HANSON – All eyes will be on the outcome of Saturday’s annual Town Election in Hanson – not only as an indication of where the town’s finances are now, and options for meeting the operating assessment for the Whitman-Hanson Regional School District in fiscal 2025, but also as a bellwether for the fiscal 2026 budget.
Polls are open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Hanson Middle School. Polls for Whitman’s Town Election are open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the Town Hall auditorium.
After hearing a sobering opinion on the town’s assessment options, and expressing anger and frustration over Hanson’s representation on the School committee, the Select Board voted on Tuesday, May 14, to hold a special Town Meeting regarding the school district’s operating assessment at 6:30 p.m., Monday, June 17.
The budget issue must be settled before July 1, or a super town meeting and, failing that, a 1/12 budget based on the fiscal 2024 budget could be imposed by the state. [See accompanying story] A special Town Meeting not only must be held within a 45-day window (June 29 is day 45), but 14 of those days must be used for officially posting the meeting.
Town Accountant Eric Kinsherf and Finance Committee Chair Kevin Sullivan say passage of the $350,000 override rejected at the May 6 Town Meeting is crucial to helping the town meet its budget obligations this year – and in avoiding putting the town in a deeper financial hole next year.
“I’ve been thinking about this a lot,” Kinsherf said, noting that the town’s fiscal 2025 budget has, to this point used up $794,000 in free cash. “If we have to fund the schools, I can’t in good conscience, recommend anything other than budget cuts to fund it.”
“I think the vote this Saturday is going to give us a very good indicator of what our options are,” he said. “Or, if by some remarkable chance it is approved on the ballot, we can have Town Meeting take another bite of the apple and try to have another override [at Town Meeting], which, to be honest is the only way to fill this gap.”
He said he understands residents’ distaste for more taxes.
“But it’s $92,” he said, noting Hanson still has relatively low taxes, compared to other towns in the area. “If it doesn’t pass, we have to look at some sort of mixture, in my opinion of all free cash/no free cash.” Some Select Board members suggested it may have been principle over money that drove votes.
As it stands today, Kinsherf said Hanson already has to plan on making $800,000 from next year’s budget even if the override passes.
“It would be irresponsible,” he said of using the free cash now.
If the $372,000 override passes, it becomes part of the new base for next year and the town starts with that much more in the hole. For a healthy free cash account, it should total 10 percent of the entire budget.
“There’s no way you can do long-term fiscal planning if you don’t know what your fixed costs are from year to year,” Kinsherf said. “My advice would be to cut the current school budget by an equal amount.”
From a mathematical standpoint, Sullivan said, Kinsherf is “absolutely correct.”
He said he would prefer putting $100,000 in an unemployment trust fund in case there are layoffs next year and put another $500,000 in a stabilization fund for next year.
Select Board Vice Chair Joe Weeks said unemployment costs sometimes get forgotten when budget cuts are discussed.
“If you’re talking about peoples’ jobs, it’s not as easy as saying if you cut salaries – AKA people – that somehow the town saves,” he said. “That is not true.”
Discussions during last week’s School Committee meeting indicated that a Hanson official had put the town’s free cash at $1.4 million. Both Select Board Chair Laura FitzGerald-Kemmett and Kinsherf were emphatic in pointing out that it is nowhere near that amount.
“There’s only so many things we can do to fund this budget, FitzGerald-Kemmett said, ticking off the options. They are: asking for an override again; funding it via free cash; funding some of the gap with free cash and make modest cuts at Town Hall and other departments; fund a bit more with free cash and make; use of free cash and more drastic cuts; free cash or even more drastic cuts or just cuts.
In fact, Hanson’s available free cash is $627,000. To pay $350,000 for the assessment would perilous, FitzGerald-Kemmett said.
“Both towns have to coordinate, otherwise there’s a disconnect and there’s a path,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said of Whitman’s Town Meeting rejected an override, meeting it’s assessment with a transfer of $509,212 from free cash. Hanson Town Meeting also rejected an override.
“Now we’ve got this dissonance, I’ll call it,” she said.
The issue went back to the School Committee, which recertified the same budget figure to go back to town officials for funding.
It was a move that left most Hanson officials frustrated and Weeks livid.
“Of the last School Committee meeting, how many of the Hanson representatives voted for the assessment?” he asked.
“All of them,” FitzGerald-Kemmett and Board member Ann Rein said, practically in unison.
“Going into Town Meeting, I heard over and over again, ‘We’re going to let the people decide,’” Weeks went on. “Over 100 people said, “No, we don’t want that,’ and then when it got kicked back they said, all of them unanimously said, they wouldn’t move on it.”
He lauded the hard work of Kinsherf and the Finance Committee, but repeatedly called the School Committee representatives on their “hollow words” and challenged them to show their solutions.
“The schools have proven they don’t want to be a good partner to us, so we’re going to have to take this on the chin, again,” Sullivan said. “But if it comes right down to it, we’re talking about services.”
Board member David George said the school department should be making layoffs.
“I know one of the things that people have been saying is the Select Board should just say no to the School Committee,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “That’s not an option. We can’t just say no.”
If the Select Board did nothing, the assessment is de facto approved, she explained.
“It is in effect without us having any power to determine how to pay, or having any input from voters,” she said. “The Select Board doesn’t set the assessment. All that we are able to do is propose from whence the funds will come to pay for that.”
FitzGerald-Kemmett and Weeks were among those Select Board members who said voters with budget concerns should be speaking to and attending meetings of the School Committee.
“We have no ability to lower our own assessment,” she said. “If we had that ability, we would have done it before now – we wouldn’t be here.”
“We’re not talking about the elephant in the room,” said Board member Ann Rein. “People have to get involved with the School Committee and they have to make their wishes known to the School Committee, because we can’t fix it.”
Both boards are elected separately with their own mission in serving the public. FitzGerald-Kemmett said sometimes those paths are followed harmoniously and sometimes it is more difficult. She added that communication with the district has not been the same in recent years. School Committee Chair Bob Hayes and Superintendent Dr. Ruth Gilbert-Whitner were regular visitors to the Select Board during budget season, but she said that is missing now.
Board member Ed Heal noted the voters’ confusion about the ballot question.
“Most people believe the question is moot after Town Meeting,” he said.
FitzGerald-Kemmett said Town Meeting isn’t voting a dollar amount, but decides the dollar amount, and the ballot question decides if it will be paid via a proposition 2 ½ override.
“In this case, you could have something weird happen,” she said. If an override fails at Town Meeting, but passes on the ballot, the opportunity opens for more options next year.