Within some 26 hours Monday and Tuesday, April 8 and 9, the School Committee certified a $62,930,345 compromise budget that includes some contract non-renewals, retirements, and $250,000 taken from excess and deficiency as well as using $100,000 in Circuit Breaker funds to close the budget gap. Then Whitman and Hanson officials then moved to fill the rest of the budget gap with override questions at town meetings and on the May annual town election ballots.
The two select boards met Tuesday, April 9, with Whitman Select Board planning to meet again today [April 11] on the matter. Voters in each community will take it from there next month.
The scenario was one of the budget-trimming proposals Superintendent of Schools Jeff Szymaniak had put before the School Committee last month.
“We’re not asking for an 11 percent increase here,” Chair Beth Stafford said in her board’s meeting on Monday, April 8. “The 11 percent is the assessment, not the budget increase.”
Stafford added that the assessment to towns increased because the state did not provide the district the increase that they should have.
“It was a very low increase – $100,000 doesn’t go very far, as you know,” she said.
The School Committee voted 9-0 to approve the compromise, which would increase the operating budget by 4.04 percent. David Forth was absent from the meeting.
“Instead of being well over $1 million for both towns, if we kept the assessment as it is, it would be down to about $509,212 for Whitman and [$372,141 for Hanson],” Stafford said. “In looking at their towns, [the officials] felt those would have a better chance at passing because it would be a smaller amount. … We know it’s a Band-Aid. I know the towns are thinking about larger overrides or doing something else, we can also look at other things we can do [in the future].”
Hanson’s override would ask the voters to support a $372,141 or 2.68 percent over the 5 percent that town’s officials had indicated was feasible, and Whitman’s override would be $509,212 or 3.87 percent over the 5-percent assessment increase town officials had planned for. The Hanson Select Board voted 4-1 – member Ed Heal was unable to attend because he was traveling – to place the article and ballot question but voted to refer the issue to Town Meeting rather than make a recommendation one way or the other.
“It’s their tax money,” Hanson Select Board Vice Chair Joe Weeks said. “I want them to figure out what is the best use of their tax money. I refuse to cut any operating jobs, positions or line items to fund this. … I don’t think we should be influencing them in any way.”
Hanson’s 7.68-percent assessment increase represents $14,974,736. Based on the average home assessed value of $470,190 in fiscal 2024, Whitman taxpayers would see an annual tax increase of $95.38, according to Carter.
Hanson taxpayer would see an annual increase of $94.98 annually based on an average home assessed value of about $499,000 in fiscal 2024 to fund the override there. Hanson has plotted out the tax impact for a range of home values on the town website, hanson-ma.gov.
The original assessment increase for Whitman had been 11.3 percent and Hanson’s had been close to 10.2 percent.
The Whitman Select Board, meeting the same night, heard Town Administrator Mary Beth Carter announce that the board would meet virtually at 12:30 p.m., today [Thursday, April 11] to vote on the question pertaining to the override article being placed on Whitman’s Town Meeting warrant and on the Town Election ballot. Whitman’s 7.787 percent assessment total is $19,135,687.
Whitman FinComm opposes move
The Whitman Finance Committee, also meeting Tuesday, unanimously voted not to support the school budget as Chair Rick Anderson termed it a lose-lose proposition for the schools.
“They came down a little over $900,000,” said Hanson Select Chair Laura FitzGerald-Kemmett during her board’s meeting Tuesday night. She repeated Szymaniak’s admonition that the budget would not negatively affect educational outcomes, but that they “needed to dig in in the interest of trying to meet everybody halfway.”
“It’s not our job to vote the assessment or even approve the assessment that is handed to us by the School Committee,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “But we do need to decide how we fund it, if voters want to do that. … This [budget scenario] was always on the table.”
She noted that the board had not wanted to make dire cuts to town personnel, so in order to do that, they have been talking about an override that is specifically for the schools, presenting it in the warrant as 5 percent being what the town can afford, and the budget for the schools would include an override.
“I don’t think anyone is leaving feeling victorious, but I do think it’s definitely better than it was a week ago.
Stafford outlined the meeting she and Superintendent of Schools Jeff Szymaniak had on Monday, April 1 with town administrators Mary Beth Carter of Whitman and Lisa Green of Hanson as well as select board chairs Laura FitzGerald Kemmett of Hanson and Dr. Carl Kowalski of Whitman.
“It was a good meeting,” Stafford said of the meeting with administrators and select board chairs. “It went about an hour and a half, almost. I do want to say they were not trying to micromanage us. They were not putting us down. They were understanding of what our concerns were, too.”
She said that she and Szymaniak felt the session was “very collaborative” and that the group tried to come up with something that would work, hopefully, but that such an outcome would depend on what the School Committee decided.
“I would like to remind the board, because some people have said we are going backwards, that we haven’t progressed, that we haven’t had any new progress,” Stafford said. “And I want to remind everybody that we certainly have. We’ve seen that in the last couple of months with all the data on the students’ progress alone. We’ve advanced, we’ve come forward.”
Stafford also emphasized that the district has, in fact come forward with new programs, such as Innovation Pathways to prepare students for the outside world in the medical and health as well as business fields. The district has also added curriculum for grades one through 10.
“What I’m going to suggest does not impact any student growth and it, hopefully, might be the best way of getting through this year,” Stafford said. “We have talked with them about more conversations forward with the town, too, and things that they have decided that they need to do, but we all know is that one of the main problems is the state.”
The district received “a little over $100,000” from the state for fiscal 2025, Stafford said, adding that representatives in the General Court must do more. She also reminded the public that the district is like it’s own municipality, with it’s own health insurance, maintenance and facilities costs – as any community does.
“We knew both sides couldn’t do much of anything without an override,” she said. “The issue was, if we’re going to do an override – what size?”
Budget impact on learning
“This was a level-service budget,” Stafford said. “This did not include anything else.”
Szymaniak had presented the different budget tiers and the assessment costs they carried last month. The tier voted on Monday was the first on that list, which gave back about $900,000 and calls for not filling non-renewals of some contracts and retirements.
“These positions would not affect student scores, would not affect the young students’ class sizes that everybody was so concerned about,” Stafford said. “It would be a loss of positions, but positions that Jeff felt could be absorbed.”
Stafford also alluded to questions from the public on whether the interventionists hired to help students transition back to classrooms after the isolation and remote learning during the COVID pandemic were necessary.
“I think that everybody could see that the interventionists made a difference,” she said. “All our scores went up and they continue to go up. That would put us backwards if we couldn’t have them anymore.”
Residents have also questioned recent hires.
Seven of the positions recently filled by the school district are now required by the state, including English Language Learners (ELL) teachers or tutors and the district also has to retain E&D and Circuit Breaker funds for midyear special education student enrollments or placements.
School Committee Vice Chair Christopher Scriven said Monday that he was interested in hearing what some of the discussions held during the meeting with town officials on April 1 about the future.
“How does this not put us right back in the same position next year?” he asked. “I’m curious to know what, if any, plans are in the works for the future?”
Stafford said Hanson Town Administrator Lisa Green has discussed her town’s consideration of a $5 million operational override next year as recommended by their Madden Report. While Carter has not specifically stated her town’s plan, there is also “discussion ongoing with them.”
Stafford also said she did not think a large override would pass this year and could cost upwards of 20 positions if it should fail.
“The real problem is coming from the state,” Scriven said. “We’re not doing anything to move forward here.”
He asked if there was any push back from the towns on whether the shortfall is due to anything other than a failure of the state to adequately fund schools and asked what the towns’ legislative team was doing to push the state to adequately fund schools, especially regional districts.
“If we look at the 5 percent assessment that the town’s kind of lock us into, we’re never going to get out of this with a .0001-percent increase from the state every year,” Szymaniak said. “We’re just not. It’s not going to happen.”
