Whitman-Hanson Express

You are here: Home / Archives for News

WMS mold repair vote set for April 14

By

WHITMAN – The Capital Committee views roof repairs at Whitman Middle School as a maintenance, rather than a capital project, issue, but there is some difference of opinion among it’s members on whether the town or the school  district should foot the bill.

No votes have been taken as yet, but are expected by Thursday, April 14. 

Superintendent of Schools Jeff Szymaniak said he has discussed a $54,000 mold reimbursement request with Town Administrator Lincoln Heineman after the school had a major mold outbreak in the gymnasium over Thanksgiving. The article seeks reimbursement of emergency remediation funds, including cleanup costs so students could occupy the building after the holiday break.

“It’s been reimbursable in the past,” Szymaniak said.

“Most of us have kind of seen this before,” Chairman Don Essen said following a lengthy discussion last month of School District capital articles on the Town Meeting warrant. “We’re aware of this issue.”

“The town’s position, through me and the Board of Selectmen, is that this is not a capital item,” Heineman said. “Obviously, the schools disagree and I respect that – we understand their position on it – but we just don’t see it as a capital expense.”

He explained that the regional agreement does not specify length of service as a qualifier for capital project status.

Committee member Fred Small, who is also a member of the School Committee, expressed a different opinion, arguing the regional agreement does include language pertaining to an “extraordinary repair.”

“If this went unresolved, I believe we would have had to close the school,” Small said during the March 17 discussion. “I don’t think you could have students in there with mold and that type of environment.”

He said children should be confident in going to school and playing in a gymnasium that does not harbor mold – caused, he said, by a leak in a roof after a decision was made many years ago that the district would try to get by without repairing or replacing the roof because of clawbacks in the cost and the fact that a new roof project was being sought before the useful life of the rood had been reached.

“I wish this hadn’t happened,” Small said. “I wish that the money didn’t have to be spent, but I don’t know that it’s a district expense. The district is a lessee. Granted, the town doesn’t charge us for the building, but we are the lessee.”

Esson asked is a bleach agent or other chemical was used to clean the mold, how long it could take and how long the remediation could take.

“I do know there is infiltration in that gym,” Building Inspector Robert Curran said, noting water has been getting in through the roof and down through the exterior. “I remember walking through inspections every year and you could smell it.”

Facilities Director Ernest Sandland has been good at getting air quality tests done, but the only way to reopen a school after a positive mold test it is to put negative pressure in the gym and seal it all off, using a safe chemical agent to clean it Curran said.

“I don’t agree that this should even be in front of this committee,” he said. “I think this is a maintenance issue. It’s not a capital expense and we don’t really have a choice because the money’s already been spent – it’s a reimbursement issue, and I think the town should reimburse the schools.”

Esson said that, while he also views it as a maintenance issue, the funding source is important.

Curran asked if Heineman thought the money should come out of the district’s operating budget.

Heineman referred back to the regional agreement.

“There’s not debate whatsoever that this needed to happen in order to have a safe environment for the kids there,” he said. “It’s just a question, for me, of  the regional agreement. The regional agreement specified that capital expenses are split out in these ways.”

He agreed “100 percent” that it was a maintenance expense – which the regional agreement puts at the responsibility of the school district “full stop.”

Selectman Justin Evans said section E2 of the regional agreement places the burden of cost on the towns for “special operating costs, unique to a town for maintaining programs or services.”

“I think this qualifies,” Evans said. “Though probably not a capital cost which should be paid by Whitman, it’s unexpected, it’s particular to one town, it probably doesn’t come to this committee, but I think a warrant article to the town is appropriate for reimbursement.”

In general – with no specific school in mind – committee member Josh MacNeil asked how such mold problems could be prevented.

Curran said he does annual internal and external inspections of all schools, but said WMS has “been a problem since the day it was built.” Previous sick building problems across the state have changed codes on air exchanges for buildings, as well.

“Whatever they’re doing to keep that gym open has been really good,” Curran said.

An evening of life’s sweetest rewards in Whitman

By

Whitman Cultural Council brought a popular art and culture event — Champagne, Cake & Art — back to Whitman after an 11-year hiatus. The event featured cakes, cookies and other baked confections from area bakeries with tastings of champagne, prosecco and sparkling wines. Sweet Standards owner Justine Rota, above right, serves up a vegan treat to Debra Cotter. At left, portrait artist Kristy Zamagni-Twomey, who uses markers as a medium, chats with Artscope magazine publisher Kaveh Mojtabai. See column on page 8 and related photos, page 6.

Photos by Carol Livingstone

Whitman’s busing formulas weighed

By

The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education has reimbursed districts based on a mileage calculation, and would be amenable to considering a mileage-based non-mandated busing formula for Whitman-Hanson rather than the current per-pupil calculation, according to Associate Commissioner for District and School Finance Jay Sullivan.

He made the comment in a Friday, March 25 Zoom call with district and Whitman Town officials.

“That’s a viable methodology for allocating your costs,” Sullivan said, noting few districts use the mileage method, but it is viable and it is an acceptable methodology. 

“That would count every student in the district, whose butt is in a bus seat,” Superintendent of Schools Jeff Szymaniak said. “That’s what we’re working on through the Budget Subcommittee here.”

He said they are calculating based on every student to whom they must provide a seat based on distances from school of between a half-mile and 1.5 miles from schools.

School Committee members Christopher Howard, Dawn Byers, David Forth and Steve Bois as well as Galvin, Selectmen Randy LaMattina and Justin Evans and Whitman Town Administrator Lincoln Heineman joined the March 25 call with DESE.

“That makes a lot of sense,” Sullivan said of Szymaniak’s question, but he cautioned that every rider has to be assigned some level of cost, with two options for calculation — per pupil or mileage.

“The good thing about the mileage method is, the houses don’t move,” Sullivan said.

W-H has been using the per-pupil method, having just encountered the mileage method.

The Budget Subcommittee planned to meet Wednesday, March 30 to get a turnaround on a formula method to DESE as soon as possible, because time is a concern.

“If we can come up with an alternative methodology that allows us to appropriately capture a higher reimbursement amount, which will benefit both towns in the district, then that is our goal,” Howard said. 

Sullivan said such a method could maximize the district’s reimbursement, which Szymaniak said is the ultimate goal.

Galvin and Whitman Selectman Randy LaMattina reached out about a second meeting following the March 14 call, feeling there was a better way to explain their methodology to DESE.

