The School Committee voted to reduce the fiscal 2019 assessment increase to the towns to 9.5 percent over the current budget during a special meeting on Monday, April 23.

The committee also gave its final approval of revisions to the regional agreement. Both issues will go before voters at town meetings on Monday, May 7.

School Committee Chairman Bob Hayes took part in the meeting remotely by conference call, necessitating voice votes, and member Kevin Lynam was absent. Vice Chairman Fred Small presided over the meeting.

Hanson Town Administrator Michael McCue, who could not attend due to ongoing meetings with his town’s Finance Committee, sent an email to Superintendent of Schools Dr. Ruth Gilbert-Whitner Monday advising her that Hanson could go to 9.5 percent, but no higher.

“The town of Hanson will do its best to meet an overall assessment [increase] of 9.5 percent,” McCue wrote and Small read into the record. “Anything in excess of this amount cannot be supported by our FY ’19 budget. Additional reductions in the assessment are obviously helpful.”

At 9.5 percent, the increase to the budget, is $1,924,598. For Whitman that would mean $1,151,295 and Hanson’s share is $773,304 based on enrollment.

He said long-term strategic planning would be necessary before work begins on the fiscal 2020 budget, however.

“This is probably one of the more difficult things that we face,” said School Committee member Robert Trotta, noting the committee had initially debated seeking a 13.65-percent increase to include no-cost all-day kindergarten in the budget. “Obviously that would have been too rich for both towns, and I feel as though, as a School Committee member, going down to 9.5 is probably the right thing to do.”

An 11-percent increase would have added a special ed science instructor at each middle school as well as an elementary-level social worker parent liaison.

The 9.5-percent increase provides level services. A 5-percent increase would have meant the loss of 19 positions, according to Gilbert-Whitner.

“We have a very solid strategic plan and our plan tells us we need no-cost full-day kindergarten, it tells us that our foreign language program is not very strong,” she said, noting that new English, science and math programs are also needed. “It’s all going to cost money.”

Trotta said the School Committee sets assessments with what is best for the school system in mind, but it runs into town budget constraints.

“There’s been a lot of talk about starting this budget process earlier in the year,” he said. “It seems as the budget process as it stands doesn’t really seem to gel when it comes to this idea.”

School Committee member Steven Bois agreed, adding that budgets reflect what students need more than what the district needs — as well as providing other essential town services.

“I want a four-minute ambulance response, I want the best in our police personnel,” he said. “We hope that we can find a way to do this.”

School Committee member Michael Jones also wants taxpayers to realize the schools are struggling, too.

“There’s no new trucks, there’s no new employees, in this budget,” he said. “We’re losing this year. … This is not a step forward at 9.5 percent. In my opinion, it’s a step backward.”

“From my point of view, we’re providing the same services that we provided this year — nothing additional — and we’re eliminating a position from one of the schools that was there due to a bubble in enrollment,” Small said.

“It’s really got to be everyone coming together — all the departments — It’s good fire, it’s good police, it’s good schools. It’s not one at the expense of the others,” Gilbert-Whitner said. “We also have to push at the state level.”

Unfunded and underfunded mandates from state and federal legislation were again criticized.

“I don’t think the people that are making those decisions contact the people who would be impacted by [them],” Trotta said.

“I sit here again disappointed,” said School Committee member Christopher Howard. “I’m disappointed as a whole in where we’re at both within this budget process and where we are collectively with the towns. … It comes down to what should those communities look like?”

Hayes said both towns have been among the most supportive of the schools in the state.

“While 9.5 percent isn’t ideal, it’s probably as much as the towns can afford, whether we’re talking about police or fire or any of those people,” he said. “They’re very supportive of the schools and  the things that we do, so I would support the 9.5 percent 100-percent.”

In other business, Mass. Association of Regional Schools (MARS) consultant Malcolm Reid and Steve Donovan and MARS Assistant Executive Director Stephen Hemman attended the meeting.

Hemman outlined the next steps for the regional agreement at Gilbert-Whitman’s request.

Five or six original copies of the document will be sent to each town meeting with appropriate signatures of School Committee members and certified votes from each Town Meeting — if passed by the required majority vote — will be attached for submission to the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education for the commissioner’s signature.