Whitman Select Board member Shawn Kain argued that, to say the state does not adequately fund schools is something of a misconception, however.
“Through their eyes, they’re giving us too much state aid, and they’ve given us too much state aid for the last period of time,” he said. “Once we come out of the hold-harmless situation, then we get back into the typical scenario and they start to fund us with state aid that’s proportional to our budget.”
Both Scriven and Fred Small acknowledged that the current budget practices are putting an undo burden on taxpayers, especially those on fixed incomes. Small again advocated for a five-year plan to better demonstrate the need to taxpayers.
Hillary Kniffen reminded the board they have already done that and agreed the problem is the state funding and a misunderstanding among local taxpayers that the schools are overspending.
Member Dawn Byers asserted there is more of a revenue collection problem on the part of the towns than a budgeting problem with the schools.
“To recognize the concerns about the taxpayers, we’re only doing them a further disservice by using E&D of $250,000,” she said. “Because when you go to borrow for a middle school building, that interest rate’s going to go up because the district has used E&D.”
She also said, while it’s comforting that education won’t be impacted, she is still concerned about what positions will be cut.
Stafford also said residents do not realize that $600,000 of the money taken out of E&D last year went toward helping the district recover from a damaging data breach the year before, on which recovery work is still being done. That was done so the amount not covered by insurance was not billed to the towns.
“We’re not unique,” said Committee member Glen DiGravio, attending remotely. “This is happening all over the state. Every town’s going to be voting on an override, pretty much… I think this is a fair compromise proposal. I think the motion before us is something that gets us through.”
He said he knows the Committee wants to fix next year and the next five years, but they have to fix this year first.
“If an override is going to happen, no matter what, I think making it as painless as possible is what we should be doing now,” he said, advocating Szymaniak’s proposal.
Hanson’s questions
In Hanson, Weeks asked a question many residents have been wondering about: What happens if the override fails?
Hanson Town Counsel Kate Feodoroff said if either town rejected the budget while the other approves it, that is considered a rejection and the School Committee may decide not to accept that, which would force another town meeting. If Hanson, for example, were to approve only the lesser amount and Whitman approves the greater amount, School Committee may opt to accept the lesser amount and adjust Whitman’s portion accordingly, Feodoroff said.
The Committee is, however, also able to force a Super Town Meeting, attended by residents, and would have to work within a 1/12 budget until it is settled.
FitzGerald-Kemmett summed up for her board that it seemed that, at the first budget certification vote in March, she felt the School Committee felt that, since the two towns were discussing an override, “We’re going for the gusto, we’re going to go for the maximum,” she said. “I’m not saying that for dramatic effect. I think their feeling was, ‘If they’re going to do an override anyway, and that’s how we’re going to fund this delta between the 5 percent and whatever we vote, then, let’s not cut back on anything and keep as much E&D and Circuit-Breaker money as we can.’ I am not defending this, nor am I trying to condemn them. I’m just stating this is the perspective.”
She also stressed that the School Committee is elected to do the job of advocating for students.
“We’re elected to do a different job,” she said. “That’s why, at budget time, it may feel like we’re at different ends of the spectrum, but they’re doing what they feel they need to do. … We’re trying to balance the town’s budget, and I don’t want to say never the twain shall meet, because I’m eternally hopeful that the twain shall meet at some point.”
FitzGerald-Kemmett also said the forensic audit is also continuing, with a meeting planned for this month perhaps as early as this week.
Hanson Little League opens the season
HANSON – “Some days you win, some days you lose, some days it rains,” off-kilter rookie phenom pitcher Ebby Calvin “Nuke” LaLoosh intoned during his first big Major League news interview in the 1988 film “Bull Durham.”
Well, it rained Saturday, April 6, on the Hanson Little League’s Opening Day parade – and no one seemed to mind much, except for the fact that the Pitch, Hit & Run contest, as well as the scheduled games, had to be postponed.
The opener marked the 25th year of Hanson Little League’s charter with Little League International, and it would take more than a little rain to dampen that celebration.
The morning began with the promise of the sun peeking through clouds after a few days of sometimes heavy rain and, while the air was raw, parents and excited players – from T-ball to the Major League levels – gathered at the Town Hall green to receive new baseball caps and T-shirts, emblazoned with the name of the sponsoring business on the back, before marching to Botieri Field.
The rain held off long enough for a Hanson ambulance and fire engine to crawl up the hill on Liberty Street, sirens blaring, ahead of the teams and family members.
But just as the opening ceremonies were getting underway, a misty rain set in, and by the time Hanson Little League President Robert Kniffen began to speak, it intensified, driven by a steady wind.
“Baseball breaks your heart,” former MLB Commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti wrote, but, as Kniffen noted, it also symbolizes community.
“Little League is a community game, played in thousands of communities across the world and there’s no better community than [the one] you are in right now – Hanson, Massachusetts,” Kniffen said. “As you can see, it’s truly a community effort, from the moms and dads, the aunts and the uncles, our first responders – so much goes into making this a special season.”
Opening ceremonies included former Hanson Little League board member and League President Paul Clark threw out the ceremonial First Pitch and a player selected from each team went to the pitchers mound to yell “Play ball!”
And the season was on.
“In addition to Paul’s 11 years serving the board, and three years as president of the board, Paul also spearheads the Damien’s 5K Freaky Road Race fundraiser, which also benefits community programs, including Hanson Little League,” Kniffen said.
He noted that Little League’s mission is to teach life lessons and build stronger individuals and communities.
“We all have an important role and an opportunity to teach and learn these life lessons through Little League baseball,” he said. “For the players, that means to … be a good teammate. To be a good friend. To do something kind – to help a teammate out. To be coachable – to listen to your coaches and what they’re teaching you.”
As glasses steamed up or got splattered with raindrops, a few umbrellas went up and several spectators turned their backs to the wind, Scouts from Troop 68 raised the flag as Brittney Prescott sang the national anthem.
Pastor Kris Skjerli of Calvary Baptist Church listed several MLB players who often credit their faith in their daily lives more than their on-field success, before offering the opening blessing.
“Thank you for men and women who have given their lives and their dreams to sports and baseball as we gather here today, and have been able to keep it in perspective,” he said in his blessing. “And I pray we can do the same this year, and have fun, play our hearts out and develop our skills. Give wisdom to the coaches, patience and understanding.”
He prayed that the players be protected from injury and that their attitudes and on-field behavior reflect respect for each other. The two attributes require no skill, but help players improve every day, Kniffen told the players ringing the ball field.
“In sports, and in anything else, there’s two things that you can control, and that’s your attitude and your effort,” Kniffen said. “It’s not how far you hit the ball. It’s not how fast you throw it. … We look for you to be a positive teammate.”
That means dependably showing up for every game and every practice, not complaining or giving up, by always trying your hardest and listening to coaches, no matter what the outcome.
“For the parents and families, it’s time to take a step back and appreciate the game in its purest form … it’s just kids, enjoying America’s pastime for the love of the game,” he said, reminding them that there are no contracts or scholarships being handed out by high-power scouts.
While there will be failures for players to experience, the consequences will be minimal, and parents were asked to keep that in mind.
“None of this would have been possible without the group and community efforts that have been put forth in the past year in preparation for today and this upcoming season,” Kniffen said. He gave a tip of the cap from the league to the players’ families’ participation and positive support; the league’s board of directors; coaches and volunteers who stepped up to lead teams this spring and the team sponsors, asking families to take note of sponsors’ advertising banners around the fields and support their businesses.
He also gave “a big thank you to the Hanson Fire and Police departments for their help in making the event a safe success.