“After watching the last Zoom Call you had with the superintendent, the town has a position that some of our concerns and points we were trying to look for clarification on, may not have been addressed fully,” LaMattina said.

While being part of a region comes with some benefits — one being regional transportation reimbursement, he conceded, the board feels, as things stand right now, the district is not submitting their true mandated or what you classified as eligible, bus costs.

“We think that by using the district’s own documents, that we can actually prove that,” he said, noting that they forwarded a copy of Whitman residents John Galvin and Shawn Kain’s proposal to DESE. “We feel the actual cost of non-mandated busing is slightly higher than $1.6 million as opposed to the 1.1 million, which gets submitted.”

LaMattina said his point was bolstered by a vote at the last School Committee meeting when a vote was taken against funding non-mandated transportation.

Galvin pointed to a Feb. 9 School Committee meeting when Szymaniak outlined what would happen if Whitman opted against providing non-mandated busing.

“Several scenarios were presented. … There were discussions in the last Zoom meeting that these were simulations,” he said. “I don’t really believe that to be true, because for several year now, Whitman has had a significant concern over the way we were being charged for non-mandated busing to the [point] where the superintendent felt the need to address it to the School Committee on what would happen if, this year, Whitman decided not to fund non-mandated busing.”

Galvin said a document produced by district Business Manager John Stanbrook broke it all down. Even removing Whitman only saved a total of $131,000, Galvin said, yet Whitman is being assessed $487,000.

He argued the actual cost for Hanson is $101,000 — not $121,000.

“It didn’t make sense to us that the district wasn’t filing for what it would actually cost them if the two town meetings voted not to support non-mandated busing,” he said.

“Number one, the town meetings can’t tell the School Committee how to spend their money,” Sullivan said.

“It was a little concerning hearing that the towns were making the decision as to whether or not to transport non-mandated students,” said Christine Lynch of the DESE District and School Finance office, repeating what she had told Szymaniak on March 10. “I don’t know what might happen moving forward.”

LaMattina said where they came up with 20 buses is because, by the district’s own admission, according to the district’s bus structure documentation, that is the number required to provide mandated transportation.

“Why is that number not the true mandated cost?” he asked, noting that, in addition, the School Committee voted at its last meeting not to fund non-mandated transportation and asked if that was their decision to make.

“It’s the School Committee’s decision to set the policy of who they’re going to transport and who they’re not going to transport,” Sullivan said, asking if that meant the district would not be transporting between 750 and 900 students to school next year.

School Committee Chairman Christopher Howard said it was not correct.

“We looked at the regional agreement … and we looked at that section specifically related to transportation,” he said, noting it reads that transportation shall be provided by the regional school district, with the cost apportioned to the member towns as an operating cost. Every year the committee votes to decide whether non-mandated busing will be paid for by the regional school district.

“The vote that was taken was that the regional School Committee would not be paying for the cost of non-mandated busing,” Howard said.

If the School Committee decides against providing non-mandated busing, which Howard stressed, they did not do, an article for Town Meeting would be presented to the selectmen of each town for approval by the voters. He said the School Committee would be seeking clarification from legal counsel what the intent of that second section means, but right now the focus is on calculating the cost.

“We’re talking about a subjective scenario here, that really has not come to fruition,” Sullivan said, noting that in 2019 — before the pandemic — the district transported between 3,000 and 3,200 students. While mandated busing is required for students living two miles or more from school, but towns are reimbursed for transporting students more than 1.5 miles of a school.

“That’s the incentive to provide the service,” Sullivan said, noting that reports from the district over the past five years indicate two-thirds of students (more than 1,500 students) live 1.5 miles or more from school and nearly 725 under 1.5 miles away. Last year the cost was $1.6 million for bus transportation — $1.12 million over 1.5 miles and $543,000 for under 1.5 miles.

Sullivan also said buses must run at least 75-percent capacity.

“The way this has always been handled is we vote the assessment, and there is a non-mandated busing cost that has been provided to both towns, and that has been handled, I believe, in both towns as a separate article,” Howard said. 

Heineman clarified that, for many years, after the School Committee votes against funding non-mandated busing, it then gets a separate assessment number … only to be interrupted by Howard, who countered that it was a decision of the School Committee and not the Budget Subcommittee, while agreeing it does pertain to the town and transportation.

Later in the video meeting, Heineman was able to ask his question about whether DESE agreed with Whitman Town Counsel, which has opined that the school district may only assess an operating and a capital assessment — and not a separate non-mandated busing assessment. An article for the latter must be done via a separate article unless non-mandated busing costs are included in the operating budget. Whitman’s town counsel is also a legal representative for several school districts.

“I’m not necessarily suggesting it’s illegal,” Lynch said of separate busing assessments. “I’m suggesting it’s problematic” because if one town does not approve it, services would not be equal for all students in the district.

She said most regional agreements divide the cost by number of students, but recently districts are looking for new ways to calculate costs when methodology no longer works for them.

“You can’t steer the conversation away from topics you don’t want to address,” LaMattina said, explaining to DESE that the towns receive an operating assessment, a capital assessment and line for non-mandated busing that the district calls a special operating cost.

“If Town Meeting votes not to fund it, then we’ve got a problem,” he said. 

Howard asked if DESE would approve changing mandated busing costs based on the analysis they have.

“Right now there’s no intent to do it this way,” he said.

“Somehow this world is turned upside down here,” Sullivan said. “A decision’s got to be made by the School Committee about the service that they’re going to provide, they send the bill to the town and, if they don’t want to fund it, that’s fine — then you won’t have a budget, then you’ll have to go through the 1/12 process.”

“It should be one assessment number, first of all,” Lynch said. “But regardless, it is, again, the School Committee’s discretion in terms of what it’s going to offer the preK to 12 population — In both towns.”

Building panel eyes school projects

By

WHITMAN — Wear and tear, despite extensive efforts at maintaining and extending life of vehicles, equipment and facilities, has led to the School Department to make a half-dozen capital requests on the town’s Town Meeting warrant.

“When the report you see says, ‘potential fatality,’ it’s something that concerns me greatly,” Superintendent of Schools Jeff Szymaniak said of Article W-1, involving a combined $700,000 for playground safety issues at Duval School in particular. “Is it still serviceable? Yes. Has Ernie [Facilities Director Ernest Sandland] and our facilities group done a great job to make sure it’s safe? Yes, but it’s deteriorating by the day and, come next September, it would be outstanding if we could open up a new school year, post-COVID, with something for the children of Duval.”

Another playgroud at Conley School is in need of repairs and upgrades to make it handicap-accessible.

