HANSON – The Select Board on Tuesday, June 10, voted to hold a special Town Meeting on the new W-H school budget numbers on June 25 at 6:30 p.m. at WHRHS. Like, Whitman, a Wednesday evening was chosen – in Hanson’s case it was to get ahead of the prime vacation time of the first two weeks in July, when even Town Moderator Sean Kealy would not be available.
“Sometimes we have to be a little bit versatile,” Chair Laura FitzGerald-Kemmett said.
Still, June 25 is not a date that Select Board member Joe Weeks can attend, although he was not opposed to the date.
“If we don’t meet [in Town Meeting] before that 45 days is up, effectively, we will have a dissonance between the fact that we’ve been given the assessment, but we have not voted on any way to fund that.”
Town Administrator Lisa Green gave the Board a brief synopsis of the Wednesday, June 4 School Committee meeting, in which Whitman’s assessment cut scenario was approved over Hanson’s [see related story].
Superintendent of Schools Jeff Szymaniak recommended the option, to lower the assessment by $1,664,730.35 for Whitman to an assessment of $19,917,568.65 – or the 4.086 percentage – and lowering Hanson’s amount by $677,333.92 to $15,775,031.08 – or 5.344. The district budget will now be $64,564,205.55 – or a 2.596 percent increase over last year, and we will need to reduce by $1,742,070.64.
What was voted at Hanson’s May 5 Town Meeting in Article 5 was $15,512,363 leaving a gap of $262,669 that Hanson must appropriate by the beginning of the new fiscal year on July 1 for the school district to avoid falling under a state-guided 1/12 budget.
“I want to acknowledge that … similar to the work we do to prepare our budget, the W-H Regional School District, School Committee and the district itself, put in quite a bit of work into their budget,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “It was much debated at their last meeting whether they would, in fact, reduce the assessment to the two towns.”
While the cuts the district will be making are not largely “boots on the ground,” as teachers, there will be significant cuts in supporting roles, which does impact teachers and the quality of education, she said.
“I think there was recognition that Whitman and Hanson were both cutting, Mary Beth Carter [Whitman’s Town Administrator] got up and spoke about the fact that that they recently hired a building commissioner and a veteran’s’ agent in Whitman and she had to call both of them and tell them they were both going to be part time, as well as various other cuts,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “I’ve heard a lot of bantering back and forth – various comments. I’ve had a lot of people reaching out to me, saying, ‘Well. We should not give the district the additional money,’ or, ‘We should wait until after July 1 to hod the meeting and then the slchool district would have to go into a 1/12 budget…”
She noted that going into a 1/12 budget would mean a cut of roughly $3.3 million which would be 50-some-odd people that would be pink-slipped.
“There are costs that go with that, with unemployment, not to mention insecurity with staff and losing good people,” she said.
Hanson has 45 days to hold a special Town Meeting, which has to be posted 14 days in advance.
“When we look at the calendar we are looking at high vacation time during the first two weeks of July,” FitzGerald-Kemmett noted. “I question whether we’re even going to get a quorum, but if we are, it certainly won’t be after July 1.”
Town Accountant Eric Kinsherf, meanwhile, has advised the Select Boar that waiting until after July 1 to hold a special Town Meeting would mean the town cannot touch free cash, because to be certified after July 1, and would be inaccessible until the certification is completed.
Select Board member Ed Heal said he would be attending the Town Meeting, but asked about an article that only includes the school budget.
“Thank you for pointing that out,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “We’ve passed a budget. All of our departments are on notice about what will be cut based on the budget that passed at the Town Meeting. It was carefully calibrated – and I can’t emphasize this enough – that the Finance Committee, Ms. Green and the Department heads spent hours and hours and hours combing through the budget, figuring out, ‘If you do this, I’ll do that, I’ll do this next year, maybe I can cut here, etc.”
FitzGerald-Kemmett acknowledged that for those attending Town Meeting, the cuts might seem arbitrary.
“I assure you that it is not,” she said. Since the schools have “come down significantly” on Hanson’s assessment and are making an over-all $1.7 million reduction in the school budget for fiscal 2025, which is not insignificant, the thought was, “Let’s be clean about it, and expeditious about it and take it from free cash – once and done, end of discussion.”
The only thing unknown is, will Town Meeting pass the article?
Finance Chair Kevin Sullivan, who was attending the meeting, confirmed his committee is on board with the proposal.
“Laura and I have had several discussions over this and this is the most expeditious way of getting this done,” he said. “Close the book on this.”
Weeks had two concerns remaining: What happens if the special Town Meeting fails to achieve a quorum or if the article is voted down?
“We’re going to really have to crank on making sure we have a quorum, otherwise, the vote is the least of our worries,” Weeks said. “You need to have enough days between now and then posted to get this figured out.”
FitzGerald-Kemmett agreed.
Green added that the moderator is not available on June 26, in the event a quorum fails on the first day.
“We have it all figured out on our end,” Green said, noting that 100 people are needed to constitute a quorum. “We have the warrant ready to be posted tomorrow [June 11] and we will get it all over our social media – all the platforms possible – we’ll make sure we get it out to the Senior Center, the Library, so that people will know.”
“The only other day he’s available is the 30th, which is literally Fourth of July week,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said.