HANSON – “I get to explain the unexplainable,” Abrahams Group President Mark Abrahams said during his discussion of the parameters of Chapter 70 and net school spending for the town’s public schools with the Select Board, Tuesday, July 11.
“Basically, the [Select Board] has asked me to explain how the Chapter 70 numbers work and how Hanson numbers are compiled,” he said. The goal of Chapter 70 is to ensure every school district has sufficient resources to meet its foundation budget spending level through an equitable combination of local property taxes and state aid.
“I’m having a real hard time understanding why all of our numbers are lower than Whitman’s, across the board, and yet we end up with a higher percentage,” said Select Board member Ann Rein.
“That’s because of the wealth of Hanson compared to Whitman,” Abrahams said. “If you look on a per-pupil basis, and you take the local contributions, they’re basically the same … what skews the numbers is that Whitman has more students, they have more foundation budget, they’re going to have more property values, they’re going to have more income – but when you strip it all down and you look at the wealth factors, the state believes Hanson is the wealthier community.”
“That’s the crux of the whole issue,” Rein said. “This doesn’t show us why the state thinks we are the wealthier town. … It just doesn’t make sense.”
One resident asked if Abrahams could provide the exact formula the state uses to determine that Hanson is the wealthier community.
Select Board member Ed Heal suggested it is because the state does not factor in commercial income, rather, it calculates only business property values.
“It’s a very emotional subject and one that we’re still grappling with because it’s fairly fresh that we’ve moved to this statutory method and we really didn’t fully understand what was happening at the time it was being done,” Chair Laura FitzGerald-Kemmett said, and asked if new business growth or an influx of lower income people would make a difference in the equation for either town. She also asked if any town has forensically looked into the equations or appealed them.
“It seems almost as though it’s a setup for the average Joe not to be able to figure out how the heck these numbers are arrived at,” she said.
“New growth is a part of the municipal growth factor [in the state’s calculation,” Abrahams said.
“It’s adjusted from time to time, but it remains basically the same thing,” he said. “Remember, I’m explaining the unexplainable.”
State changes
In 2007 the state reviewed the calculation after several towns, with similar figures and demographics ended up with dramatically different numbers, taking two years to develop the new formula.
To explain the new calculations, Abrahams used the preliminary fiscal 2024 budget numbers released in June for his discussion as the state budget has not been finalized, as yet. That preliminary budget included the local portion of $6,584,595,911 under the Student Opportunity Act in Chapter 70 funds – which was $586 million, or 9.8 percent, more than in fiscal 2023. The SOA is now in its third year, putting more money into districts with targeted student populations – mostly students with disabilities, low-income students and English-language learners, for example.
“The district can spend as much as it wants on education,” he said. “The state is calculating a minimum local required contribution, which is based on your wealth factors.”
Required Net School Spending is the sum of local contributions and Chapter 70 aid, otherwise known as the foundation formula, and should be greater than the foundation budget, he said. A District can spend as much as it wants on education with the state calculating a minimum local required contribution based on wealth.
The local contribution is the amount of local appropriation required to meet net school spending for each town in the commonwealth and the local district contribution is the funding allocated to the local school district. Chapter 70 is the difference between the foundation budget and the local contribution which, combined with the local contribution makes up the net school spending.
“Hanson, since it sends its students to Whitman-Hanson, the foundation budget is, essentially, the vocational students of Hanson,” Abrahams said.
The state computes the total foundation budget for all districts and takes the shares of Hanson’s foundation budget to the three elements and comes up with the foundation shares, which are then applied to the town-wide contribution.
“For Whitman and Hanson, 90 percent of the foundation budget is for WHRSD,” he said. “This is the calculation, based on foundation shares and this is the starting point for your regional statutory assessment.”
Hanson’s contribution to W-H is $10,600,496 contribution to WHRSD.
Whitman follows the same formula.
The foundation budget is a municipal-based formula, Abrahams said.
To determine each district’s Chapter 70 aid, the state calculates each district’s foundation budget, determines an equitable local contribution (59 percent) – based equally on property values and income levels – as well as state aid (41 percent).
“To determine how much a community should be paying, you first look at the wealth factors,” he said. “The second test is to take 82 percent of the foundation budget, and the state will take the lower of the two. In both Hanson and Whitman’s case, the calculating is based on the wealth factors.”
That provides the preliminary contribution, which is either above or below the state’s calculation of the local contribution effort. Hanson’s equalized valuation is $1.7 billion while its 2023 total resident income is $450 million.
Whitman’s equalized valuation is $2.1 billion while its 2023 total resident income is $554 million. Deflated, it gets $7.5 million from property wealth and $8.4 million from resident income for a combined total of $16 million. It has a $16 target contribution – 49 percent of its foundation budget.
“So the target for Whitman is $16 million,” Abrahams said. “In fiscal 2023, they contributed $13.3 million. Their growth factor is slightly higher than yours, deriving a $13.8 million preliminary contribution. … They have a shortfall similar to your shortfall – 1 percent of their 2023 contribution.”
Whitman’s 2024 contribution is calculated at 14 million — $2 million short of their target.
“There’s a lot of similarities between the two towns,” he said.
Comparison
Whitman’s contribution to W-H is $12,554,000 based on the formulas. The actual school net spending greater than the requirement is 86 percent for the region, according to Abrahams. The statewide average is 23 percent.
“The test is what the households can support,” said FitzGerald-Kemmett.
Heal argued it should not be based on household income.
“Just remember, he’s explaining formulas the state uses … based on the information they receive from the DOR,” said Town Administrator Lisa Green.
“In order for that to be 50/50, the state deflates the [equalized valuation] and inflates the income, deriving $6 million from local property effort and $6.9 million from income.” he said.