Kniffen gave special recognition to Deputy Fire Chief Charlie Barends for donating his time to attend the annual coaches meeting to train coaches and volunteers on CPR, first aid and operating the use of AED machines as well as securing the three machines stored at the HLL fields for emergency cardiac use.
Kniffen also saluted the league’s fundraising partnership with Gold Athletics. Last year the partnership translated to $6,000 for the league, and this year they plan to exceed that.
Based on the current fundraiser’s success to date, that seems like a good bet.
Gold Athletics representative Matt Ross reported that, while, there has been success in the past two years of the partnership. Said he wanted to “address some of the pain points.”
Even though the families involved in Hanson Little League sold more than $17,000 worth of cookies dough last year, the company wanted to make it easier this year with a pretzel and waffle fundraiser in which orders will be shipped directly to customers’ homes anywhere in the country. As a result, three people are already close to their sales goal.
“We’re hoping to beat last year’s record,” Ross said. “Another new feature is somebody can actually just donate if they’d like to.”
Kniffen also asked the crowd to consider supporting Hanson Little League in other ways, such as the snack shack and raffles. One raffle, for four seats behind home plate at a Red Sox game, which will be drawn on April 26, and for tickets to an Aug. 10 New Kids on the Block concert tickets, for which more information will be soon be available about the $20 tickets.
All fundraising proceeds go directly back to the league.
Hanson energy program to start
HANSON – Town Administrator Lisa Green on Tuesday, April 2 informed the Select Board that full approval has been received from the state Department of Public Utilities Control (DPUC) for the town’s municipal energy aggregate program to offer residents savings on their electricity bills.
Good Energy conducted the procurement bidding service and, out of three bids received, the supplier with the lowest cost was Direct Energy Services.
“There has been an electric service agreement that has been executed,” she said. “Good Energy [was] going to begin, I believe [this] week, the outreach.”
Hanson residents are being mailed informational postcards including quotes on savings and rates in order to decide what what to do, or they can visit hansoncommunitypower.com.
“This will be a savings,” Green said. “I can’t give estimates on what the savings will be, but is a significant savings, below what National Grid charges pet kilowatt.”
Chair Laura FitzGerald-Kemmett noted that board member Ed Heal had specifically asked that outreach be done to inform residents – targeting the Senior Center in particular – to get that information out.
“What’s our plan here?” she asked.
Green said Green Energy would be developing the postcards and literature for “basically everyone in Hanson” and said her office could ensure it is delivered to the Senior Center as well.
“We can also ask them to put together a presentation that they can do by Zoom over at the Senior Center,” she said.
Energy Committee member Marianne DiMascio said there is a full community outreach schedule to which Good Energy must adhere, including postcards and literature. There will also be an in-person community information session this month, probably at the library or police station, and a virtual meeting in May. Another in-person session could also be held at the Senior Center.
The basic rate for National Grid service is currently 18.32 cents per kilowatt hour. Hanson standard is the default at 13.693 cents per KWH and 10 percent of that supply is from renewable sources. Hanson basic (no renewable sources) is 13.62 cents per KWH and Hanson 14.7 cents per KWH for 100-percent renewable sources.
The board also voted to have Green draft a letter to National Grid requesting streetlights at three utility poles along Route 58 in the center of town in the interest of pedestrian safety.
Green said she had received an email from Sgt. Michael Bearse of the Hanson Police, about streetlights at the intersections of Liberty and Winter as well as Indian Head and School streets. Bearse observed that lighting at those areas was insufficient to make it safe for pedestrians to cross.
“He has suggested that we add streetlights to the crosswalks,” she said. “ One is near the front of Town Hall on Liberty Street at Winter Street and the intersection of Indian Head Street and at the School Street side of Indian Head Street.
“Apparently, there is one streetlight on one of those poles, but it’s not operational, so I don’t know if that was one that was included in the recent LED conversion that National Grid did,” Green said. “We can get in touch with them as soon as we know exactly what pole number it is.”
Green reached out to National Grid about the process of adding streetlights to those poles and was told it was just a matter of adding the light arm and lamp to the poles. The cost is $108 per year per light annually.
FitzGerald-Kemmett asked if that was an annual expense or just the cost of adding the light to each pole. Green said a 20-watt LED light plus installation done at no cost, the $108 reflects the electricity cost.
In other business, the board, had voted to appoint Highway Supervisor Steve Graham as temporary interim highway director for March 20-29. As it was not posted for that meeting, the board will vote on appointing Kurt McLean as the new interim highway director, effective April 1.
The board also voted in open session to place Highway Director Jameson Shave on paid administrative leave for the remainder of his contract – effectively no longer being employed by the town from March 20 to June 30. The board had already taken the vote during executive session.
Old Colony Elder Services marks 50 years
Old Colony Elder Services (OCES) is celebrating 50 Years of Care and Collaboration with a special luncheon and awards presentation on May 1, 2024, at Hotel 1620 Plymouth Harbor.
Established in 1974, OCES is the largest provider of in-home and community-based services for older adults and people living with disabilities in Plymouth County and surrounding areas in Massachusetts. The agency has offices in Brockton and Plymouth.
OCES’ 50th Anniversary Luncheon will be held at Hotel 1620 Plymouth Harbor, 180 Water Street in Plymouth, MA 02360 on May 1, 2024, 12:30-2:00 p.m. The luncheon will include an awards presentation; 95.9 WATD Radio Host Rob Hakala as the MC, Life Is Good Playmaker Project creator Steve Gross as the guest speaker; and an opportunity drawing. Civic and business leaders, vendors, and partner organizations, and health care professionals are invited to attend.OCES will present awards to outstanding individuals and organizations whose actions and/or leadership have exemplified Care and Collaboration.
The event is part of a campaign to raise $50,000 to expand OCES’ Behavioral Health and Wellness programs. OCES’ Elder Mental Health Outreach Team (EMHOT) provides behavioral health and wellness support to older adults and people with disabilities who may be isolated or encounter barriers limiting access to behavioral health care.
Thanks go to sponsors for their generous donations: Datalyst, LLC; Best of Care; The OCPC Ombudsman Program; Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts; Law Office of Paula Schlosser; Attentive Home Care, Inc.; Home Health Resources, Inc.; Brown & Brown of Massachusetts, LLC; Citrin Cooperman; Stonewell Care, LLC; Old Colony Planning Council (OCPC); Rockland Trust; Diman Laundry; isolved MP; South Coast Laundry, Inc.; and S&M Transportation.
RSVP by April 15, 2024 for OCES’ 50th Anniversary Luncheon. Registration is required.
For tickets to the event, visit ocesma.org and click on OCES’ 50th Event Page.
Talks continuing on school budget
HANSON – Town and school district officials have been talking, and – while the school budget gulf has not yet been bridged – there is a clearer focus on the budget picture.
As the Select Board reviewed the warrant on Tuesday, April 2, Chair Laura FitzGerald-Kemmett sounded a note of cautious optimism that the gap could be bridged, or an override to span that difference would be needed. Last week the frustration over the school budget was strong [see stroy below].
Vice Chair Joe Weeks, during the warrant articles review, suggested the board not vote on recommending non-financial articles until next week.
“Does it make sense to put off this conversation until we actually know how much money we’re going to have?” he said. “Wouldn’t this conversation be better to have next week once FinCom has gone through their recommendations?”
They proceeded through the review voting only to place several financial articles until the Tuesday, April 9 meeting.
Select Board Chair Laura FitzGerald-Kemmett, noting that “diplomacy is not my forte,” described the meeting she attended with Superintendent of Schools Jeff Szymaniak, School Committee Chair Beth Stafford and Whitman Select Board Chair Dr. Carl Kowalski on Monday, April 1.
“We may be having additional conversations about the school assessment and where that is by next week, which potentially could be at a different place than it is right now,” she said.
