HANSON – South Shore Tech is working to provide its member communities with as much information, at a household level as possible.
“You can tell me things are going to change and you’re going to get into more detail, but don’t hold that information off until the eighth inning, at least that’s how I see it – it does nobody any good,” said South Shore Tech Superintendent-Director Dr. Thomas J. Hickey during a presentation to the Select Board Tuesday, Feb. 27 on the 900-student school preferred design, approved by the Building Committee last week [see story above].
The school provides information on the project at a dedicated website, southshoretechproject.com. The school would remain fully operational while construction, with the district’s share being $176 million, is done and is aimed at opening for the 2028-29 school year.
“We’ll submit the preferred schematic report this Thursday [Feb. 29] and, if we stay on track then we will have meetings with the MSBA in the spring,” Hickey said. A meeting with the MSBA’s Facilities Assessment Subcommittee will take place in March, and the hope is for the project to be before the Board of Directors in October, at which time a project funding agreement will be decided, including the total project cost.
Once the town clerks from the district’s member towns approve a date, district-wide special election would be held in late January 2025.
“We don’t have any say in when that date is and it’s really a collaborative effort,” he said. “The communities are going to run these local elections and they’ve got to agree on the date and the hours of these local elections.”
Hickey said the district is mindful of the cost involved in running a special election, but asking residents to support the project must go hand-in-hand with asking how they would be willing to pay for it.
“With minor exceptions, our district communities are going to likely need a debt exclusion,” he said, noting towns might want to consider piggy-backing the question on another ballot, election laws permitting. “There’s nothing that says that decision has to be made anytime soon.”
The first financial effects of the project would be in the form of a bond anticipation note for the interest on the borrowing of $20 million – probably about $700,000 divided among member communities – in fiscal 2026.
“It would be in fiscal 2027 and ’28 that it would start to cascade,” he said.
The district is also working on an amendment to its regional agreement to adjust how it assesses debt. That is aimed at going before the communities this fall.
Currently, SST’s debt assessments are fixed for the life of the borrowing at the time a debt is authorized. The amendment would provide an avenue for adjusting debt as any new member towns join the district. Marshfield is already joining, and Pembroke is currently considering joining. New member communities would mean lower cost-share percentages for all towns.
Hickey said SST is the only vocational district in eastern Massachusetts with municipalities near it not currently aligned with another vocational school.
“It’s part of what we can do to create a more equitable pay-as-you-go model,” Hickey said. “It’s a good idea whether this project passes or not.”
While there is a total project number, voters in debt exclusion election would only be voting on their share of it.
In the first year, Hanson’s share would be 13.03 percent, he said, based on the current regional agreement, doing a three-year look back on enrollment.
Select Board member Ed Heal asked how the region-wide special election would work.
“What if two or three of the towns say no?” he asked.
“This is an aggregate vote,” Hickey said. “For one Saturday, we become one community that [goes by] the total yeas and total nays. That’s why we would want to know from voters, at the same time whether or not you support the concept of the project, that you support how it’s going to get paid for – we can’t afford to have a disconnect between the two.”
Select Board Chair Laura FitzGerald-Kemmett asked if increasing the number of member communities would mean fewer Hanson students would be able to attend SST in the future.
“At a time when technical and vocational training is really what we’re seeing a lot of kids migrating toward, because it’s pretty difficult to off-shore HVAC stuff or electrical or plumbing … I’m all about saving money, but I feel kind of conflicted that actually reduces opportunities for our students,” she said.
Hickey said seats are apportioned to communities based on eighth-grade enrollments.
“Every town starts with an initial allotment,” he said. Hanson now has 95 eighth-graders and currently have 11 seats available at SST with 34 applications. They historically assume unused seats from under-enrolled towns like Cohasset and Norwell, to admit wait-listed students.
“In a 900-student school, Hanson’s initial allotment would increase from 11 to 13,” he said. “We don’t know who’s going to love us in 20 years or where the demand is going to come from.”