Those figure together make up the combined effort yield of $12,929,413 – the first test of what Hanson’s local contribution should be. The “second test” is to take 82.5 percent of the foundation budget and it derives $16.8 million.
“Hanson’s town-wide local contribution, based on its flow factors, is $12.9 million,” Abrahams said. “Divide that by the foundation budget and you get about 63 percent, meaning the town of Hanson is going to contribute 63 percent in local contributions toward its foundation budget.”
Hanson is $1.3 million – or 6.7 percent – short of its $12.9 million local contribution target, so increments are added to the preliminary, depending on how much lower a community is toward its target.
“Since Hanson falls between 2.5 and 7.5 percent, the increment is 1 percent of last year’s number. Therefore, the growth factor – determined by year-to-year increases of certain municipal revenues – is increased by 1 percent to arrive at $11,669,000 as the local contribution for fiscal 2024. Those revenues include property taxes certain state aid and local receipts.
“It is still, $1.2 million short of the target,” he said.
Whitman and Hanson as towns, are non-operating districts that send their students to the regional high school.
He also reviewed state Chapter 70 formulas.
“You’re not going to get additional foundation aid because your base aid exceeds your foundation aid by $100,000-ish,” Abrahams said. “But the state is guaranteeing every district $30 per pupil at minimum (more than $107,00).”
Whitman-Hanson receives $25,196,000 in state aid.
At the same time, enrollment rose by 128 students while the foundation budget grew by $5 million, and the two town contributions grew by $1 million while Chapter 70 aid only grew by $107,000.

HANSON – Acceptance of the private road known as Alden Way must go back before Town Meeting to clear up an issue regarding an amendment to the acceptance plan, Select Board told a number of the private roadway’s residents attended the Tuesday, June 27 meeting.
Residents at the May 1 Town Meeting voted to accept Alden Way among a list of private roads as public ways.
“In taking that next step to doing the takings that we need to do in order to make sure that we’ve got access to those properties to do the things that we would need to do as a public way, we’ve run into some technical difficulties,” Chair Laura FitzGerald-Kemmett said of the citizens’ petition for the May Town Meeting.
Jane Medeiros oan associate of Town Counsel Kate Feodoroff, said the Town Meeting vote did not reference one or more of the correct plans.
“I’m not sure if they layout vote of the Select Board [knew of an amendment made to that plan],” Medeiros said. FitzGerald-Kemmett stated they had not known.
“This is a technicality,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “It is a technicality that we intend, as a board, to correct at the next Town Meeting. … We cannot unilaterally decide to do that. Anything having to do with public ways, or takings, or any of that, all have to be decided – as it should – by Town Meeting.”
FitzGerald-Kemmett said Feodoroff wanted the board to inform the residents they are aware of the issue, and that they intend to place, as a Select Board article, on the October Town Meeting warrant.
“It’s good that the missing plan was noticed right away and will be corrected promptly,” Medeiros said, explaining that residents should want to avoid a situation years, from now, when a surveyor might go out to check property lines only to find “what’s on the ground is not in the layout that was approved by the town and recorded.”
“My understanding is, what was approved is not exactly where the road is,” she said. “There was a modification.”
“Your plans are fine,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said of one resident’s question as to whether modifications to the plan were properly made prior to Town Meeting. “But what isn’t fine is the article that was presented to Town Meeting – what we accepted were the old plans before those changes were made.”
Then as the law firm tried to figure out what needed to be taken as right-of-way from each of the respective homeowners, it was discovered that the lines of demarcation for the roadway were different from what Town Meeting vote on in May.
“Your deeds, your plot plans … are all accurate,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said. The resident further said residents were told there would be no land-takings.
“This has all been about land-taking,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “In order to make this road public, there has to be land-taking.”
“We’re trying to fix it for you, so it gets totally fixed.” Board member Ann Rein said. “If it’s not fixed totally right now, it’s going to come up again and again.”
Member Joe Weeks said that, by sponsoring the new article, the board can also make sure it is vetted prior to Town Meeting to ensure no more clerical errors are included. The board had no standing to vet a citizen’s petition before it went before Town Meeting in May.
In other business, pond management responsibility was discussed, stemming from a discussion at the Conservation Commission since its not in that body’s jurisdiction and is a town resource, Selectman Ed Heal said.
FitzGerald-Kemmett said it’s a “weird thing” as it is not a wetlands issue and there can be Board of Health components, too. While past town meetings have allocated funds for pond management, it does not seem there are clear jurisdictions for it.
“But it doesn’t seem there’s anyone whose sole responsibility is to manage the ponds,” she said.
Conservation Commission Chair Phil Clemons said he believes it is true that most Hanson residents like the fact that there are so many ponds in town.
“I think it’s also true that we can’t trust the ponds, lakes or whatever term you wish to use, just to take care of themselves and be fine,” he said. “There’s too many people, having too many impacts over too many years and decades for that to be true anymore.”
Water quality, largely affected by plants, are issues that have been addressed in different ways by area communities, with Hanson mostly been paying attention to what has been done elsewhere.
“We’ve had the luxury of not having to do a whole lot, but we think those days are pretty much past,” Clemmons said.
Since the Wetlands Protection Act and Rivers Protection Act, the work load of Conservation Commissions and agents has increased.
“Despite our ambitions and things we actually have done in some cases already it probably is not realistic to expect the Conservation Commission to also assume pond management.”
He suggested it might be time to look at things done in other communities, with the need to build up a methodical approach, comparing it to the way a physician analyzes the symptoms of illness.
“There definitely has to be interplay with the Conservation Commission,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said to Clemmons’ agreement.
She asked Town Administrator Lisa Green to think about the issue and think of ways the town might address it and organize around it, reporting back in the fall.