WHITMAN – Meeting on Monday night, the Select Board voted to place an override article on the Town Meeting warrant for a $2 million, one-year article.
Board member Shawn Kain had made a compromise motion first to support a $2 million override for one year that gained no support.
Member Justin Evans suggested a one-year override at $2.4 million, at which Chair Dr. Carl Kowalski passed the gavel to Vice Chair Dan Salvucci so he could second Evans’ motion. It received a deadlocked 2-2 vote with Kowalski and Evans voting yes and Salvucci and Kain voting no.
Kain restated his motion and, again, Kowalski passed the gavel to second it.
This time, the one-year $2 million override motion passed by a 3-1 vote, with only Salvucci voting no.
But they first had to clear up a resident’s issue with the meeting’s agenda.
Resident John Galvin had spoken during the public forum, objecting to what he called a decision “made behind closed doors” not to include the agenda item attendees and viewers “were expecting … discussing the difference” between a three-year and a one-year override.
Kowalski immediately countered Galvin’s assertions.
“I’ve got a long list of where you were off in your remarks,” Kowalski said. He countered that there was an agenda item for a budget update as well as Galvin’s concern that the override amounts would not be covered.
“What we plan to do tonight is to discuss whether the Select Board goes along with the one-year advice of the Finance Committee, or whether it changes it to three years. We haven’t had that discussion yet. That will happen tonight.”
But Galvin countered that all three options for a ballot article involved one-year overrides that would not solve Whitman’s fiscal dilemma.
“All three of those amounts do not get the job done,” he said.
“I totally agree with you, as far as that’s concerned,” Kowalski replied. “However, the [Select Board] was ready last week … and the Finance Committee went off after we had the joint meeting and they made their decision. We haven’t had a chance to discuss it as a board since that time.”
When the time to vote came, Kowalski said he was moved by Shawn [Kain] and Justin [Evans] in their advocating for a one-year override. He had favored three-years.
“I think that one-year is the way to go however, I’m really hoping that Shawn does some serious thinking right now about the $2.4 million,” he said. “That’s the only way we’re even going to come close to doing anything next year.”
He said he is also not convinced that the town would vote it down.
“I’ve seen the town be generous a lot over the course of my years here and I have faith in it,” Kowalski said.
Town Administrator Mary Beth Carter said the actual language and amount sought does not need to be printed exactly on the agenda to be discussed. The Select Board only needs to have the amount they do vote for to the Town Clerk by April 10.
Once the discussion turned to the meat of the issue – a one-year override, or two, or even three.
Carter said she felt the responsible thing to do would be to look at the numbers that I did fold into the override side and enter a figure that would carry the town for three years.
For example, entering a $1.7 million override, Whitman will have about $2,000 left over in town’s excess levy account this year, In 2027, the shortfall would be $895,000 short in 2028 of a little over $2 million.
She replied to Evans’ question that the numbers assume Town Meeting will support using Articles 19 and 20, to use free cash to pay the retirement assessment and OPEB.
Evans supported a $2.4 million override because he didn’t like assuming Town Meeting would back the use of free cash and he doesn’t expect the four union negotiations still have not concluded and he expressed concern that they all would be before Town Meeting.
“I’m a little concerned about the economic outlook next year,” Evans said. “It is still a one-year override, using the deficit we projected weeks ago.”
For a $2 million override, she based calculations on $302,000 in excess levy this year and be short $587,000 next year and $1.8 million short in 2028. Likewise, a $2.4 million override would be $702,000 in excess levy next year and short about $177,000 next year. And $1.7 million in 2028.
“I do understand the point of keeping it short as well, but the difference between a $1.7 million override and a $2.4 million override on the average home [$495,736.78] in fiscal 2025, is a difference of $10.87 a month or $130.44 a year. The increase in taxes is $316.76.
“I think it’s very important that, if we’re going to ask the people of the town to sacrifice, that we show them how we’ll sacrifice,” said Kain. “I don’t think it’s irresponsible to ask for a number that’s slightly less or less than what we need over the next three years. … In some sense, that’s kind of our skin in the game.”