Town Meeting will not be permitted to change anything.

“This is the document,” Hemman said. “If one town wants to change something, then it can’t happen.”

Small also noted the agreement has been reviewed and accepted by the School Department’s legal counsel.

Hayes, who also chaired the revision subcommittee, thanked those who served on that subcommittee and otherwise assisted with the process.

“We had people from the town, we had selectmen, we had a lot of people who participated in this committee and did a tremendous amount of work,” Hayes said.

Gilbert-Whitner also thanked the MARS consultants.

“They’ve been with us all the way through the process,” she said. “We began this a year ago … going over an agreement that had been typed on an Apple IIe computer. We’ve come a long way with this — there were schools in it that are no longer in existence. I think this is a great document for the future.”

WHITMAN  — Selectmen voted by a slim margin Tuesday, April 24 to recommend a budget to Town Meeting that includes the entire 9.5 school assessment increase within the levy limit — and to call for an operational override to fund the $603,000 needed to fully fund other departments.

Selectmen Brian Bezanson, Randy LaMattina and Chairman Dr. Carl Kowalski voted for the override recommendation with fellow board members Scott Lambiase and Dan Salvucci voting against.

A special election for an override question will take place Sturday, June 2.

LaMattina supported the operational override provided department heads be able to make a fair impact statement on Town Meeting floor, at 7:30 p.m., Monday, May 7.

During discussion, Lambiase and LaMattina had argued in favor of including 7.5 percent of the school assessment within the levy limit, placing the remaining 2 percent within an override.

Fire Chief Timothy Grenno, who spoke against an operational override said after the meeting that his cellphone was already blowing up with messages from angry members of the firefighters’ union.

“I think the board has put the town into a difficult position tonight in placing an operational override on town departments that are already strapped to fund one budget,” Grenno said. “I think it would work a lot better, I guess is the best way to put it, if everybody shared a little bit of the pie.”

He said he does not have a lot of confidence in the town’s willingness to pass an operational override.

School Committee member Fred Small, who attended the meeting in support of the assessment, pledged to support other departments in the effort to pass an override.

“I can only speak on behalf of myself, but you have my undying support for the override,” Small said after the vote. “It’s not our intent to pit one department against another, it’s just our intention to try and survive.”

A 9.5-percent assessment increase puts Whitman’s share at $1,151,295 and a 7.5-percent increase puts it at $908,000. If it were part of an override, it would grow by $22,700.

“This has to be coupled with a real understanding that next year we hit a real wall unless we make some progress [with budgets],” said Town Administrator Frank Lynam. He said the immediate course of action, should Town Meeting approve the 9.5 percent, would be to meet with department heads to determine what must be done to ensure a successful override.

The Finance Committee had come back to the Board of Selectmen with a recommendation to place 5 percent of the schools’ assessment increase, or $603,210, within the levy limit, which would have required an override to fund the remaining 5.5 percent — or $602,783 — for the schools. That represents $12,667,403 in the levy and $602,783 outside the levy limit. The total budget increase is 10 percent.

Fiscal 2018 began with a $30,382,000 budget, according to Lynam. This year, requests totaled $32,488,000. There were 29 articles included in the first draft of the warrant totaling $2,500,000 in appropriations.

Articles recommended inside the levy now total $828,433 with articles funded from other sources, including free cash, the ambulance fund, the police fine account and borrowing total $1,743,000.

“In preparing this budget, we removed 13 articles totaling $724,508,” Lynam said. “Each of the schools we’re participating in have significant increases.”

South Shore Vo-Tech, seeing an increase of 10 Whitman students, is up 8.9 percent, Norfolk Vocational-Agricultural is up 10.6 percent and WHRHS is up 9.5 percent in their assessments.

Salvucci, who also serves as the Whitman representative to the SSVT School Committee, stressed that school’s entire budget is only up 3.9 percent.

“The problem is half [the W-H] budget is funded by the state and that revenue is not growing,” Lynam said.

Small said the 9.5 percent assessment increase represents a 2.6 percent increase in the overall W-H budget.

“I am unbelievably uncomfortable with this proposition,” Kowalski said of the Finance Committee’s recommendation for a 5 percent increase within the levy for the schools. “It appears to be arbitrarily a 5-percent assessment and then hoping for a successful override to grant the schools the money they say they need to just keep things going.”