Weeks said without a firm number on several articles, “a lot of this is guessing.”
FitzGerald-Kemmett said the board could either place and recommend non-monetary articles, place everything and remove any articles, not supported before the warrant closes. The board did, however, vote to place and recommend an article that increases zoning fines to give them more bite.
The board opted to place everything that had no monetary effect. It was in keeping with a caution sounded by Finance Committee Chair Kevin Sullivan.
“I imagine we’ll be preparing for the worst and stripping a lot of things that we’d like to do out of the articles,” Sullivan said as his committee prepared to review the warrant. “We will not be recommending a large majority of things we can put off.”
FitzGerald-Kemmett asked if the lens they might be looking through is different if the school assessment were to come down or did Sullivan still feel it would be problematic.
“I think we need a safety net, always, so I still think there are things we’re going to not recommend in the articles as well as we’re still going to make cuts to the budget,” Sullivan said. “Not enough to overcome the deficit, but enough to trim things out of the current budget that are ‘nice to haves.’”
The board voted to place the article but has not yet voted on whether to recommend it.
Balancing the budget, on paper, will take using $858,000 in free cash and keeping the schools at a 5-percent increase Kinsherf said. There would be $248,000 left in free cash if that scenario proves accurate.
“We can balance the budget as we currently have it,” he said. “The thought was that next [thing] we’d be thinking of is an override above the 5 percent that the schools want.”
“We’re not going to recommend paying more than 5 percent,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “We are at 5 percent. We are not moving beyond 5 percent.”
That said, she described the meeting with Whitman and school officials as having created an “understanding among everybody that, really, the towns are in a tough position” and can’t go above the 5 percent assessment increase without a school override.
“It would still be more of a partnership and much appreciated if the School Committee could take another look at the assessment that they’ve given to the towns and they have taken that under advisement and they will take it back to their School Committee,” she said. “It was a cordial conversation, everybody understood where everybody else was coming from [and] we basically said 5 percent is where it’s at.”
During that conversation, FitzGerald-Kemmett recalled that Szymaniak made a good point that “our 5 percent increase on their assessment really translates to a 3.8 percent increase” to the schools because the assessment is only a portion of the budget.
“Regardless of what we hear back from the School Committee, unless they say, ‘We’re going to go straight 5 percent, which I’m not anticipating is going to happen,” … we’re going to have a school override for the delta between the 5 percent and whatever the assessment is,” she said. “Whitman is doing the same thing.”
While she is hoping that the override is reduced and would go a long way toward helping people feel that at least some work has been done and “some ownership and mutual respect has been exhibited by everybody trying to work together on this.”
“It truly is a math problem,” she said. “Nobody was able to commit, I didn’t commit to anything, we just talked.”
Select Board member Ed Heal asked if they had to know how an override would look and if anything was being drafted.
Language for the article is preliminary according to Green who added it would be reorganized after the school district’s decision.
“Until a vote is taken by the School Committee, we ought not to be putting anything into our [warrant],” FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “I don’t think we should have a dollar amount at all in this. We know, if it’s anything in excess of 5 percent, whatever that dollar amount is will be in here.”
The choice is sticking to 5 percent or doing a school override for the delta between the two numbers, she said.
Schools are far from the only budget the Select Board is concerned about.
Town Administrator Lisa Green said the town also has, within the articles for the special Town Meeting Warrant, the ability to use ARPA funds for an $85,000 pond management study, for example, which could be tabled until October. The board agreed to delete that article from the May Town Meeting warrant.
Other financial
articles
The board also placed and recommended the Camp Kiwanee budget article, which largely shifts funds from retained earnings to the budget plan, according to Camp Kiwanee Commission Chair Frank Milisi. Town Accountant Eric Kinsherf echoed that by noting $50,000 would be transferred from receipts and the remainder from retained earnings.
“At the end of the day, we will have the side-by-side comparison of what the [Select Board] recommends and what FinCom recommended,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said.
The board had to cut the $15,000 article for an animal shelter renovation that was planned in addition to boosting the animal control officer to a full-time position. The board has discussed in depth earlier this year that the ACO has driven animals to the Lakeville shelter, which takes upwards of 40 minutes for a round-trip or brings animals, especially livestock, to his own property.
Weeks concerned about the potential liability of the ACO taking animals home.
“To me, I would like to see this handled as a project plan,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “I feel it needs flushing out.”
She tasked Green with doing more research to obtain solid numbers on the cost in light of Select Board member Ann Rein’s comment that she had toured Hanson’s shelter that day and determined it would likely cost much more than $15,000 to renovate.
“Bring it back in October with a little more meat on the bone,” she said.
Hope held out for more budget talks
HANSON – While Whitman’s Select Board was hearing a list of consequences – including layoffs and shuttered departments – of a $63.5 million level-service fiscal 2025 school budget on Tuesday, March 26, Hanson officials were seeing the same handwriting on the wall, but a flicker of communication was being nursed into the flame of another joint meeting between town officials on Monday, April 1.
“We may get to a better point,” said Hanson Select Board Chair Laura FitzGerald-Kemmett. “It certainly can’t get worse. … There’s not a lot of town budget to slash.”
In the meantime, the Select Board reached the consensus that, if an override of Proposition 2 ½ is necessary, it would be a contingency school override, with dual budgets proposed at Town Meeting as Whitman is doing, allowing Town Clerk Elizabeth Sloan to have the ballot printed by April 12.
The W-H School Committee on Wednesday, March 20, certified the budget, first unveiled on Feb. 1, without any of the cuts discussed the previous week.
“After many conversations that [Whitman] Town Administrator Mary Beth Carter and myself had with Superintendent [of Schools Jeff Szymaniak], we really voiced our ability to afford 5 percent assessment [increase],” Town Administrator Lisa Green. They also met with Szymaniak and School Committee Chair Beth Stafford in which she and Carter reiterated the towns’ ability to afford only a 5 percent increase.
“I think we’re back where we said we were going to be last year,” said Finance Committee Chair Kevin Sullivan. “The schools are not willing to be a rational partner, in my opinion.”
He noted that financial consultant John Madden has been telling Hanson officials that a $5 million operational override has been needed to put the town on solid financial footing.
“I don’t know how this went from such a cordial relationship over the 12 years I’ve been doing this,” he said. “We’ve never had this kind of problem. … The math just doesn’t hold up in the long run.”
He said the choice comes down to playing a “dangerous game of chicken” with the entire process and see what happens, predicting there would be another override next year and another after that; or the town can try to reach an agreement with the district this year and go for an operational override next year for FY 2026.
He said the April 1 meeting should take place after the April 1 meeting.
“If we don’t do an override, the changes are fairly draconian,” said FitzGerald-Kemmett. “I’ll be quite honest, you’re looking at library, Town Hall employees, obviously, some fire and police would be impacted. I personally don’t even want to talk about those types of cuts. … We would be talking about absolutely crippling the operations at Town Hall.”
Most of the positions residents take for granted like a full-time Building Department, Conservation and then Board of Health would all be cut.
“Why do we have to cut on our side, when the School Department doesn’t have to cut on anything?” Select Board member David George asked.
“We are not the School Committee,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said.
While insisting she was not trying to be critical of Szymaniak or to take potshots at anyone, FitzGerald-Kemmett, she said the Select Board “could not have been clearer any earlier than we were this year” about Hanson’s financial situation.
The town could say no and include a budget with a 5-percent in the warrant and present the school budget as contingent on an override happening. That is the avenue Whitman is taking.
Failing passage of the school budget on the town side and an override fails, cuts would be forced. If an override passes, the school budget would be funded.
FitzGerald-Kemmett said her feeling is that things would fall somewhere in the middle.