He advocated that the smallest override in one year has the highest chance of passing.
“That, I’d be really grateful for, and the employees of the town would be really grateful for, and we can do a lot with that money,” Kain said. “I’d feel terrible to ask more and get nothing.”
Member Justin Evans said he’d been listening to the Finance Committee discourse on the night they addressed the merits of a one-year vs a three-year override.
“While I still feel a three-year is the one that makes the most sense financially,” Evans said noting that he appreciated their discussion. “A lot of it was around the practicality of explaining why this is the amount of … and manage that process in the next six weeks.
Evans expressed surprise that the FinCom was unanimous in their vote.
Salvucci, however was just as firm, strongly opposing any override.
“But, I agree [with] one year, the lowest amount [that] we can] get,” he said, arguing that with three-or evan two years, it just opens the doors for town department heads to not control their budgets.
“Whether it’s town budgets or school budgets, if you know exactly what you have to spend, it’s like a family – if you’ve got $100 and you all go out to eat, you don’t go out an buy a $300 meal. You know what you have to spend. … It gets them to do their budgets based on what they need and not what they want. Call me cheap, but that’s how I think.”
Kowalski also challenged that statement on the FinCom directing the town’s financial agenda.
“That’s not what happened last year,” Kowalski said. “What happened last year was that the Finance Committee took over the Town Meeting – in a way that they can – and they voted to do it a totally different way than we had suggested.”
Finance Committee Chair Kathleen Ottina agreed that was an accurate summation of what transpired at the 2024 Town Meeting vote on Article 2. The Select Board had recommended an override and the FinCom sought to fill the gap with free cash. But, she noted, both boards have been working much more closely together this year.
She said there was some support for a three-year override on the Finance Committee before they voted, but members were swayed by Evans’ comment that, statistically voters do not support overrides.
They felt a one-year override stood the best chance of passing.
“We’d hate to risk going for the fiscally responsible three-year override and get nothing,” she said, hoping local receipts increase, some financing from the state increase and Chapter 70 increases, among other fiscal changes.

WHITMAN – The town has a new Free Cash policy.
The Select Board, on Tuesday, March 25, voted to support the new policy recommended by Town Administrator Mary Beth Carter, which will establish a budgetary policy for the use of free cash which includes –
Place 10 percent of the certified free cash amount, each fiscal year, allocated to the capitalization stabilization fund – not to be expended in the first year – but as a savings account that we’re slowly and steady adding to; and then, another 10 percent, especially after the remaining balance of the certified Free Cash amount would be added to the general stabilization fund each year; and we discussed placing a minimum of $200,000 each fiscal year be transferred from Free Cash to Plymouth County Retirement line until the undfunded liability is paid off; and a minimum of $140,000 each fiscal year, shall be transferred to the Article 2 line for “Other Post Employment Benefits.
The policy will begin this year.
“I think that, if we follow this every year, we are going to build a capital stabilization fund in the way that we should,” she said. “That money is not be touched. The towns that touch, the general stabilization fund are the towns that find themselves in trouble. Once they open that, and start going after that, they have nothing.”
She wanted to start the policy to build up some “good reserves” because the town needs a new fire engine, and an upgrade to financial software for starters.
“I think that this will put us on a good road for the future, if we just do this every single year,” she said.
“It sounds like a good plan,” Vice Chair Dan Salvucci said.
Board member Shawn Kain said that, when one looks at the towns that withstand some of these difficult times, and the ones that get into trouble, it’s the ones that have their financial policies set in place as the “rudder that keeps them on track.”
“There might be some difficult decisions in the future because of this, if we follow that plan it should keep us on solid financial ground,” he said.
Member Justin Evans noted that. “The unstated part of the policy will mean that 75-percent of certified free cash would be the town’s capital plan year after year.”
Whitman 150 update
Whitman 150 Committee Chair Richard Rosen also briefed the board on planned events for the towns sesquicentennial.
