitzGerald-Kemmett.
Kinsherf came up with some bullet points based on Abrahams’ questions, which he shared with the board to see if there was anything it wanted Abrahams to look into.
“Basically, this wouldn’t be an audit, it would be agreed-upon procedures of engagement,” he said, noting it would outline what the board wanted him to do and send a report on his findings. “He’ll do a five-year look-back into excess and deficiency.”
Kinsherf said he wanted to narrow the scope to reviewing costs that have a direct affect on Hanson including revolving funds, but that details of all expenses were not necessary as it would not be a financial audit.
“I thought a salary review could be limited to comparison with towns with similar demographics,” he said. “What does W-H pay their teachers and how does that compare with other regions with similar demographics.”
Grants would only be included to the extent that they affect Hanson’s assessment, as well as other “relevant expenses,” such as food service, transportation, IT and building should be looked at in comparison to other districts, as well.
“I think that that is spot-on from what I remember us discussing before,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “Definitely one of the things people have expressed concerns about is some of the compensation packages.”
The source of one-time spending, historically, was also a question as well as whether it has ultimately been built into the budget were also concerns.
“We’re not dealing with the real numbers if you are using one-time funding and then, when you give us the assessment the next year, you’ve built in what was supposed to be one-time funding,” she said.
FitzGerald-Kemmett said she understands the need for one-time funding, but more clarity concerning what’s happening with it is needed.
Kinsherf said he would draft a scope to incorporate the items discussed and will forward it to Abrahams to get a cost estimate for the work.

Meeting notes

• Strategic planning consultant John Manning reviewed his work for the town’s financial planning efforts.
• The Board voted to open the October Town Meeting warrant. Deadline for submitting completed articles is noon on Aug. 7 via email in Word format or Excel. Articles requiring funding sources must outline those sources and must be provided to the Finance Committee. Capital items must go to the Capital Improvment Committee and Town Accountant for approval.
• The Board voted to approve $418,801 in ARPA funds for the Maquan School demolition. the balance of the $936,666 will come from borrowing. Up to $1 million had been approved by Town Meeting.
• A list of Maquan inventory remaining in the school was declared surplus by the board. Auctions International has been contacted to auction the more than 250 items. Town departments have also been advised they may take any items they can use.