“Even if they come down a little, we literally cannot afford any more than 5 percent,” she said. “We weren’t exaggerating, we weren’t being dramatic. We cannot afford any more than that.”
Even at a 5-percent assessment increase, the town would be making cuts and “limiting spending severely,” she reminded the board. “What we’re saying is all we have is 5 percent and even that was a stretch.”
The Hanson Select Board had initially told the School Committee that all it was comfortable in allowing very moderate growth – and even negotiation with the unions – was 3.8 percent, FitzGerald-Kemmett said.
“With this 5 percent, we now have to try to deal in good faith with the unions and say we don’t know what our financial situation is going to look like next year,” she said. “It’s not a great place to be as we enter into negotiations with all of our unions this year.”
Green said it was very unfortunate after attending the School Committee meeting last week.
“To see that the committee did not take into consideration any of Superintendent Szymaniak’s scenarios for lowering the assessment, which would have included using some of their excess and deficiency and circuit breaker, cutting some positions to bring the assessments down,” Green said. “They were starting to go in the right direction, but they got to 6.69 percent, a 7.68 and a 5 percent scenario.”
The Committee’s 8-1 vote took all reductions off the table and was opposed by Whitman member Fred Small. Member Michelle Bourgelas of Hanson was absent.
Green said the School Committee’s vote leaves them needing to close the funding gap and that “an override is one of our options.”
“It’s not out of the question [that the School Committee could make cuts], but we have a very short runway right now,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “We’ve got to make a decision and lock down our warrant, really, within the next week in order for us to be able to do this.”
Hanson’s assessment increase went back to the original 10.2 percent and Whitman’s to a 11.88 percent increase.
Green has since been working with Town Accountant Eric Kinsherf to determine what that type of assessment means to the towns – roughly $15,532,479 as an assessment for Hanson, and about $20 million for Whitman. Hanson’s free cash totals only $1.486 million.
“That brings us to a shortfall of $1,579,947,” she said. “Obviously, we don’t have enough free cash to cover that amount.”
Hanson needs to find $723,176 to balance.
Green said a chart is posted on the town website: hanson.ma-gov, that gives residents an idea of the impact of an override on their real estate personal property tax based on the average assessed value – $499,873 based on FY 2024 figures. Such a home would be a tax bill of $6,688 or about $179.75 more annually. The chart covers tax changes connected to an override on property valued from $250,000 all the way to $1.5 million.
George asked if the school district had any free cash. Green noted the districts doesn’t have enough free cash to cover it. The School Committee typically cannot empty their excess and deficiency account, even as they often contribute some of that money to help balance the budget, because laws mandating the schools educate all children ages 2.5 to 22 means they need to keep some cash in reserve in case a family with a special needs child moves into the district.
Szymaniak had suggested in one of his scenarios that $250,000 of the approximately $700,000 in E&D toward lowering the school budget deficit.
“I’m a neophyte to all of this, but it just seems to me to be extremely – I don’t even know what the word is … arrogant comes to mind – to ask the towns to cut other budgets and not even take a glance at what they could have cut,” said Select Board member Ann Rein. “I don’t understand that kind of attitude, especially in this day and age, when everything has done nothing but go up and we’re just supposed to pull it out of somewhere.”
She said non-instructional staff hired with one-time funds should go – “I don’t care what they do at the school,” Rein said. “Some of them could go.”
FitzGerald-Kemmett said the schools don’t have to be told where to cut, but they should have to make cuts.
She pointed out that Szymaniak had presented several scenarios in which some programs would be cut and some E&D and circuit breakers funds would be transferred to help close the budget gap.
FitzGerald-Kemmett said there will be more discussion between the two towns and the district, and that she feels hopeful that the dollar amount might be reduced, but that is hard to say by how much.
“We are dealing with the most severe case … and without any further movement from the School Committee and we’re trying to make a decision,” she said. “What are our options?”
“Hope is not getting us anywhere,” Rein said.
“I just think it’s funny that they hired a lot of people over there that are not teachers that they don’t want to lay off,” George. “They got something that they can’t afford, just like if I bought something I can’t afford, I’m going to get rid of it.”
He said the district has people on the payroll they obviously can’t afford and they are trying to retain them.
“They’ve taken a stand … they’re doing what they believe is their mission … what they were elected to do and our job is to respond and say we are responsible for managing the town’s budget,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “If you want that money we have to go to an override, and it has to be for the schools because we don’t need it for the town budget.”
She called Whitman Select Board Chair Dr. Carl Kowalski and Stafford to see if there was any potential that groups from either town or the district could come together and discuss the budget and it was agreed to, with the town administrators, Szymaniak, Kowalski, Stafford and herself to have such a discussion April 1.
“I don’’t know if that will work, but I’m willing to try anything,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said.
Vice Chair Joe Weeks said he is struggling with the issue.
“One of the things I’m struggling with is how it, ironically affects the kids that we’re trying to advocate for,” he said, noting that a lot of people will end up in a difficult position. “We go to the ballot with something like this, you’re putting a lot of stock in that it’s going to pass. … I just don’t like being in a position like that in the 11th hour.”
He said his main concern is what happens if it does not pass at the ballot.
“It really is an all-or-nothing scenario,” he said.
SST eyes next steps in building project
HANOVER – Back-to-back meetings of the South Shore Tech School Committee and School Building Committee on Wednesday, March 20 updated the ballot timing and reviewed the process for selecting a project construction manager.
During the School Committee’s regular meeting, Superintendent/Direction Dr, Thomas J. Hickey noted Town Meeting season was approaching rapidly for the district as Abington holds its Town Meeting on Monday, April 1 and Scituate’s is on Monday, April 8.
Hickey said his evaluation goals for the year include cyber security, the MSBA process and students receiving third party licenses.
Hickey said he planned to convene with town clerks in district communities on April 24.
“At that meeting, my hope is to get updated feedback from them.” he said, noting he has already received one request to consider moving a January vote to closer to spring 2025. “I asked if that meant something like March or April, the answer was, ‘yes.’ … so we are anywhere from 10 to 12 months from the voters of our district rendering a decision.”
Saturday, March 1 or Saturday, March 8, 2025 are both possible election dates, he said.
“We may see some of our communities, which has nothing to do with us, decide that on the same day to have a separate ballot, ask the sequence of A1) Do you support the vote project? And A2) are you willing to pay for it through a debt exclusion? … That way town financial teams would know where they stand.”
“How do we inform our communities?” Mahoney asked.
Carlson said that, aside from the usual marketing materials such as the use of a website and flyers, talking to people is the best avenue.
“To date, we’ve been trying to go to public meetings and things like that,” Carlson said. “Over the summer, there’s farmer’s markets … having conversations with people, I think will be an important part. … Nobody can advocate for the project, but we can provide facts.”
“What can we do to convince the state [that] the cost of vocational education is a lot more than a traditional regular high school?” Salvucci asked.
Franceschi said a recent project by Tri-County saw discussion of the need to get more vocational representation on the MSBA board.
The Building Committee, on which most of the School Committee also serves, heard a project update from the Construction, according to Manager Jennifer Carlson of LeftField. The Building Committee also voted to appoint OPM representative Carlson, architect representative Carl Franceschi of DRA and awarding authority representatives Hickey and School Committee members Robert Mahoney and Robert Mello to the at-risk prequalification and selection committees.
The state requires those representatives to serve on the committee approving the project moving forward with the procurement process, which the inspector general has approved.
The selection committee reviews the statement of qualifications to decide which are qualified to move on to the next round, conduct interviews and, ultimately votes to award the construction manager’s contract.
Abington School Commitee member Mahoney, of SST Dean of Students Robert Mello, who holds an unrestricted construction supervisors license, were selected based on their construction experience, said Chair Robert Heywood who represents Hanover.