“Things are going very well, Rosen said. “We’re selling merchandise. There’s a lot of people buying … stuff,” Rosen said. “We want part of what will ultimately be history.”
He reminded residents that the kickoff dinner, scheduled for Saturday, April 5 at the Cardinal Spellman Center, and tickets will not be available at the door. To obtain tickets, priced at $50 each, are still available. Interested residents must contact Rosen’s office at 781- to obtain individual tickets wo reserve tables of eight or 10.
On Sunday, April 27, the burial of another time capsule on the Town Hall lawn, will overseen by former Fire Chief Tinothy Grenno and Thomas Burnett, who helped lower the 2000 event capsule on that same lawn during the centennial celebration.
A series of photos published by the Brockton Enterprise, at the time, shows Grenno and Burnett lower the time capsule into the hole made by a DPW crew.
“I found them both and asked if they’d [come back] and they both said yes,” Rosen said.
The centennial time capsule is slated to be disinterred in 2075 and the new one will be dug up in 2100.
“That way, we figured nobody would still be alive when they dig it up,” Rosen joked.
If people have items they would like to place in the time capsule, they should drop the items off at North Easton Savings Bank, Bedford St.
“North Easton Savings Bank has been extremely good to us in terms of donating money, time effort, volunteers – they’ve been great,” Rosen said.
Wondering how big items one might want to donate for the time capsule can be accommodated?
“I think anything much bigger than a shoebox isn’t that great,” Rosen said. “But I do need, like, a persons listed book and stuff like that, that after 75 years, people are going to look at it and go, ‘Wow!’ or whatever they’ll say.”
Rosen said there’s an important contest going on in the schools right now, as students in kindergarten through grade eight write essays – for the older grades, and photos for the younger children – on the theme: “Wonderful Whitman.”
Winners, chosen by teachers, will have their work placed in the time capsule, and they will be present when the time capsule is lowered – and more. Rosen said.
North Easton Savings will present the winning students with a bank account, which some have never had, and they’ll be invited to march in the parade on June 27.
The cornhole tournament signup list is still open.
The roadrace, slated for Sunday, June 8, will start next to the fire station.
“They’re going to come out of the [WWI Memorial] Arch and then do a similar route to all the roadraces that we used to have,” Rosen said.
Runners will be able to signup live on the next couple of days,” he said..
A band concert on June 14, followed by fireworks, and Sunday, June 22, fills out the celebration with a “pretty big parade,” Rosen said. “That’s [parpade] is going to be the final event that we’re doing,” he said. “I do need to set up a joint meeting with the police and fire chiefs and the DPW in the very near future, so they’re not surprised by any of this.”

A library closed, an ambulance and crew lost and with them the certainty of emergency response, a police department still short of staffing needs, and losses of senior center staff in Whitman; deep faculty cuts to district schools — are some possible scenarios if a Proposition 2.5 override fails. Hanson also faces some dire town services outcomes.
Town select boards had long ago accepted that overrides to Proposition 2.5 in Whitman and Hanson would be necessary to overcome deficits that threaten a need for potentially devastating cuts not only for the school district, but also for all town departments. But like many area towns are facing similar budget gaps in excess of $2 million, the only question was how much, of an override for how long and affecting how many years might voters accept?
It appeared that the two Whitman boards had reached a consensus on a three-year override, however, in the Finance Committee following the joint session, the Finance committee deliberated further and unanimously voted to recommend only a one-year override, according to an email sent to the Select Board from FinCom Chair Kathleen Ottina after their meeting, said Select Board member Justin Evans.
Ottina said they had not yet made the decision at the time of the joint meeting with the Select Board, but it was on that night’s agenda.
“We had some informal discussions, but there’s no firm consensus,” she had told the Select Board.
Some of the FinCom members, during the joint meeting had urged a one-year approach [a $2.4 million override] to see if more funding might be forthcoming from the state in the next two years.
“The $2.4 million is what we need for just this year,” said Town Administrator Mary Beth Carter. “If we go with just the one-year override, my fear is that, next year, we would need money, as well.”