Szymaniak and Sandland met with the committee on Thursday, March 17 to review the district’s capital projects for the Town Meeting warrant.

Szymaniak said he had a “very good” meeting the previous day with Town Administrator Lincoln Heineman and state Rep Alyson Sullivan, R-Abington, to obtain at least an earmark in the state budget for playground projects at both the Duval and Conley schools.

“I’m really focused in on the Duval one, because it’s end-of-life and potentially dangerous,” he said, noting he would send Sullivan the same information he was reviewing with the committee, as she works to obtain state funding to help with it. “But our priority right now is with our capital items, is to really focus in on those playgrounds.”

A consultant — Playground Consultants of New England — has looked at the Duval playground twice, in 2020 and 2021, for an in-depth study the district had asked for to determine what was going on there in light of increasing complaints from the school nurse that children were getting hurt on the equipment.

“We had it inspected,” Sandland said. “When we have something like that done by an outside consultant, or an outside firm, we take their recommendations and put them in work orders.”

Problems seen at Conley, Duval and Indian Head schools had been addressed through work orders, then the consultant was asked out again to determine if there was something they missed or that needed correction, Sandland explained.

“When it came to the Duval School, they were just repeating themselves, because it’s at the end of useful life,” he said. “The issues that were there before have been resolved, but we have new issues at Duval School.”

Old construction techniques not used anymore, calling for the use of non-galvanized steel pipe wrapped in plastic for support structures, have begun to rot at the base up from the foundation.

“You don’t see it, because the plastic it looks great,” Sandland said. “But at stair steps, the leaping frogs that would just break off because the metal — the steel — would start to rust below ground and they would break off without any warning.”

Playground mulch is another issue.

Orders have to be timed  right so it can be leveled off before the start of school — a major safety issue. 

“Conley’s a little bit different,” Sandland said. “There’s some work there that can be done to save that playground.”

But the interior playground, relocated from the old Park Avenue School has to be removed.

At Indian Head, problems were resolve with a new playground placed there three years ago, but they are already seeing maintenance issues there.

“It goes back to the useage,” he said. “Indian Head was used very heavily. After school. Summer months. Vacation times. That playground is used.”

Playgrounds and Conley and Duval are also used constantly.

“Duval is used more heavily than Conley because of the area,” Szymaniak said. “After school we’re seeing heavy use by community members and, I think, that led to more rapid deterioration than the Conley large playground.”

Szymaniak said, however, that his priority is the Duval playground, because Conley’s main facility is still serviceable with some modifications. The interior playground, however, has to go.

“If I have to go on a need or want [basis], the Duval is need, the Conley interior playground is a want,” he said. “If that one [Duval’s] goes, the children have nothing. At Conley, at least they have the other playground.”

He added that he and Sullivan had brain-stormed fundraising ideas, in case that route is necessary and said the Duval PTO is also working on a fundraiser, but is low-level — envisioning that a couple of thousand dollars could be raised on a project that could cost between $300,000 and $400,000.

Talks with vendors have been used to get a cost estimate,  but a contract would go through the state bid list, according to Sandland.

Committee Chairman Don Esson asked what $300,000 — which he characterized as basically a repair — extend the life of the Conley playground to compared to a $400,000 total replacement?

Sandland said the Conley playground, which was designed for kindergarten and first-graders, the price would be different. At Duval, pupils using the equipment would range from kindergarten to fifth-graders, so there would be different price tags. The size and footprint of the equipment would also be a lot different than at Conley.

Work to make the Conley playground safe and handicap-accessible is estimated to cost between $50,000 and $75,000, the district is working with a vendor right now because the goal is to make it safe. The manufacturer of the Conley playground is also different than the company that made Duval’s, Sandland said.

“I’m hearing if we do the repairs and make it handicap-accessible, we can get another 10 to 15 years out of [Conley’s] play structure,” he said. “To dump a boatload of money and not make it handicap-accessible, I think, is setting us up for a problem down the road, especially with the population and if we have full-day kindergarten.”

Szymaniak said the two playground projects were combined because, if Town Meeting approved the lower cost for the Conley repairs and not the funds for new equipment at Duval, it would create an equity issue within the school district.

At the moment, according to Town Administrator Lincoln Heieneman, the school district’s capital requests have been divided into three articles.

“That’s what I would recommend, but we’ll see how the Board of Selectmen feel regarding the draft warrant,” he said.

“I think we need to go back to the charge of the committee as to recommend or not recommend a project, regardless of the cost,” Committee member Fred Small said. “That’s what my interpretation of our charge is.”

Selectman Justin Evans asked if the Duval playground was the same one installed in 2000, when the school was renovated. Szymaniak confirmed that it was installed 22 years ago.

“I was moved from Holt to Duval as a fifth-grader, so this is the playground that I had at Duval?” he asked.

“So, it’s your fault,” Small joked.

“I was a big fifth-grader, I probably did some damage,” Evans replied.

Committee member Justin Casanova-Davis agreed the playgrounds are a public safety issue and getting Duval done is important, but indicated the data on the Coley equipment was insufficient. Member Josh MacNeil asked how often the playgrounds are inspected and if there would be recommended maintenance if new playgrounds are installed.

Sandland said they have had inspections of the equipment four or five times and noted the state does not require playground inspections. The district insisted on the 2020 inspection because they were receiving complaints. Any new playground equipment will be manufactured under new technology standards, for example the plastic-coated steel pipes are no longer used, replaced with electrostatic paint, which lasts longer.

Heineman suggested the School Committee might use a portion of excess and deficiency for some portion of the capital plan projects at the high school so both towns could share costs.

He suggested that perhaps use of a portion of the remaining $255,000 in the Other Schools/Capital Needs line for the Duval roof article, which is currently the largest outstanding capital article for the schools.

Esson said funding decisions were the turf of other committees, but the information he was hearing made him more comfortable about supporting the requests.

Warrant Article W-2 of the school department’s requests involves $181,000 for repaving the high school roadway and parking area, which are riddled with potholes. 

“[On] most of the roadway, both layers [of asphalt] are shattered.” Sandland said. “It’s a mess.” 

Because of the damage, parts of the pavement are plowed up during snow removal and nearly six tons of patch material has been used to make repairs at the high school alone.

“This winter, for some strange reason has done a number on the roadways, and we all see it, especially in Whitman and Hanson,” he said. “There were some roads I thought were pretty decent last year, today, not so good.”

Article W-3 is aimed at curtailing mold issues in the Whitman Middle School gym.