“This is a process that’s based on the qualifications, but we do have to see the price before we do the final ranking,” Carlson said.
The aim is to have the process complete for the SBC to approve the construction manager by May 23.
The construction manager feasibility pre-con fee range, which gets the project through schematic design, is between $55,000 to $65,000 from the $305,565 in remaining uncommitted funds.
Whitman committee representative Dan Salvucci asked when town votes on the new school project would begin.
Bringing them back to the matter of the schematic design, Franceschi noted that, while they are not there yet, they “don’t have to wait around” to take the project to the next level.
“The basic goal of this phase is to describe the scope, the schedule and the budget so by the time we submit again to the state, those three areas are well-defined and everyone is willing to live with it because it really becomes a contract,” he said.
Now that the specific site of the new building is better known, DRA’s engineers can go back to make boring and test kits in more specific locations to know what the soils and ground water is like.
“It’s pretty important information from a design point of view,” Franchesci said.
A traffic engineer will also be more closely studying the traffic flow past the school.
“So basically, we’ll be refining the design,” he said. “There’ll certainly be fine-tuning.”
Mahoney asked when the committee would see a “drop-dead date” when they learn MSBA numbers.
Carlson said the budget is part of the schematic design submission delivered to the MSBA in August and, two weeks later, the whole schematic package, which the MSBA will have two months to provide the numbers. Officially, the date would be around Oct. 30.
Fund-raising runners are matathoners, too
Over the past few months, folks out there may have seen me, and likely a lot of other folks in the area, running at various speeds for various reasons on the streets of Whitman. Me? I’m in the final days of training to run my fourth Boston Marathon, to raise money for Mass General Hospital’s Pediatric Cancer Center. I’m a “charity runner,” which means I earn my place on the course not by speed, but by raising funds. Yesterday, someone on one of the runner’s internet boards asked whether anyone was experiencing derision for being a “charity” runner, as opposed to someone who “qualified” by running.
Well, yeah. I get negative messages about not being qualified… about not being a real runner… about being too fat to do this, and a few folks have gone so far as to say that my, and others of my ilk, running marathons is diminishing the value of the accomplishment for the “real” runners. I brush it off; it happens often enough that I kind of expect it… but I also censor myself a lot, because the underlying feeling with a good number of folks in the running community is, well, I don’t belong.
I’m not saying this comes from the elite runners. It’s more from the “everyday” folks, who have somehow taken it upon themselves to gatekeep the roads as somewhere that a person like me will never belong, regardless of what I do to get there.
Look, I know who I am. I DO own a mirror. I know that I’m likely never going to be a person who finishes a marathon in 2.5 hours, or 3, or even 4 or 5. I know that I’m “buying my way in” to marathon courses by raising money, as opposed to “earning” my way. I’m good with that.
I know some folks who have the financial means to stroke a check for the $7500.00 Boston Athletic Association charity fundraising requirement to get a bib for the run. I know folks who bust their [butt] and struggle and qualify to run because of their sheer physical and mental ability. Every single one of these runners counts, though, and here’s why: Whether you complete a mile in 6 minutes, or 10 minutes, or 14 minutes, it’s the exact same 5,280 feet.
So, sure, the hateful exclusionary stuff bothers me, but I eat it (see what I did there?). It’s exhausting, but when I’m exhausted, physically or mentally or emotionally, in the quiet and solitude of my runs, I call to mind the reason why I will keep showing up:
- My fat old body can still move, and it can do hard things.
- Not every athlete has to fit the mold of looking “athletic” or like a “runner.”
- Even if I finish last, my medal is the same as the folks who are already having a drink at the bar when they drape it around my neck.
And most importantly, every single step I take, in training or on race day, is done to help kids and families who could give a tinker’s damn about how old, or fat, or slow, or old fat and slow, the guy is who helped them out.
I’m old. I’m fat. I’m slow. I run for charity.
Whitman officials foresee ‘drastic cuts’
WHITMAN – Zero raises, layoffs, closing departments, and using more free cash to balance the town budget could be the cost to Whitman of a failure to reach accord on a school budget, according to Town Administrator Mary Beth Carter.
“As I really got into it, I didn’t think that I would have to hit every single one of those to reach the number,” she said. “I had to decimate the budget and the only reason is because of the difference the School [Committee] certified from 5 to 11 percent. Call it what you want, but had they come in at 5 percent I would not be suggesting an override this year.”
She told the Select Board on Tuesday, March 26 that everything is on the table as the town seeks to balance the budget following the School Committee’s vote to certify a $63.5 million level-service budget last week. The Select Board has to vote on whether to place an override on the Town Election ballot at its next meeting, Tuesday, April 9.
“These reductions in the budget are drastic and debilitating to the town if an override is not put forth at the May annual Town Meeting,” Carter said during a joint meeting between the Select Board and the Finance Committee on Tuesday, March 26, as she listed the cuts she had to make as she worked all weekend to balance the fiscal 2025 budget.
“We’re here to listen,” said Finance Chair Rick Anderson, who said his committee had completed its meetings with budget managers of all departments and had scheduled meetings with town boards that night. “I know Mary Beth and [Assistant Town Administrator] Kathy [Keefe] are working very diligently on a challenging budget.”
Carter began by emphasizing her connection and commitment to Whitman schools – and that of her family, from her six siblings to her three children and three grandchildren, who “are or will be attending schools in the district.”
“Four of my siblings have spent their careers in education and administrators at the grade school level, the middle school level and the high school level,” she said. “I’ve always been pro-schools and pro-education, so for anyone to think otherwise, they would be mistaken.”
She said, however, that she is “disheartened” because the efforts of her office to hold meetings between the town and the school district earlier than in past years, failed to have a more positive and collaborative certified operational assessment for Whitman.
“I am only speaking for myself and not for the [Select Board], when I say that I feel that this year and every year going forward, that the district should certify their budget understanding that any amount that the district certifies each year over 5 percent, will need to be placed on an annual Town Meeting warrant as an override article and a subsequent ballot question at the annual Town Election for an operational override for the schools,” she said. “It would simplify the budget process each year for everyone.”
She added it would leave the question of increasing funding for the district up to the voters.
“The town has worked very hard to reduce all department budget requests for fiscal 2025 to ensure that an operational override is not put forth to our taxpayers his year,” Carter said. “I feel that there is, however, some light at the end of the tunnel.”
That light takes the form of an unfunded pension liability the town has been funding through Plymouth County Retirement, expected to be retired in 2029. The expected new annual amount will be “significantly lower than the assessments currently budgeted,” she explained.
In fiscal 2025, however, that assessment is $3,208,051. But by fiscal 2030, Carter hopes $1.5 million of $2.5 million saved will be put toward Whitman’s OPEB liability, allowing the remainder to be used to fund town departments.
But for this year, she painted a bleaker picture.
While the School Committee is charged with putting forth a budget for the district, I am charged with putting forth a budget for the [Select Board] that is balanced and meets the needs of all departments,” she said. That charge takes the shape of two warrant articles for the May Town Meeting.
The budget certified by the School Committee on March 20 with an assessment increase of 11.03 percent to Whitman, Carter said she has been tasked to present a dual budget to Town Meeting – the 5 percent projected increase the town anticipated as a school assessment as a “TA budget” and an 11.03 percent assessment increase offered as an “alternate budget,” reflecting the budget certified by the School Committee.
The alternate budget reflects the “potential impacts and reductions necessary if the district’s certified budget increase is put forth without an override,” Carter said, providing a stark breakdown of what that might mean.
Those cuts would mean “all non-union employee raises were eliminated for fiscal 2025, we laid off the following positions: three police officers, three firefighters, one DPW employee, one employee in the clerk’s office, one employee in the treasurer-collector’s office, one employee in the assessor’s office, two part-time [Council on Aging] employees, our technology specialist, we’ve also added in closing the library,” Carter said. “We also included in that budget, shutting down the Recreation Department.”