Kowalski noted a strong school system is what attracts families to settle in a town.

“Our police department and our fire department are both departments we can be proud of as a town,” he said to a large crown attending the meeting, including Grenno, Police Chief Scott Benton and Deputy Chief Timothy Hanlon. “They are also well-equipped and well-compensated — and they’re well-peopled.” He admitted that the DPW have routinely been budgeted as “the fourth out of four.”

Kowalski said the town’s budget needs to expand and an override is the only way to accomplish that.

“I’m totally uncomfortable, however, asking for half the money we want to give to the schools and they basically scrape by with what they have now,” I’d like to see the assessment go up. If that means that the Finance Committee has to go back and deal with the other departments and see what can happen there … then it has to go that way.”

Bezanson said he completely agreed.

“I know you’re shocked,” he quipped. “I’m not one for overrides. I’m not one for higher taxes … but why do we subject the schools, all the time, to being the ones that have to have the overrides?”

Bezanson echoed a frequently voiced position of Kowalski’s — “At some point, we have to decide what kind of community we want.”

Salvucci asked if discontinuing non-mandated busing could be a solution, but Lynam argued the money involved was such a small part of the total budget it would not have much effect, and that the bus contract does not allow the town to do much more than reconfiguring a small number of buses.

“It appears that the Finance Committee is looking for direction on this,” Kowalski said. “I would like to see this board give them a little bit of direction.”

LaMattina noted that Selectmen made it very clear to the Finance Committee the previous week that 5 percent was not an acceptable number for the school assessment increase.

“We made it very clear we didn’t want to see less than 7.5 percent guaranteed going to the schools,” he said. “I’m saddened that this was even presented in front of us because this is a complete 180 from what we talked about showing more fiscal stability and ttying to do the right thing — not only by the schools, but by every other department in town. I’ll tell you right now, there’s no way I’m supporting 5 percent.”

LaMattina said he felt they provided sufficient direction last week.

“At some point, we have to come up with a number and maybe and override is going to have to be on both sides,” Lambiase said. “There’s going to be a lot of pain felt on both sides.”

“I think the citizens will do the right thing,” Bezanson said, noting the town has long been one of the more financially stable communities on the South Shore.

Lynam said that, while not enough, 78 percent of new growth funding has been used to finance school budgets.

“The problem is, we’ve been allowed to build a budget that’s not sustainable without our partner in the budget, and that partner being the state, continuing to contribute,” Lynam said. Much of the School Department’s costs, such as utilities and retirements, are not controllable, either. “We’re creating an us-and-them and that’s not the way to fund an operation. It may also be an issue of what area is more sensitive to the voters.”

During the discussion, Grenno asked if, in effect, the town was being asked to vote a second time on the $310,000 override passed last year to add three firefighters to the department.

“I get what the schools are looking for and what maintains basically what they are doing now and helps us further the school district,” Grenno said, noting his son attends W-H schools and he thinks highly of the districts’ quality. “But you’re basically playing Russian roulette with all the other departments in town.”

He said he did not understand the logic.

“If the schools need the money, then I support them, let’s go for an override and let’s support the schools and get them their override,” Grenno said. Lambiase agreed that the schools have to have a dog in the override hunt, too.

“Otherwise, there’s no incentive for the schools to participate in this,” he said. “And they’re the ones that can convince the town that we actually need this — we need it on both sides.”

Kowalski and Bezanson said they have been hearing about departments being pitted against each other for 14 years.

“We’re still looking at a small section of the town [government] to cut up, to make it up if this override doesn’t work,” Lambiase countered. “That’s just not going to work, it would be devastating.”

Small said the citizen in him “understands exactly where you’re coming from. The School Committee member has a little bit of blinders and I want to fight for every single thing that we can do for the schools.”

WHITMAN  — In a joint meeting with the Finance Committee Tuesday, April 17 — which involved some heated exchanges between Selectmen and Finance member Shawn Kain — officials discussed the town’s ongoing revenue problem and how to balance the fiscal 2019 budget.

