WHITMAN –The budget is balanced, but the town’s free cash account is a little worse for wear [see related story] after Whitman’s special Town Meeting on Wednesday, June 11. Hanson takes its turn at settling the school budget next – the town budget was already approved, both with and without an override at the May 5 Town Meeting.
Hanson has set its special Town Meeting on the school district assessment for 6:30 p.m., Wednesday, June 25 at Whitman-Hanson Regional High School. The location had to be changed because the Hanson Middle School auditorium has been booked for a dance recital that evening.
Whitman’s special Town Meeting began its business June 11 with 117 voters. A quorum of 100 was required.
Select Board and budget working group member Shawn Kain updated Town Meeting on a discussion held during a meeting of the board before Town Meeting convened.
“I’m unhappy with the way public safety kind of landed with this budget,” he said. “To address that – to try to take the edge off the cuts to both police and fire [as] they are part of our strategic plan, listed as a priority to the town, it was obvious after article 2 came out that we crossed a threshold that they were not comfortable with, for that reason, this was the proposal that we discussed and then voted on.”
Kain noted that, right now, the ambulance account takes in a “healthy amount of money.”
“If we decrease ambulance runs, staffing, then we’ll obviously take in less revenue, which would be foolish,” he said.
Instead, the Select Board is voted to use $150,000 from ambulance revenue toward staffing for both police and fire departments, while working with the Police Department to look at other ways to add to the shifts where they are currently lacking.
“I don’t want to bend the rules of finance, obviously, in a way that’s going to put us in a difficult situation, but this seems to be an obvious solution that’s a compromise, but also in the best interests of public safety, our priorities and financially,” he said.
Fire Chief Timothy Clancy explained that losing two firefighter/EMTs – whether temporarily or permanently – would reduce the second ambulance availability to about half the time. He estimates the department’s ambulances could bring in $1.4 million this year.
“You could see a revenue cut of $700,000 if we only ran one ambulance,” he said. “They came up with a solution of $75,000 to police and fire … there’ll be another revenue source that could possibly of making us whole in another special fall meeting.”
He argued for the second ambulance by reminding the voters of how many lives they save, “and shame on me for not publicizing ig enough.”
“I will tell you, not only as the speaker of this, but they have saved me once and I’ll be forever indebted for that,” he said.
To cut the two positions would not only decrease revenue, but would also increase the department’s reliancce on mutual aid, increasing the wait time in a medical emergencies due to the reliance on mutual aid for many communities in the area.
“It seems like I was just here yesterday, speaking to the same group of people,” said Select Board Chair Dr. Carl Kowalski. “We had a very interesting Town Meeting in which we agreed to fund our departments to the best of our ability by the use of an override. Unfortunately, that override was soundly defeated at the polls, so we’ve had to do some work between that Town Meeting and this special Town Meeting.”
Kowalski said the Finance Committee, Select Board and schools are now “in a position where they all agree on what we need to do tonight.”
“That’s not something that always happens around here,” he said. ”I have to give particular credit to the Superintendent of Schools, Jeff Szymaniak, who’s done something that isn’t done very often also, and that is to agree that the assessment to the town can be lowered some, to make this year one that we can get through, even though it’s going to be difficult.”
Once again, alluding to his days as a student reading the “Wizard of Oz,” as a text to how one handles change and – in particular, Dorothy’s friends who couldn’t feel or couldn’t think or they couldn’t act with any kind of courage, but ultimately learned they had thosee qualities within them all along.
Voters at the Town Meeting of a few weeks ago, remembered a motto, “Use your head and follow your heart, and act with courage,” he said, adding that this Town Meeting would do the same.
“Whitman always does that, and I hope they do it tonight,” Kowalski concluded.
As Town Meeting convened to complete the business of voting the Article 2 budget for fiscal 2026, Town Administrator Mary Beth Carter reminded voters that since that at May 5 Town Meeting, the town faced a $2 million deficit. Since the override failed, she noted that the town has been faced with making several difficult budget reductions.
Carter also thanked Szymaniak, and the School Committee for voting the week before, to certify the reduced operating assessment suggested by the town in the amount of $19,917,569. 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.
“This reduced assessment, certified by the W-H Regional School Committee, equates to a 4.09 percent increase over last years’ operating assessment to the town,” she said, also thanking other town officials, department heads and members of the budget for their cooperation in presenting a balanced budget to Town Meeting.
“Every budget reduction that was made, was done only after careful consideration and analysis,” Carter said. “After department expense lines were reviewed for possible reductions, we then looked at those positions that had increased from part time to full time in the past several years ro determine which positions could revert to part-time status.”
Salary reductions made were: see list from last week
Whitman now has one administrative position in the assessor’s office unfilled – in a three-person office. In the three-person Town Clerk’s office one position has not been funded. The Police Department budget was cut and two officers’ positions plus another $90,000 or so as currently not funded. Two firefighter positions were not funded and the building inspector was informed that day that his full-time job would now be a part-time job. The DPW was another department where two positions were not funded. The Health Department administrative assistant’s hours were reduced, another part-time clerical position at the Council on Aging was not funded. The Veterans’ Service offcer was also reduced to part time.
By the time the nearly two and half hour meeting was over, however the building inspector position was returned to full-time in the budget as was the Veterans’ officer, based on the assertion that a part-time VSO is a violation of state law.a
“What is being presented this a balannced fiscal 2026 Article 2 budget,” Carter said, noting that both the Select Board and the Finance Committee recommended passage of the article. “I urge you to vote the Article 2 budget as presented this evening.”
Finance Chair Kathleen Ottina $2,053,431 had to be cut from the budget in the wake of the May 17 landslide defeat of the $2 million override sought to fund both town and school budget deficits.
“We had 25 days to develop a new budget,” she said, noting the defeated budget had taken months of work.
While the town cannot impose a cuts on the W-H school district, she said the Finance Committee proceded with a 48-52 percent split on deficit disribution, hoping the School committee would reduce the assessment to the town by just over $1 million, while the town’s share was just under $1 million. She, too, lauded Szymaniak and the School Committee for the “very difficult decision they made” to cooperate with the town’s recommendation.
“You didn’y have to, but we’re between a rock and a hard place and there weren’t any easy choices,” Ottina said.
To pay the $988,665 town deficit, free cash was used to pay its OPEB oblihgations and donation to the Plymouth County Retirement expense. That left $648,000 to cut from the remainder of the town’s line itemsi n Article 2.
Carter and department heads then worked to producea budget that maintains services the residents expect, while minimizing the number of employees who would lose their jobs.