Three other full-time town employees would see their jobs cut to part-time hours.
Closing the library would also carry the financial sting of lost state aid as the town would lose its library certification and would need to operate for a full year on reopening in compliance before being certified again. Whitman is expected to receive $40,817 in library state aid for fiscal 2024.
Chair Dr. Carl Kowalski echoed Carter’s connection to the schools.
“I’ve always been a schools guy, also,” he said. “I’m as concerned as she is about what’s going on this year.” A 14-year past member of the School Committee, Kowalski said a sister and his son had also served on the School Committee.
“We are school people and this is a painful year that we’re looking at right now,” he said.
Select Board member Justin Evans commended Carter’s work, noting she had been working all weekend on the budget.
“To balance a budget in just a couple of days …” he said.
Anderson deferred to Kathleen Ottina for the Finance Committee’s position, noting that she has done a lot of work reviewing the school budget.
“There is money to be found in this school budget that does not affect the quality of education for children,” she said, emphasizing that some examples of non-sustainable small class sizes could be adjusted while leaving the ESSER positions alone.
Ottina expressed dismay that an email she sent to school officials with recommendations on non-mandated busing had, so far, gone unanswered. In the letter she identified two items where costs could be trimmed, one of them being non-mandated busing, citing her service for the past two years as a non-voting member of the Regional Agreement Committee.
“My one goal was to have the transportation language in the RA amended to reflect working that would more fairly assess Whitman for non-mandated busing,” she said. “Right now, the School Committee has the ability to just vote busing – mandated or non-mandated – and split it 60-40.”
They could also split it out and bill the towns for their non-mandated busing costs. The current configuration costs Whitman at least $40,000 – or $80,000 in fiscal 2025.
She said that, while considering herself a school advocate, she was disheartened by last Wednesday’s certification vote.
“They didn’t touch a penny,” Ottina said. “They didn’t touch a single item, knowing that both towns are in trouble.”
She likened it almost to a game of “chicken” to see which side blinks first.
“I don’t think we can call for a school override,” she said. “It’s not within our purview. … It’s time to call someone’s bluff.”
She said she could not support the budget as presented by the School Committee.
“They have some work to do,” Ottina said. “If we go to Town Meeting prepared to defend the budgets that our town departments need, and they haven’t made any work to get to the table and negotiate, then I don’t know what happens. … It’s a disaster.”
Select Board member Shawn Kain said it is a difficult conversation.
“Honestly, I think communities are judged by how well they have difficult conversations,” he said. “We’re talking numbers and accounting, but behind those numbers are people.”
His viewpoint was that the School Committee was saying if an override is needed, why not seek a level-service override. He didn’t see it as a way to get a budget passed at the expense of the towns.
“If we just clearly discuss our perspective and lay out what we’re trying to do, it’s a reasonable plan and I’m hoping they get on board with that,” Kain said.
Carter said the only reason she feels an operational override would be needed this year is because of the difference in the 5 percent operating assessment and the 11.03 percent put forward.
“I did what the schools did as well,” she said. “I took everybody who would be laid off or had their positions reduced and I added in [$400,000 in] unemployment costs.”
Carter also asked what departments could do to increase fees. The Fire Department is raising ALS 1 fees, the treasuer/collector is increasing demand fees to $25 from $25, she also asked the Select Board office and Police Department to increase fees as well.
School Committee opts to leave issue to voters
The Whitman-Hanson School committee voted 9-1 on Wednesday, March 20, after impassioned arguments on both sides of the fiscal 2025 budget issue – both in the public comment periods and among themselves – to support the level-service budget of $63,590,845 budget unveiled on Feb. 1.
The figure can be lowered if state adjusts Chapter 70 funds for inflation before Town Meeting. The Committee voted 9-1 against reconsidering the first vote, which would have not allowed them to change the figure later on as they expressed uncertainty about what the effect of such a vote would really be.
A vote to use excess and deficiency to lower assessments can be made at any time before Town Meeting.
The Committee unanimously voted to approve a debt assessment of $251,903 covering the high school and HVAC debt for Hanson and debt assessment of $623,531 the high school debt and a bond anticipation note for the new middle school for Whitman.
The proposed fiscal 2025 budget represents a 4.7 percent ($3,105,687) spending increase because of cost increases, according to Superintendent of Schools Jeff Szymaniak, who said in February that, if accepted as presented, the budget would set assessment increases as 11.03 percent ($19,695,553) for Whitman and 10.20 percent ($15,325,369) for Hanson. Both assessment figures were cerified as well, by 9-1 votes. Member Fred Small was the dissenting vote in all of them.
The figures were brought before the Committee to start discussion about where and how the budget may be cut. But for Committee member David Forth, there was nothing to discuss, and everything for students to lose [see related story below].
Made atfter a motion by Hanson Committee member Glen DiGravio, the vote now leaves the issue in the hands of the voters.
“We’re here to tonight to push this thing forward because we have to,” he said. “We’ve got to go forward.”
He said, personally, he favored the level-service budget moving on to Town Meeting and the community would vote on it.
“It’s their money,” he said. “We’re like a poorly run business that, without an infusion of cash, we’re going under.”
Whitman Town Administrator Mary Beth Carter, in response to a question from Szymaniak, said even with a 5-percent earmark for the school budget, they plan to use $500,000 from free cash to balance the town budget.
“I’m almost there at level, using that with drastic reductions, of course, to what was requested [by town departments],” she said.
Hanson Town Administrator Lisa Green said that, even with a 5.85-percent assessment, her town is almost $1 million in deficit.
“Our free cash is at $1.4 million,” she said. “We would basically need to use most of that. Anything higher than that pretty much is going to wipe out all our free cash and gives us nothing for capital until October. … Regardless of what the schools do, we’re at a deficit on all of those figures [Szymaniak spoke of as assessment formulas], which may mean staff [cuts] on our end, as well.”
Whitman Select Board member Shawn Kain said all three boards are bare-boned and super-efficient, so there is little room for cuts.
“The best thing we can do is get on the same page and move forward together so we can get past this in a way that the community will accept,” he said.
Select Board member Justin Evans said Whitman’s new growth for fiscal 2025 is looking to be $250,000. New growth plus Prop 2 ½ is $1.2 million the current year.
Before the budget discussion a handful of Whitman officials said the 5.58 percent assessment was within a comfortable margin of the 5 percent their Select Board budget line items.
Szymaniak began the budget discussion with a review of where the assessment proposals were left the previous week.
Noting that the level-service budget presented Feb, 2 “didn’t go over well with our communities,” and following cuts proposed the previous week, both towns are earmarking the schools at about a 5 percent assessment increase, which he said presents “ a real challenge to our district budget.”
He thanked both town administrators for providing the district with the budget numbers they are dealing with.
“We might not agree where we’re at right now, but I appreciate the transparency of having some numbers to work with,” Szymaniak said. “I presented the Committee some options for what that would look like if we come down from 5.13 percent.”
He reviewed those options at Wednesday’s meeting, all the way down to a 5.8-percent assessment increase – including the unemployment numbers, which kick in with the new fiscal year on July 1, included in the personnel reductions. If a teacher does not have a position by June 30, the district must begin paying them unemployment compensation until they are called back or secure another job at equal pay to what they are now receiving at W-H.
“We learned that through COVID,” he said. The district was forced to pink-slip 62 people during the fiscal 2021 budget process because that budget – being worked out during the height of the pandemic was fraught with uncertainty. Most returned or found gainful employment elsewhere.
Szymaniak went over his recommendations in the event cuts are necessary, before the Committee discussed them.