“I know we’re looking at a building project, but this we don’t want a recurrence of what we saw this fall,” Szymaniak said of the $100,000 sought. Consultants and other experts in the field have informed the district that the existing system is not working properly and needs to be replaced, Sandland said.

“The humidity that gets locked in there in the summer is brutal,” he said. “I ripped up some of that floor to see what was underneath, because we were having problems with dead spots … there is no vapor barrier.”

Moisture and heat comes up through the floor and needs to be ventilated out. Estimates are being gathered to determine a final cost estimate.

“It’s probably not going to be cheap, but it’s not going to be $100,000,” Sandland said.

Article W-4 is seeking $78,780 in funds for new F250 trucks for the district’s maintenance fleet. The current vehicles are breaking down as a result of age and use.

The district has to spend money out of the operating budget to make repairs to have the current vehicles pass inspection.

Evans also noted that both towns have Green Communities designations which require new vehicles to be more fuel-efficient than the ones they are replacing.

“Our police department has been quite happy buying hybrid vehicles recently, just due to the long idle times [and] the way we run them,” he said, asking if that was being considered. “They’re seeing reduced maintenance costs.”

Sandland said it was and that a dual-fuel vehicle was purchased for food services.

Article W-5 asks for approval of $45,000 for the replacement of rooftop units and chillers for the high school.

Article W-6 is seeking to transfer $6,060 to prepare a replacement schedule for rooftop units and chillers.

Keys to security in Hanson

By

HANSON – Town officials took another step on Tuesday, March 15 to control after-hours access to Town Hall. The cards had replaced keys recently after years of a laissez-faire approach to tracking who in town had possession of keys got out of hand.

One badge will now be provided to each board or commission that holds regular meetings in Town Hall, issues to the chairman who will, in turn, be held responsible for making sure the building is locked after meetings.

Hanson IT director Steve Moberg urged Selectmen to revoke the key card fobs for some boards and commissions after an unknown person was recently discovered in the building after hours.

“We’re taking a lot of these things away so we can have accountability for who’s coming in and out of the building,” Moberg told Selectmen.

Visitor badges will be available to them through the Selectmen’s office.

“It’s more for accountability, so we know what’s going on in this building after hours,” he said describing the incident. “I was here late one night, and it was after a meeting that got out, maybe about 9-ish. I heard somebody go up the stairs and was up there for a little while. I thought it was a town employee … so I poked my head out [when he later heard them come down the stairs] and it was somebody I had no idea who they were.”

He said the person had been upstairs for about 45 minutes rummaging around the hallways.

Board and committee members planning a meeting need only call the Selectmen’s office to determine the availability of a meeting room and make arrangements to obtain a visitor’s card, which can be returned by dropbox. 

A button-activated camera, like a Ring doorbell camera system, allows Moberg and custodian Charles Baker to receive the video and communication with a caller on their phones through which they can unlock the door if the caller has a legitimate reason for accessing the building.

“Since I’ve been here, we’ve had instances of meetings [being held] in the building and then the doors being open all night,” Town Administrator Lisa Green said. “This process alleviates all of the doors being open and the possibility of them being left open all night.”

She said they are trying to move away from a situation where so many people are in possession of the little blue keycard fobs, that accountability is lost – the situation that had existed with keys before the access cards were adopted.

“We’re making it as easy as possible to get [visitor cards] and drop them off,” she said. “We currently have one that’s out that hasn’t been returned to us yet.”

She asked Selectmen for their opinion on the matter.

“I do like us reining it in,” Selectman Laura FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “That’s clearly overdue.”

But she noted it is already difficult for some boards to attract volunteers to serve, suggesting the doors be pre-programmed for access by current board members. Beyond that, people would have to check in for a visitor’s pass.

Selectman Jim Hickey agreed with FitzGerald-Kemmett, that regular committee meetings could be accommodated that way.

Selectmen Chairman Matt Dyer agreed that one access card should be made available to the four or five standing boards and committees that regularly use the building.

“I will say, there was a committee using [Selectman] Joe Weeks’ card,” Moberg said. “Any time that person came it, it would say Joe Weeks had entered the building.”

“Me?” Weeks replied. “I don’t even have a card. … I’ve been waiting for a [key card] fob since I got here. I’ve never had one … someone took it, evidently.”

Dyer said it sounds like there are still kinks to be worked out.

“That’s why I’ve been trying to pull it in a bit,” Moberg said. “We now have a chain of command. We know exactly what’s going on and who’s going to be in the building and when.”

Noting that Town Hall is a public building to which people have a right to access to a degree, Weeks said he would agree to whatever approach is accepted as long as Moberg or Baker are available and reasonable access is permitted.

“I just say, ‘Keep it simple,’” he said. “‘Whatever you want to do, I’ll back it,’ and then we’ll roll out the wrinkles as we go.”

He also wanted to see better communication about the cards.

“If someone that we’re appointing is abusing … the cards, I’m very interested in how my key fob got into someone else’s hands,” Weeks said. “We need to know who we’re appointing to these committees.”

Moberg said it happened before he started, so he doesn’t know how that happened.

Green said the fobs had been instituted because keys had been passed around without documentation – only to have the same thing happen with the card fobs.

“It creates a security concern,” she said.

FitzGerald-Kemmett cautioned that the Selectmen’s office vigorously communicate that they are moving in that direction.

In other business Fire Chief Jerome Thompson Jr., announced that his administrative assistant Barbara Murphy retires in July, Annemarie Bouzan, currently serving in that capacity at the Building Department will take that job in mid-to-late July.

“I felt it was prudent to work on moving forward and try to get this position filled sooner, rather than later, so we can start the transition process,” he said. “There are a lot of things in our department that an administrative assistant does that, quite honestly, I don’t know.”

The department has just transferred to an ambulance billing company, for example. 

Thompson said he has submitted a letter about who they have recommended after going through a process through which two internal candidates applied.

“We thought it would be best to put them through an interview process,” he said.

Both candidates were brought in for an interview and assessment.

Duxbury’s Fire Department administrative assistant and human resource director as well as Halifax Fire Chief Jason Viveiros came to Hanson to interview both candidates. Test scenarios involving Excel, computer programs and an interview and review of their employment package were also administered. He recommended that the person who scored number one be hired – Bouzan. Selectmen voted to approve the appointment unanimously.

The process of filling Bouzan’s job at Town Hall will, in turn, be posted in house before it is advertised with an eye to having someone ready to step in as soon as Bouzan moves over to the Fire Department immediately after Murphy’s retirement.