The three-year override would be for about $4.2 million, perhaps a little less.
That would give the town a single-year override to cover the town for three years, Carter said, clarifying what a “three-year override” label means.
“It would go into the fiscal year calculation in fiscal year 2026,” she said. “We would have excess levy and we would leave that money on the table and that would roll into ’27 and ’28. That would cover us for three years as opposed to having three separate overrides.”
In the first year, the town would need $2,262,000 with an impact of $421.49 to taxpayers, based on the value of an average single-family home in Whitman of $495,736.78. The additional money flowing in during fiscal 2027 was looking like $370 tax increase for that average home. The third year would see an increase of $198.
The impact to voters is the same in the first year of a three-year override as with a one-year override.
Based on the solid waste costs are projected to go up 6 percent, so that was factored in on the revenue side, as well as unfunded liability for Pymouth County retirement and OPEB costs until that is completely paid.
She advocated the one override that covers the town for three years. rather than the one-year override.
Evans said there was the hope that the budget group and Finance Committee would receive the decision on April 7 on a one-year vs three-year override.
“The amount that the Select Board will put on the ballot [has to be] settled by Monday, April 7,” Evans said as Town Counsel wants to meet with the Select Board in executive session and they are not free on Tuesdays. “We don’t have to have the numbers exactly dialed in today, but we do have to have [the one- or three-year term].”
Kain added that going with a one-year override would put the town short next year and the year after, but is more likely to pass, with no guarantee that would happen, either.
“It’s a big decision,” he said. “A smaller override, that isn’t quite enough and we know we’ll have to cut, or a bigger override that would sustain us three years,” he said.
The Select Board will meet Monday, April 7 to decide that question, after the joint Select Board/Finance Committee meeting that began with an all-around hesitancy to risk more than one year, and ended with a consensus to decide the question next week as both boards were now leaning heavily toward three years after hearing from the police and fire chiefs on the likely effects of cuts that might otherwise be necessary.
That same evening in Hanson, however, found some Select Board members wishing they could separate a schools’ override from a municipal one.
“I wish we could separate the school out,” said Select Board member Ed Heal as the board was returning from an executive session.
“We’re actually going to have a conversation about that,” said Chair Laura FitzGerald-Kemmett.
She said several people have reached out to her to ask why the board wasn’t separating the school override portion from the town’s operational override. She also spoke to Whitman officials to find out how they are handling it.
“If you recall, if both towns don’t handle things correctly, everything gets out of [synch],” she said. “Then we end up in the same situation we were in last year.”
Based on several phone conversations she and Town Administrator Lisa Green had made, Whitman is doing one all-encompassing override as well, for about $2.3 million.
“Their feeling is they don’t want to pit the schools against their town services,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “That does not mean we have to do it that way. We could split the question in two, and let’s think through how that would work.”
Vice Chair Ann Rein said that when the questions were split they know that “the emails are going to start flying all over the place from everybody in the school side and they’re going to fear-monger that, and the tone and tenor of the town right now is they don’t want to fund the schools. They don’t want to fund us. They don’t want to fund anybody.”
She doesn’t see separating the overrides is a clarifying way to do solve the issue and FitzGerald-Kemmett agreed.
“When you have a group of individuals devoted to the task – as the Finance Committee is – it’s only the right thing to do to give some deference and some consideration to what their recommendation is,” she said.
Hanson’s Finance Committee is recommending a single override question.
“Any way you look at it,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “These [questions] are inextricably linked and, although we have no control over 43 percent of our budget … we’re where we are.”
She advised those against the school budget to stay engaged and reach out to the School Committee to reduce Hanson’s assessment.
This board has no control over the school budget,” she said, outside of pushback about the assessment figure, which they plan to do. The board voted to draft such a letter to the School Committee.
Back in Whitman, meanwhile, Select Board member Shawn Kain provided another budget update, noting that he and board member Justin Evans attended the March 19 School Committee meeting.