To reach the assessments the towns can afford without an override, the district is 5 percent, they have said to Szymaniak and in public meetings.
“My recommendation – if we have to – if this Committee has to move away from the 5.13 percent assessment … I still recommend potentially using one-time funds, using circuit-breaker funds and not replacing five retirements and non-renewals for a total of five positions cut,” he said. That would mean a total cut of $910,500 and make the overall budget – not the assessment – a 4.04 percent increase. It would assess Whitman $19,135,687 (a 7.8 percent increase) and Hanson $14,974,786 (a 7.68 percent increase).
Deeper cuts are “where it gets a little bit uncomfortable” for running the schools effectively and carrying the additional 40-percent cost in the salaries of each person pink-slipped because of the cost of unemployment benefits to the district.
“I had told the Committee, and I shared with the district today, where cuts could come from,” Szymaniak said. “The only place I could take cuts from … I’m looking at Conley, Indian Head [elementary schools], Hanson Middle School, Whitman Middle School at the grade levels. You can probably assume that some of the retirements are coming from the high school because they are getting cuts, as well.”
The cuts could increase class sizes.
Szymaniak said the district has worked hard to serve its students, especially in kindergarten through grade five, which now average classes of 20 pupils and under, and grades six to eight, where classes average 20 to 22. In the high school, classes average between 22 to 25 students.
The cuts would bring the average for every elementary and middle school class to 25 with “hopefully no move-ins.”
He said he had a question from a community member about whether studies have been done on optimal class size.
“Yes, a lot before 2019,” he said. “Nobody’s really talking about that now because kids are different.”
Twenty-five students in a high school class used to be manageable, and while it is still doable now, it’s different, Szymaniak said. That same number, 25, in an elementary classroom was once considered a bit large, but manageable. Today, 20-pupil classrooms are considered challenging.
The district has interventionists, but Assistant Superintendent George Ferro mentioned last week that, where they are progressing and educating all kids, there will be a restructuring of how that happens if there are 25 students in a classroom.
Cuts to bring the assessment increase down to 4.04 percent, if the Committee supported it, would not really affect kindergarten to grade eight students, but high school students somewhat, but he said he gets really nervous about adequately serving students once they go below that percentage for cuts.
“Cutting five positions in the district isn’t awesome,” Szymaniak said. “There are retirements and non-renewals that we could probably get by [with]. It won’t be a tremendous increase in class size; however services will be lost. It’s not level-serviced.”
Excess and deficiency, which is revenue, of which the district is also using $250,000 to support the budget, he reminded the committee.
Szymaniak then listed the effects of each subsequent single percent cut from the assessment increase below 5 percent.
Bringing Whitman’s assessment down to $18,917,397 (6.84 percent assessment) and Hanson’s to $14,838,025 (6.85 percent assessment) would mean layoffs or terminations for seven employees.
The next layer, with total proposed cuts – including use of excess and deficiency and circuit-breaker – reduces the budget by $1,208,700. If the district has to get closer to the 5-percent mark, and Szymaniak’s calculations did not get that far – they went as far as 5.58 percent – because “I stopped there,” he said.
That layer of cuts eliminates an additional 8.5 staff members, but reduces Whitman’s assessment to $18,655,450 (a 5.58 assessment increase) and Hanson’s would be $14,673,972 (5.85 percent assessment). Total reductions in this scenario still puts the W-H school budget at a 2.9 percent overall increase over last year with $1,570,800 – or 20 professional staff member positions – in proposed cuts including the use of excess and deficiency revenues and circuit-breaker funds.
While paraprofessionals are professional staff as well, Szymaniak said he has not looked to making cuts there as yet.
“These are not retirements, these are people,” Szymaniak said, referring to the unemployment implications of those positions.
Committee member Dawn Byers asked Szymaniak if he could tell them what positions are involved with the five retiring staff members.
“I won’t say that at this point, because it’s retirements and non-renewals and replacements of those folks,” he said. “I know who my retirements are and they are retirements in elementary and high school.”
“But, is it a classroom teacher?” Byers asked, noting they could be a school nurse or other staff position.
“They’re all classroom teachers,” Szymaniak said. “I need to have that flexibility in who I need to replace based on who I need next year. I’m looking at five professional positions who are going to be lowest next year.”
“They’re not just retirements, some of them are non-renewals, which some of those people don’t know that yet, so we can’t say their names,” said Chair Beth Stafford. “We can’t say the position because they’ve not been notified.”
She said part of the problem is that some information won’t be available until April 1 or later from people returning who might not want to return from maternity leave or other long-term leave.
“We have to set this at this time,” she said. “Things can change, but we don’t know that and that’s an issue.”
“I’m not trying to be shady, if that’s a word,” Szymaniak said. “I have retirements, and there are some retirements I’m going to fill and there are some retirements I’’m not going to fill. It’s just going to depend on enrollments and what numbers look like as we roll them out and scheduling with each building next year.”
Elizabeth Dagnall, of School Street in Whitman, said she understood the position the school district is in as it tries to balance the budget without crippling an already tight spending plan.
“It’s a gross understatement to say that this budgeting stuff is complex, difficult, [but] the district is making strides that are beginning to have positive impact on each and every student,” she said. “It is imperative to focus on the need for programs like foreign language at the middle school, robotics … as well as keeping the interventions that are currently in place and working.”
She added that above all, it is crucial to work to move the district forward.
“I’m painfully aware that our financial landscape cannot be repaired overnight, nor can town-wide budgeting shortfalls be repaired solely by cutting education or pushing the narrative that investing in our students is problematic while all other spending is justified,” Dagnall said, asking that the committee support a budget that does not cut programs and continues to move the school district forward.
She also took issue with “terminology of a ‘school override’ at a Town Meeting to fix a problem that is not only residing within the school system.”
Whitman Select Board members Justin Evans and Shawn Kain also addressed the budget issue during the public forum.
Evans spoke of last year’s meeting between the two select boards and the School Committee to discuss the use of one-time funding to balance last year’s budget, in which they “agreed to do something different this year.”
“And I think that you have,” he said, noting that, so far Szymaniak has met with both town administrators several times in “productive meetings” since last summer.
Evans also noted during the committee’s budget hearing a couple of weeks ago that Whitman was projecting about $1.2 million in new revenue.
“What I don’t think I said was that, if you assess anything above that number, the FinCom has to balance the budget,” he said. “We have to present a balanced budget to Town Meeting for the town to vote on.”
That budget will show cuts to other departments.
“In that scenario, in all likelihood, I think the selectmen would present an alternative budget alongside, that would show a different number for the schools,” Evans said. “If that happens [we’d] likely want to work with you to present an override that would make up that difference, but we’re in a time crunch.”
The process for presenting an override to the towns would require the Select Board to vote 35 days before an election, which would mean April 12 is the deadline for such a vote.
“To avoid an override and live within Proposition 2 1/2 is going to take cuts from everyone, including Hanson’s town government as well,” he said. “If you think you can live with those cuts, assess a number close to the 5 percent that the towns have both said that they can deal with. If you can’t live with those cuts, it sets the budget higher but let’s set a meeting very soon between the three boards to work out a plan to fund it – likely with an override.”
Kain reminded the Committee of Assistant Superintendent George Ferro using the phrase “moral imperative” when discussing the reasoning behind the use of one-time funds to balance the budget.
“I agree with him,” said Kain, who is also an educator. “I am in the classroom and I do know what it’s like to work with kids who struggled through the pandemic.”
Some of his students are also struggling with the loss of either of – or both – their parents in the opioid epidemic.
“But the question I’d ask you to consider tonight is how to raise those funds,” Kain said, arguing that the best way to accomplish that is to work with the leadership of both towns to coordinate an override for anything above a 5 percent assessment increase.
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