Town Administrator Frank Lynam has already “X-ed out” 20 articles from the annual Town Meeting warrant, including those seeking new DPW vehicles, public safety radio, data terminal and radar equipment and a reduction in requests for police cruisers and another which reflects a change to the approach in repairing the library roof, as well as some schools maintenance articles. Some others, including a new utility vehicle for the Fire Department, are in question.

“You’ll see the articles that we went through and said, ‘Can’t do it’,” he said. “What I’m saying is we’ve gone bare-bones and there’s a danger in this because we’re now removing items that involve capital maintenance.”

It also leaves the town’s budget still $1 million short, Lynam said.

“Some of these are critically important,” agreed Finance Committee Chairman Richard Anderson, noting his committee had not yet voted on recommendations. “We’re going to look at budget scenarios that may reinstate some of them or that may actually remove additional ones.”

Selectmen plan to continue that deliberation on Tuesday, April 24 following the Finance Committee’s work in the interim and a special School Committee meeting at 7 p.m., Monday, April 23 when its members are expected to make a final vote on assessments to the towns. Recommendations on annual Town Meeting warrant articles will be voted on next week. The annual warrant must be posted by April 30 for the May 7 Town Meeting.

Four special Town Meeting warrant articles were recommended by a 4-0 vote of Selectmen — Chairman Dr. Carl Kowalski was absent — and 7-0-1 votes of the Finance Committee — with Kain abstaining. A fifth article involving town speed limits was recommended by Selectmen.

Right now, Whitman Selectmen are weighing the options between three “what if” scenarios involving the tax impact of each one.

“I would be really opposed to an override that funds part of the deficit and doesn’t fix the problem,” Lynam said.

‘WHAT IFS’

Based on a $16.01 per thousand tax rate, tax bill using the current value with stabilization added, based on a median single-family home worth $278,400 would be $4,596.38 per year with a 50-cent per thousand increase or $139.20. Calculating the current value and adding the school assessment increase would put it at $4,667.12 per year with a 79-cent per thousand increase or $219.94. The current value with both amounts would increase it to $4,821 with a $1.31 per thousand increase or $364.70.

“That’s a fix that solves the problem — for this year,” Lynam said. “But we haven’t solved the problem and with due respect to people who think we have to do more planning, we have a revenue problem.”

That median single-family annual tax bill is now $4,457.18.

“I don’t think any of us are seriously recommending that W-H accept 5 percent,” Lynam said, reminding the board that Whitman is not the only town player involved in the school budget. “We’re probably not going to do 7.25 [percent].”

The town is also taking a serious look at the $381,357 cost of non-mandated busing. While it would not likely be eliminated, discussion will continue to center on subsidizing only part of it.

There are currently 775 students who ride the bus and live outside the 1.5-mile mandated busing radius around schools, putting the per-student cost at $493.

A user fee of $165 per year per student is being looked at to help reduce the cost of non-mandated busing by one-third or $86,245. The School Committee is also looking into a possible suit against the state for unpaid regional transportation funding. [See related story].

“Again, the title of this document is “What If?” so none of these things are etched in stone,” Lynam said. “It’s merely a suggestion for another way to reduce some of the cost that the town is experiencing from non-mandated busing.”

School Committee member Fred Small said the impact of decisions parents make based on user fees will help in calculating how bus routes can be reconfigured and how much would ultimately be saved.

“I think the impact is greater at the high school with people not riding than at the elementary schools,” Small said.

Selectman Brian Bezanson questioned the fairness for large or low-income families. Lynam said non-mandated busing fees only impact families not entitled to a ride in the first place.

“We did set this up and they are counting on it,” Bazanson said. “It’s become a common practice.”

Finance Committee member Marion Mackerwicz said that, as a parent, she appreciated Bezanson’s words but didn’t see the problem.

“If it comes down to will they get an education or if we’re going to cut teachers, I think that walking can be seen in a positive light and I think we’re looking at that,” she said. “We have to look at what creates revenue — the schools do, busing doesn’t.”

But Bezanson questioned if the savings would be enough to improve education. Small said that staggering school start times has already saved the school budgets about $400,000 a year.

“That would be something we’d love to see back to normalcy, but for now it’s just not in the cards,” Small said. “You could establish a family threshold so it would only cost X-amount of dollars per family.” He also suggested a financial need waiver could be considered.