“They had some really thoughtful things to say about the school district and some of their struggles,” he said.
Superintendent of Schools Jeff Szymaniak, School Committee Chair Beth Stafford and other members, in turn attended joint FinCom and Select board meeting.
“We’re luck to have them here,” he said.
Finance Chair Kathleen Ottina said the budget working group, which included present and past administrators, representatives from the FinCom and Select board as well as private citizens, had been a great idea.
“This lines of communication have been kept open,” she said. “I’ve learned from Shawn Kain’s thoughtful listening and issues the accounted to his position. He rethinks things, so I’m learning to do the same thing because we have two ears and one mouth. We should be listening twice as much as we talk.”
She said the group has been working very hard on a budget to provide town services and a narrative as to why they are important and what’s at stake if residents opt against supporting it.
“Although this is a difficult conversation, I think the vibe this year is different,” Kain said.
The Fire Department budget looks “pretty tight,” Kain said, and there is a safety concern about the police department’s personnel shortage that is currently leaving shifts unfilled.
Funds have been taken from other departments to be included it in the DPW solid waste line to ensure continuing trash pickup from a public health standpoint.
Who feels the pain
“If the override fails, we will be cutting police, fire DPW, Town Hall staff, Council on Aging will be effected and closing the library.
“It kills me to even say that,” Carter said. “But that is $489,000 and when I’m looking at $1.81 million plus employment costs…”
Fire Chief Timothy Clancy said he was not aware of any of the numbers discussed before the meeting.
“Our budget dramatically impacts the service we can provide this community,” Clancy said. “We’re not staffed to where we need to be – we all know that.” If he loses the four firefighter/paramedics added through the 2017 override, the department goes back to the 1970s.
“That would be shameful,” he said. “I’d have to take an ambulance out of service. … I’m not trying to be sarcastic, but I’m not 100-percent sure I’d be able to able to put anybody at your house from Whitman Fire.”
Since he became Chief of Police, Timothy Hanlon has not had all the officers his department requires.
“We’re still not there yet,” he said. “When we don’t have the resources, that adds stress to an already stressful situation.”
“A million dollars out of a town budget is a big deal,” Kain said. “It’s not as simple as X-amount of salary and one individual. It effects a whole bunch of things, like how many people on a shift.”
The schools would be losing about 21 positions.
“It’s going to hit all of us, and that’s why we all need to be a team,” Stafford said. “If this doesn’t go through, this town’s going to be not what it used to be.”
Szymaniak said the school district has looked at the five-year plan through 2028, and the town’s three-year override covers them.
For risk purposes, because it affects all other departments, Kain said technology would be getting a “slight bump,” contingent on the override.
“That leads us to the critical question, and we should have some discussion first, before we hopefully reach some sort of consensus – should we support a one-year override that’s about $2.4 million?” which Kain said is still a little bit fluid. “A three-year might be at about $4.2 million or it might be a bit less than that.”
Evans noted that it is already difficult to recruit candidates for town positions.
“If we’re going to ask, let’s ask for the one that will sustain us for a couple of years, make a very clear pitch [that] these are the service levels, now, we’re going to raise the levy incrementally … and here’s the projected tax increases,” he said. “It would require more explanation on our part, but it is the more sound fiscal policy.”
Vice Chair Dan Salvucci argued that “overrides are forever.”
“The challenge comes down to what’s the palatability of how we go about this,” said Finance Vice Chair Mike Warner. “We could do three-yearly increments or one three-year increment. The end result is the same, realistically. … The challenge I see here is, what’s the town’s and the taxpayer’s stomach for three separate votes to override, as opposed to one?”
Salvucci said it all comes down to departments’ ability to control their budgets.
FinCom member Mike Flanagan agreed, pointing to recent building ballot questions that had passed, and asked what happened to the marijuana impact money the town was counting on.
“Everyone’s in a jam right now,” he said, noting the number of overrides on town ballots this year. “Maybe the state, within the next couple of years, will loosen up some money because they see all this.”
For those calculations, he favored a one-year override.