“We want to minimize the impact for the department with the transition,” Green said.

SST lauds nurse, parent group

By

HANOVER – School Nurse Collette LeClair and the Parents’ Association were celebrated for their contributions to the school community at the South Shore Tech School Committee meeting Wednesday, March 16.

“As of [the previous week], we’ve has 276 positive cases of COVID in the building for this school year,” said Principal Mark Aubrey of LeClair’s work. “You can imagine the number of negative [tests] that she and her team have had to deal with in the last seven moths.”

COVID testing and tracking is just part of LeClair’s job demands, he said.

“She’s the first level of medical attention for pretty much everybody in this building,” he said. “She triages situations. She deals with burns and cuts and other shop-related accidents. Most important, she is a good ear for our students.

Aubrey said the nurse’s office is a place where students can feel comfortable talking about any problems they are having.

“I came because I wanted to publicly say thank you to everybody for the past two years,” she said. “Man, it’s been a lot. … The care and consideration you’ve put into all the COVID policies that you’ve had to deal with in the last two years – it’s appreciated.”

To parents, she said it felt like “we went through war together,” with changing state guidance and she said she wanted to give every parent a hug for everything they put up with since March 2020, as well as what Superintendent-Director Dr. Thomas J. Hickey and the administrators went through to educate students in that period.

“If that’s what we can do in a pandemic, then the sky’s the limit,” LeClair said.

Aubrey lauded the Parents’ Association was provided an opportunity to outline what they do to support the school and programs as well as how they have adapted their fundraising efforts during the pandemic.

Erin Venuti, the Association’s current president – who has two children attending SST – said she had asked for an opportunity to report to the committee.

“I’d also like to thank [all the] parents, who support everything that we do, from fundraising to attending some of our events,” Venuti said, noting that after last year’s graduation, the group was left with just two members and faced rebuilding during a pandemic. She also thanked parent Mary Jo Stanzi, who has been a volunteer with the group for eight years while her children attended the school.

“One of the reasons I decided to volunteer was I felt the school gave so much,” Venuti said. “When I found out there were no fees for sports, I wanted to give back automatically and it just snowballed from there. … We are your ears, and kind of mouths, on the fields and on the car drives, at the bus stops [where] other parents are coming to us and we’re getting to know the students.”

They report back needs and opinions to the school committee as well as a funding program used to fund either professional licensing fees of students or  as scholarships for college-bound graduates. The Parents’ Association is also planning to bring a speakers’ program back to the school after COVID and they host staff appreciation events.

“As much Viking pride and SST pride as we can put out there is what we’re trying to do and that’s what we hear from our parents and students,” Venuti said.

Aubrey said the School Council is also working on boosting the school in the community and to young families whose children may want to attend SST as well as class meetings, mentoring programs and curriculum and assessment discussions.

The committee voted to accept the terms and conditions for the initial compliance certification of the MSBA’s invitation to eligibility for the school to enter the lengthy process for the core program to modernize and expand the school.

SST has been applying to the program annually since 2015 and is one of 17 schools invited into the process this year. Plans for funding a feasibility study and appointing a building committee will be discussed in April.

Emergency fund tapped for Chromebooks, water bill settlement

By

The School Committee certified a $58,492,314.12 budget, with a general fund increase of $1,694,734 — or 2.98 percent — for fiscal 2023 at its Wednesday, March 16 meeting. Whitman’s assessment would be $16,889,943.66 — an increase of $785,040, or 4.87 percent — and Hanson’s would be $13,341,812 — an increase of $695,694 or 5.5 percent to the operating assessment.

The budget Superintendent of Schools Jeff Szymaniak presented includes: two more special education teachers; implementation of full-day kindergarten without the use of from excess and deficiency (E&D) funds; using $400,000 (E&D) for Chromebooks; and $123,000 from E&D for paying the Whitman water bill settlement — all under Scenario 3 of 11 possible spending options presented on March 9 [see related story].

Budget documents reflecting Scenario 3 have been uploaded to the school district website whrsd.org under the school district heading in the “select a school” drop-down menu. The seven professional staff members covered by ESSER3 funds, one of the uses permitted under the grant program, are also listed. The funds have to be spent by September 2024.

“This is what these monies are for — so we can provide remediation for these kids,” School Committee member Fred Small said. “To me, this is the perfect thing we should be spending this money on. … I don’t see how we don’t do this.”

Committee member Dawn Byers had urged a budget that added the $400,000 for Chromebooks, instead of using E&D funds, placing the budget at $58,892,314.12. That motion was later withdrawn, when Business Manager John Stanbrook said it would be merely a shift of the funding source for the Chromebooks, not a dollar amount voted. By moving the funding source out of E&D, he explained it could possibly increase the assessment to the towns for that expense. The committee then voted to use $523,885 from the $1.8 million in E&D to be used for a Whitman water bill settlement and the Chromebooks. There was an influx of funds in E&D from one-time COVID relief funds. 

“I feel this is extremely dangerous, but that we are facing a fiscal cliff and if we have $1.8 million in E&D right now, we are by law allowed to [retain] 5 percent, so we could keep an E&D balance of $2.9 million for emergency,” Byers had said. “Reducing this down to $1 million puts us in a position to not replenish very much next year.”

“We have to look at why our enrollment is declining,” Byers said in her initial argument for including Chromebooks in the general budget. She said it it may be more about programs they lack, rather than declining birth rates. As technology is changing education, not including Chromebooks in the general budget would be more realistic.

Committee member David Forth also said he has heard from residents who moved to Whitman and were planning families, not realizing the district didn’t offer free all-day kindergarten already.

“I know that we can do better and this is a path forward to let the towns know that this is the actual cost of education,” Byers said.

“We have a plan, too,” Szymaniak said.

The committee also voted against paying non-mandated busing costs — $121,475 for Hanson and $487,839 for Whitman — sending the cost to the individual towns as has been past practice.

Without a reduction in the non-mandated busing assessment from a purely financial concern, Whitman Town Administrator Lincoln Heineman said, his town’s budget would be out of balance by about $224,000. He reminded the committee that Hanson Town Administrator Lisa Green has said her town can only handle a 3 percent assessment increase.

ESSER funds

The district is also one of six in the state taking part in a Rennie Center study, at no cost to the district, on how school districts are spending the ESSER affects learning and what happens when the grant ends, according to Szymaniak. W-H has partnered with the Rennie Center on social-emotional learning studies in the past.

Szymaniak said he is also hearing that eight retirements are coming by the time the grant expires.