Select Board member Ann Rein, referring to the Building Committee’s decision against the addition/renovation option said she hates the idea of “just throwing things out and building new.”
“It was a slow boil for me, personally, to get to that point,” Hickey said.
“The problem is, we have our own budget fight right now in this town for our own high school,” Rein said. “I keep thinking about the taxpayers that live in the town right now that want to stay here.”
She and Vice Chair Joe Weeks expressed special concern for older residents.
“There is no cheap option here,” Hickey said. “There just isn’t.”
Budget concerns
The Select Board also discussed the fiscal implications of the W-H school budget on Hanson’s fiscal picture.
Town Administrator Lisa Green, when asked where Hanson had started as their assessment ceiling, said it had been 3.5 or 3.8 percent, but agreed with Whitman’s 5 percent limit.
The school assessment likely to force an override is 10.2 percent.
“Hopefully it’s going to come down from that, and they’ll find some other money to winnow down,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “Then the voters decide what gets funded for the schools.”
The board agreed withTown Accountant Eric Kinsherf that a unified amount of 5 percent with Whitman is enough of a challenge.
“Prop 2 1/2 comes into this, and 2 1/2 is what’s epected,” Heal said. “Five percent is twice that. You can’t keep doing 5 percent.”
Providing Green with some direction, the board advocated having an inter-board dialog with the School Committee.
“It was very difficult conversations to have,” Weeks said of the last time they took that route. “But, I just feel that, year after year, it’s really difficult because I do feel for the schools. I always feel like their always begging and it becomes such an adversarial relationship — and it’s not fair to anybody.”
He said the School Committee is only fulfilling its mission of advocating for students’ education.
“But it’s every year we’re trying to survive the budget process,” he said. “I really value those conversations all in the same room and, the sooner we start that again, the better off we’re going to be.”
Just watching each others’ meetings on TV or YouTube is not effective, he argued.
FitzGerald-Kemmett agreed to reach out for such a meeting. Hanson’s warrant is closed March 12 and is slated to be approved March 19, however.
“What have we got to lose?” she asked.
Both Weeks and Rein noted that there is a lot of uncertainty over job security both in town departments and the schools.
“We have to do our due diligence,” he said. “There’s a lot of unfortunate stuff that comes with budgeting and budget cycles.”
Rein said she wants to know what the schools have done to consolidate and eliminate positions where necessary and economize in their budget before the towns ared faced with cuts.
“They’re going to be asking us to cut people that we shouldn’t cut,” she said. “I’m sorry, but I don’t want to see any of our departments cut, I just don’t.”
“You put 31 people on with one-time money, yeah, people are going to lose their job — 100 percent,” said board member Steve George.
Weeks and Rein also agreed they opposed balancing an operational budget with one-time money.
Whitman Select Board member Shawn Kain attended the meeting out of professional interest and a willingness to listen,
“My thoughts are not toward Whitman,” Rein stressed. “My thoughts are toward the school board.”
FitzGerald-Kemmett said school budget growth is simply outpacing town departments’ growth — as well as the town’s revenue growth.
Weeks also raised the concern of seniors again, as they face another potential assessment increase.
“You can’t always be like, ‘We have to fund this thing,’” he said. “The people that we’re asking to pull funds from, it’s not like their Social Security’s going up, it’s not like their fixed their income’s going up – it’s not keeping the same pace.”
Heal agreed, pointing out that the senior citizen demographic is going up and the school enrollment is going down.
“And the school budget gets larger and larger with fewer kids,” Rein said.
Heal said, by contrast, the amount Hanson pays for SST has been going down.
Rein countered by relating a conversation with a Bourne principal who said that the vocational schools are stealing students from town schools.
“The kids are leaving the public school system, going into the vocationals and other private schools, and they just don’t have the student numbers that they used to have,” she said. “It’s a continuing problem.”
Vocational schools are public schools, however.