“We’re trying to present this in a way that is mindful of everybody’s interests,” Anderson said.

Lynam said Selectmen had set a 2-percent guide for increases in non-contracted salaries, and requestors who exceeded that were “communicated with” and advised about that position.

ONGOING TALKS

“This is very difficult,” Selectmen Vice Chairman Dan Salvucci said. “We haven’t seen anything like this since 2 ½ went in. … No way am I a fan of doing layoffs … I will not even consider that, me personally, but I don’t know what we’re going to do.”

“Whether it is 9 percent of 11 percent, the budget is devastating to the town,” Lynam said because of constraints of Proposition 2 ½ and the makeup of Whitman’s largely residential tax base.

He argued that the quality of the schools is one of the most important factors in maintaining that tax base.

“We have been fortunate, over the years, to have a good, well-balanced school system, but we’re beginning to lose it,” he said. “We have less services, we have limited language arts in middle school. … When the schools come in and present a budget, what they’re trying to do is meet the basics.”

Anderson said it is important to continue that discussion.

“We obviously have a unique situation,” Anderson said. “While we’re waiting for the schools to certify a budget number, we still have to move forward with recommendations for the rest of the budget.”

He said time is not on the Finance Committee’s side and agreed more time is needed to work on the budget next year.

Lynam and selectmen also argued that the real solution can only be found at the state level.

“We’re not in a unique position here,” said Bezanson, while acknowledging that the town could have acted sooner when state local aid funds were reduced. “There are many other towns in this commonwealth that are in the same boat and that boat is sinking.”

Selectman Randy LaMattina, among other issues, advocates restructuring the police station debt to free up about $860,000 from the levy limit and sees the damage done to the school budget from underfunded regional transportation mandate.

“But I will not strip-mine departments to fund another,” he said of the school budget, while advocating more than a 5-percent assessment increase. “Something needs to be done and it has to start with the people in this room.”

HEATED EXCHANGES

Kain then weighed in with his request to create a strategic capital plan, focusing on Fire Chief Timothy Grenno’s budget requests and recent comments in response to Kain’s last appearance before Selectmen to advocate more responsible budgeting.

“I really hadn’t intended to reply, but I’m going to,” Lynam said, noting he appreciated Kain’s enthusiasm and efforts to stress his points. “You are part of a committee. This discussion occurred in your committee. You have been zealous about establishing a capital plan this year.”

But he added it was made clear to Kain and the Finance Committee in February that the town was not prepared to build that.

“I really enjoy your comments about capital improvements because right now we have no revenue source for capital [work],” Lynam said, raising his voice. “The one revenue source we might have … is committed to paying for a debt that already exists. So, if you’re the guy that has the answers, tell me where it’s coming from.”

Kain argued that there is a misconception that a plan is only needed when there is financial growth.

“We need a plan when there is not growth,” he said. “When we’re in negative feedback loop we’re in triage. The plan tells us what to do. People need to see that we’re in triage, they need to see the financial trends and see what we’re struggling with so that this is an open, transparent process.”

He said the job of Lynam and the Board of Selectmen is to set priorities.

“I think that’s what a leader does,” Kain said arguing that Selectmen should meet weekly until at least 10 p.m. to create budget policy. “We’re in crisis and we need leaders who are going to have swift, decisive action to help us get out of crisis. We don’t need passive leadership right now and I feel like we’re getting passive leadership.”

Board members took strenuous objection to that characterization.

 “You have the answer for everything but you haven’t given one damn answer yet,” Lynam said. “You talk about manuals. Tell me how that’s going to increase money, I want to hear it.”

 “It doesn’t matter how we got here, we’re in a problem,” said LaMattina at another point. “Your solutions right now, although I agree with some of them — I agree with some of the practices, do not solve the problem right now. As the appointed and elected officials in the town, we need to solve the problem and not argue with each other.”

Mackerwicz argued there should be ways to develop revenues in town and that guidance should come from Selectmen.

“They voted for you to provide that guidance,” she said.

Bezanson later in the meeting said he was offended at the charge that the board lacks leadership and he found it “humourous” that Kain followed his comments critical of passive leadership with abstentions on the special Town Meeting warrant articles.