The blueprint that’s going to be developed should show the district whether and how the ESSER benefit is sustainable and how they can move forward and keep it sustainable, according to Assistant Superintendent George Ferro.

Chairman Christopher Howard said he had approached Heineman for information on the town’s budget figures. Hanson was still working on their numbers, as of that meeting, Howard said. As soon as he obtains the rest of the numbers, he said it would be shared in another meeting.

Szymaniak reported about the meeting he and the Whitman Finance Committee had the previous night, adding that he requested that the schools be added to the Finance Committee’s budget schedule earlier next year.

“It was a good discussion,” Szymaniak said. “Not many questions were asked and we were able to present the budget to them … and I appreciated their dialog with us and continued work.”

Howard said he had reached out to Hanson Finance Committee Chairman Kevin Sullivan to reach an  understanding of where the town is and Sullivan had extended a tentative invitation for the schools to meet with Hanson FinCom on Tuesday, March 22.

“That would be after our assessment, so it really wouldn’t be a budget presentation, it would be simply [to] understand where the town is,” Howard said.

He left it to the committee to determine if such a meeting would be helpful. Committee members said that, while they could see no reason not to hold the meeting, their job was to certify the budget that night, Szymaniak indicated he would attend, if a firm invitation was issued.

In discussing the use of ESSER funds, School Committee member Hillary Kniffen warned that, while there are teacher retirements ahead that may help the budget, the interventionists that have been brought on to help students catch up, might need to be kept around past 2024.

“Kids need more these days and we need to give it to them, so far as funding public schools,” Kniffen said.

“It’s up to make a responsible decision on a budget,” Byers said, noting that next year — despite planning — the budget may look very different. “One of those is to accurately reflect what the cost is of education.”

Ferro said it was a recommendation that $275,000 be set aside annually for the next large numbers of Chromebooks that are expected to go off line in 2026 and 2029. The current $400,000 sought is to replace the large number of Chromebooks going offline in June.

Three curriculum purchases have been off with between three and four years before the next purchases are due, Ferro said.

“We will be OK as long as this money comes back for the next cycle that we need,” he said.

Howard said that is one reason the five-year plan is something on which the committee will continue work.

Small advocated including all the district’s needs in a comprehensive budget and make the case for it.

“This doesn’t reflect our needs, but it’s a beginning,” Byers said. Increasing programs equals increasing enrollment and getting nearer to the minimum local contribution to the budget and target share that will eventually bring more state aid.

Both Selectman Randy LaMattina and resident John Galvin both cautioned the committee about Whitman’s fiscal health if the school budget was passed at the current funding level.

“Passing this budget the way it is, you’re putting services at risk, whether they be town services or services within the school district itself,” he said. “And then it compounds, and then the use of E&D.”

He said that forcing it on the towns would endanger the school district in the end.

Towns to receive non-mandated busing bill

By

Whitman residents John Galvin and Shawn Kain were given the opportunity to provide the School Committee with a brief presentation on Wednesday, March 16 about the non-mandated busing funding formula they had discussed with Whitman’s Board of Selectmen and Finance Committee the previous evening. Szymaniak said he had also received guidance on the matter from the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) and Mass. Association of Regional Schools (MARS) to present at the meeting.

The session devolved, however, into accusations of whether the committee or town representatives were presenting a complete and accurate portrayal of the issue.

“The bottom line here is — and I appreciate Mr. Kain and Mr. Galvin doing some work, they did a lot of work,” Superintendent of Schools Jeff Szymaniak said. “It’s awesome to see somebody looking at things through a different lens.”

But Szymaniak said state education officials told him that, the way in which the scenarios were presented were not necessarily good for the district. 

If the committee chose not to pay for non-mandated busing costs, it goes to the Board of Selectmen for their vote as to whether or not it is placed on a Town Meeting warrant, according to the regional agreement. That is how the committee voted later in the meeting. The committee voted against paying non-mandated busing costs — $121,475 for Hanson and $487,839 for Whitman — sending the cost to the individual towns as has been past practice.

“We also have to have a follow-up conversation on how the article is presented to the community,” Szymaniak said. 

He said that examination from outside affords them the chance to vet and think through the issue.

“On the short list of things the Finance Committee in Whitman has been concerned about, non-mandated busing has been one of them,” Kain said, noting that their study gave them a solid idea of how non-mandated busing worked, and the numbers behind the methodology. Previous consideration of transportation costs did not consider that cost savings did not equal is being paid for with non-mandated busing.

When Business Manager John Stanbrook recently discussed numbers, Kain said it provided further insight into the numbers and calculation method used to determining the cost of non-mandated busing.

What “didn’t sit well,” with him, Kain said, was that if the committee decided to discontinue non-mandated busing, the district could receive “significantly more” mandated state reimbursement. He said they approached it from an interest in simply finding inefficiencies, not to play a “gotcha” game with the district.

Szymaniak said he reached out to DESE and, during a “spirited conversation,” they discussed the idea. MARS, when he spoke with them, recommended using the terms eligible and not eligible rather than mandated and non-mandated. The discussions focused on a figure of $1.8 million for everybody.

“Then we bill the town[s] … the difference of  $1.8 million to what non-mandated folks are,” he said, but it wouldn’t be cut. “For Whitman that would be $400,000, and for Hanson it’s $100,000-plus.” After that deduction, the state would be billed $1.3 million.

Szymaniak said they were told that, unless the district can justify how other students were transported on the end-of-the-year report. 

He outlined the proposal to bill the state for $1.7 million, but would like to transport everyone.

“We can continue to look, but we can’t bill for one and do both,” he said, noting the DESE representative told him: “If John submits the annual report, and you have $1.3M instead of $1.7M this year, I’m going to flag you for an audit,” not giving out any money until the district could justify it.

Every student must be accounted for.

“If we make a change like this, we are going to proactively share with DESE what we’re doing, and then do it, not do it and create god-knows what kind of issue after,” said School Committee Chairman Christopher Howard.

Committee member Fred Small asked for a vote to place the recording of Szymaniak’s Zoom call with DESE and MARS on the district’s website in the interest of transparency after discussion with the DESE. The committee approved the posting. 

Whitman Selectman Randy LaMattina argued that it was a public meeting and should be posted in any case. Szymaniak said it was not a posted public meeting, but he would request permission from DESE to do so.

“There seems to be a lot of confusion in the initial proposal and how it was presented to DESE,” Galvin said. “I’m disappointed that, as the author of that proposal, that Shawn and myself weren’t invited to that meeting and possibly could have had a different way of explaining it to them.”

He said their examples were not “scenarios” but were actual costs of eliminating the programs, and disagreed with Kain that their proposal can’t be used.

“I find it odd that you’re not willing to share the video [of the Zoom call],” Galvin said. “It just doesn’t sit right with me.”

Information they could obtain from the call would provide the opportunity to modify their proposal, if necessary.

They are not advocating use of a new formula on the end of year fiscal 2022 report. He had emailed DESE for guidance while compiling the report and was told they had none.

“Now all of a sudden, they do?” he said.

LaMattina stressed that the numbers at issue came from the district business manager, not Galvin and Kain.

“I think we would welcome an audit at this point, because, clearly, what we see is the town of Whitman is subsidizing mandated busing,” he said, noting the public doesn’t know how the question was presented to DESE. “I’m sorry, but this feels eerily similar to a couple years ago where, [he heard] ‘It’s legal, folks. What we did was legal. We talked to DESE.’”

Howard responded “because I’m not going to have things made up.”

He said the request that was made was — what would it look like if we eliminated non-mandated busing?

Whitman Finance Committee member Rosemary Connolly pointed out there is a video, from when the schools attempted to split busing costs 60-40, only to be told by former Town Administrator Frank Lynam that the towns had elected to pay more. She added that, while she is uncertain the schools did anything illegally, there is reason to question past practices in the town.

Menu of budget scenarios offered many options

By

The School Committee heard a rundown of 11 alterative plans for potential uses of one-time funds, such as excess and deficiency and ESSER grants, at its Wednesday, March 9 meeting.

Those senarios are:

• Scenario 1 — Half of full-day kindergarten, costs from E&D, with a 3.48 percent increase assessment for Whitman and 4.35 percent for Hanson. Overall budget increase of 2.98 percent;

• Scenario 2 — All costs of full-day kindergarten, costs from E&D, with a 2.09 percent increase assessment for Whitman and 3.19 percent for Hanson. Overall budget increase of 2.98 percent;

• Scenario 3 — No full-day kindergarten costs from E&D, with a 4.87 percent increase assessment for Whitman and 5.50 percent for Hanson. Overall budget increase of 2.98 percent;

• Scenario 4 — Kindergarten, using $200,000 per year over four years from E&D, with a 4.12 percent increase assessment for Whitman and 4.88 percent for Hanson. Overall budget increase of 2.98 percent;

• Scenario 5 — No full-day kindergarten (maintain half-day program with tuition-based, full-day K), a 2.09 percent increase assessment for Whitman and 3.19 percent for Hanson. Overall budget increase of 1.98 percent;

• Scenario 6 — Full-day kindergarten, using no E&D with professional salaries funded from ESSER rolled into budget, a 6.92 percent increase assessment for Whitman and 7.2 percent for Hanson. Overall budget increase of 3.94 percent;

• Scenario 7 — Full-day kindergarten, using $370,000 from E&D with professional salaries funded from ESSER rolled into budget, a 5.5 percent increase assessment for Whitman and 6.04 percent for Hanson. Overall budget increase of 3.9 percent;

• Scenario 8 — Full-day kindergarten, using $370,000 from E&D with professional and paraprofessional salaries funded from ESSER 3 rolled into budget, a 6.19 percent increase assessment for Whitman and 6.59 percent for Hanson. Overall budget increase of 4.25 percent;

• Scenario 9 — Full-day kindergarten, using $370,000 from E&D with BCDA and EL teacher salaries funded from ESSER rolled into budget, a 4.21 percent increase assessment for Whitman and 4.95 percent for Hanson. Overall budget increase of 3.33 percent;

• Scenario 10 — Level service — A .57 percent increase assessment for Whitman and 1.94 percent for Hanson. Overall budget increase of .05 percent;

• Scenario 11 — Full-day kindergarten using no E&D and funding only BCDAs (behavior specialists) and ELs from ESSER, a 5.61 increase assessment for Whitman and 6.11 percent for Hanson. Overall budget increase of 3.33 percent.

Szymaniak recommended the School Committee adopt Scenario 3.

“We’re committed, through ESSER 3, to use some of that money for staffing,” Superintendent of Schools Jeff Szymaniak said. “How we use that is up to us, but I can’t buy things [with it].”

The rules of the grant require some of the money be used for professional staff, according to Szymaniak, stressing the coaches working on learning regression, behavior specialists and English Learner staff were needed after the pandemic.

“These two ELs wouldn’t have been needed in October this year,” he said. “Because we had a bubble come up, I need them.”

He doesn’t know if that enrollment bubble will go away and he can’t responsibly say those instructors should be put into the district budget because the need for them could go away in two years.

“We’ve seen an uptick in behaviors in all of our buildings,” he said. “ESSER money is perfect for this because it addresses what we’ve seen post-COVID. … ESSER money is for post-COVID people.”

Whitman Town Administrator Lincoln Heineman said the town could afford the 3.48 percent increase included in Scenario 1, but Hanson Town Administrator Lisa Green said her town could only afford a 3 percent increase.

The assessments, slated to be up for a certification vote at the March 17 meeting can always be reduced right up to Town Meetings, but cannot be increased.

Committee member Fred Small said he has received several calls on busing cost calculations and how much of the ESSER 3 funds would be used in Scenario 3. Szymaniak sat the $2.3 million in ESSER 3 was being looked at to pay for eight positions. 

“It has to be COVID-related,” Szymaniak said. “We have to be ethical in using the funds.”

Chairman Christopher Howard said the new non-mandated busing formula proposed by Whitman residents John Galvin and Shawn Kain is still being looked at and savings projections could not be made at the moment.

“It helps the five-year [plan], it still could have an impact, but we’re not there yet,” Howard said.

Szymaniak also briefed the committee on his progress with his goals for the year, including a continued effort to institute a full-day kindergarten program in the district.

“No matter what happens out of School Committee as we move this budget forward, I think this is a topic that will continue if it doesn’t move forward,” Szymaniac said to the committee about his progress on goals for the year on March 6. “We’ll continue this discussion on early childhood education, which I think we have to start branching off to pre-K as well, looking at where we are as a district.”

The intervention program aimed at helping students regain any educational ground during the remote learning of the 2020 to 2021 period is also part of those goals.

That is being pursued via coaches at both at district as well as individual school level, according to Assistant Superintendent George Ferro, mentioning the positions that had been referred to as interventionists.  They are now being steered toward co-teaching with classroom teachers.

At high school, the work to close gaps due to the pandemic are being addressed in intervention study halls as the district works to catch students up in real time as they also keep up in class with their peers.

The district will also be striving to present representative depictions of students in literature and history being taught.

Ferro noted that the MCAS exams include a verbal survey at the end for certain grades, asking, among other questions, whether students “read and see people in literature that look like you, or that look like your classmates.”

More than 40 percent of students at different grade levels have been answering that they do not.

“When we talk about equity, we have to start thinking about the characters that we teach [about] in literature, the books that we read, the authors that we look at, the gender of the people that we look at, to say, ‘is this representative of everybody in Whitman-Hanson,” Ferro said. “Those are the things Jeff is promoting … as this project moves forward.”
Szymaniak added that family and parental outreach is also being pursued and presented an informational slide program about full-day kindergarten that is viewable on the WHCA-TV’s YouTube channel [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9m0UY_Vlld0].

Creating communities around transit

By

HANSON — When a commuter rail line runs thorough it, a community now needs to plan for multi-family housing within a half-mile of a commuter rail station, T-station, ferry terminal or bus station, according to a new state zoning law.

Commuter rail communities are required to contain a minimum of 15 percent of total housing stock — 750 units in Hanson — that qualify under the statute as multi-family. As of 2020, Hanson has 594 of these units.

“But the commonwealth has set the floor at 750 units,” Town Planner Tony DeFrias. “But what I want to let the board know is that the multi-family district unit capacity is not a mandate … to construct a specified number of housing units, nor is it a housing production target.”

He explained that a community is only required to have a multi-family zoning district of a reasonable size.

“The law does not require the production of new multi-family units within that district,” DeFrias cautioned. “There is no requirement nor expectation that a multi-family district will be built to its full unit capacity.”

While the Selectmen expressed concern around some specifics like tax support for schools, septic demands and character of community, there was some appreciation of the environmental mission at work.

“It sounds to me like they’re trying to address energy issues with the housing crisis, but you also don’t want to lose the flavor of what it is to live in Hanson,” said Selectman Joe Weeks. “I’m very eager to see what you guys come up with — I think it’s going to be an exciting by-law to kind of build and see what you can do.”

Selectemen voted to acknowledge that DeFrias made the presentation, as the state requires a copy of the minutes to verify that it was done.

It’s part of MBTA draft guidelines for communities with public transit facilities, in accordance with the omnibus economic development [Chapter 358 of the Acts of 2020], signed by Gov. Baker in January 2021. Among its provisions is a new section — Chapter 40A of the Zoning Act (MGL) that apply to MBTA communities.

“Hanson is a Commuter Rail town,” DeFrias said. “Because it is a Commuter Rail town, the commonwealth has issued guidelines that require towns with transit to create a multi-family zone by right.”

The commonwealth requires that the guidelines be presented to the Select Board at a public hearing, and town/city planners must prove that has been done, along with the filing of a form with the state before May 2. The deadline for interim compliance is Dec. 31 and for the action plan, the deadline is July 1, 2023. New zoning regulations must be adopted by Dec. 31, 2024. Towns have until March 31, 2024 to apply for termination of compliance.

“This is just the first step,” DeFrias said of the hearing before the Board of Selectmen on Tuesday, March 15. “Next will be crafting a by-law that will put all those mechanisms in place.”

All this means Hanson, like other MBTA communities “shall have” a zoning ordinance or by-law providing for at least one district of reasonable size in which multi-family housing is permitted as of right, providing that the multi-family housing has no age restriction and is suitable for families with children. The commonwealth would require a gross density of 15 units per acre, subject to the Wetlands Protection Act and Title V of the State Environmental Code.

Chapter 40B requires at least eight units per acre and 40R, which is mixed use, requires at least 12 units per acre, DeFrias noted.

“The minimum size they want for this area is 50 acres,” he said. “Taking a half-mile radius from the train station, that would encompass a land mass of about 500 acres. They’re looking at about one-tenth of that to be dedicated to the multi-family zone.”

The districts should lead to development of multi-family housing projects that are “consistent with a community’s long-term planning goals.”

There are 267 pieced of property within the half-mile radius of the Hanson MBTA station, according to DeFrias. Not all are developable. While there are some large properties in the area, they are under private ownership.

“As of right” means that construction and occupancy of multi-family housing is allowed in that district without the need for any discretionary permits or approval. But it does allow for a site plan and approval process, permitting regulation of issues such as motor vehicle assess and circulation on a site, architectural design of a building and screening of adjacent properties DeFrias said. But site plan review can’t be used to deny a project allowed as of right or to impose conditions that render it unfeasible or impractical as of right.

“The town will have some control … similar to a site plan similar to a commercial site,” he said. “The town will have to decide which board will control that site plan review process.”

A heavily regulated overlay plan will be allowed for consideration.

“What will probably decide the size and number of bedrooms in Hanson, is this is a non-sewer town,” he said. “The Wetlands Act can be a restriction.”

To determine compliance the state would consider factors such as general district information, location of districts, reasonable size metrics, district gross density, whether housing is suitable for families and attestation, according to DeFrias.

Determinations of compliance carry 10-year terms with applications for renewal due six months before.

“It’s not forever,” DeFrias said.

Selectmen Chairman Matt Dyer asked if there was any way the town could designate affordable housing units toward the program to “kill two birds with one stone?”

“My understanding, through attending the webinars is a ‘definite maybe,’ with an underlying ‘yes,’” DeFrias said. He said he has also been examining the prospects of such a blending through 40R, which is similar to this program in some of its requirements.

Selectmen Laura FitzGerald-Kemmett asked about the advantages of using 40R in that manner in light of the requirement that multi-family units include families with children for a community already struggling to raise revenue to deal with costs such as school budgets.

DeFrias said 40R allows for communities to get some cash from the state for creating affordable housing in certain instances.

“If the taxes that are incurred can not pay for the child, then there is what’s known as 40S — which a town can tap into to get the difference in taxes,” he said. “Because the taxes usually tend to work out, not many towns apply for that. … The two sort of go hand-in-hand.”

There is also the issue of the environmental limitations that restrict the number of septic systems allowed in the area.

Dyer also advocated for the use of trees in any developments resulting from the law in order to maintain the character of the town. DeFrias said that could be addressed through the architectural design controls included in the law.

“The state is not telling the town, ‘You have to construct this many units,’” DeFrias said. “It’s, ‘You have to create a zone to allow for the construction of that many units.’ They seem to understand it’s not a one-size-fits-all.”