HANOVER – The South Shore Tech School Committee held its public hearing on the fiscal 2024 budget, Wednesday, Jab. 18. No members of the public attended to speak at the hearing.“This is a proposed budget, with a 2.25-percent increase,” said Superintendent-Director Dr. Thomas J. Hickey. “As you know, with a new governor coming in, we don’t have the ability to project with greater accuracy, town assessment numbers at this time.” Hickey said he would encourage the member towns to consider enrollment trends at the school, but the district truly does not know, based on inflation factor, whether the state will honor the 9.1-percent inflation factor from the third quarter of 2022, or whether they will cap it at 4.5 percent as state law permits. “If you cap funding based on a lower inflation number, there are more costs that are to the local level,” he said. “For now, this is the next step in our process and an opportunity for the public to talk about the budget.” Hickey said the conversation will continue until Feb. 15 when he will ask the committee to certify the budget, which again may have no firm numbers from the state. “It’s very likely that we will have a certified budget, [but] we will get Chapter 70 numbers by March 3, then we will re-evaluate, we will take stock of what numbers we have,” he said. After which the committee members from each town will receive that information. District Treasurer James Coughlin will run the numbers within a day of receiving them on March 1, Hickey said. The School Committee has the right to readdress a certified budget, especially if the numbers are lower that where they are now. “We’re going to be able to project revenues,” he said. Whitman Committee member Dan Salvucci asked what the latest date would be to certify the budget. Hickey said the spending plan must be certified 45 days before the earlies town meeting among member communities – which would be Scituate on April 3. That is why Feb. 15 was chosen as a convenience would be ideal because it is the date of the next scheduled meeting and would meet the district’s budgeting obligation. But March 3 would be too late. “If numbers from the state come in lower than what we are looking at, how will we meet the budget, take it out of the [excess and deficiency] account?” Salvucci asked. Hickey said his recommendation would be to take it out of the capital line included for the bus fleet. “That’s where we would start,” he said. “We would look at where the revenue gap is, and we’ll look at our ESSER 3 funds to help close that gap. But if the assessments to the towns was still significant, then that’s [the bus funds] the first place I would go.” It would likely only force the school district to wait a year to replace its bus fleet, Hickey estimated, and there is some additional transportation funding to use as backfill. “I know the process,” Salvucci said. “I want that understood, that we, as a school board, do not take one-time money to offset the budget.” “One-time money to fund operating expenses is generally not a good practice,” Hickey agreed. Hickey also reported to the committee that the district has forwarded the selection of the firm Left Field to the Massachusetts School Building Authority as owner’s project manager for the expansion/renovation project. The paperwork was being completed to the MSBA review panel can address it at its Feb. 6 meeting. Once MSBA approves a selection, the district could start working with it the next day so the OPM and building committee can begin the process of selecting a design team. The regional agreement review has been approved by the Department of Education’s legal department, said Hickey who said the legal team had no additional concerns. He will soon be seeking a vote from the Committee on proposed changes to the regional agreement. “Although there are several changes – some of which are nice, but not necessary – and we definitely deployed grammar police throughout the whole document, there isn’t a bad comma anywhere to be found,” Hickey said. “The reason we’re doing this is the potential addition of Marshfield.” In other business, Vocational director Keith Boyle was saluted as the school’s staff member of the month. Assistant Principal Sandra Baldner for his skill set, his relationship with students in the program and his deep relationship with the teachers across the building. Boyle began his career in the horticulture program at Upper Cape Cod Regional Technical High School and joined SST as vocational coordinator in 2018. “He’s credited with managing South Shore Tech with the best cooperative education program we’ve ever seen,” Baldner said. “He’s changed that culture and students are now expected to go out on coop, they don’t just choose to do it – it’s part of the culture of our school.” Boyle is also a successful grant writer. According to Boyle, 96 seniors are participating in the coop program this year – or about 60 percent of the senior class, who have collectively earned more than $374,000 so far on more than 22,000 hours of job training. Juniors become eligible to start coop assignments as of Feb. 6. He also provided the committee with a breakdown of the more than $4 million in grants which he obtained for the school. The most substantial of those was a $2.5 million Skills Capital Lab Modernization Grant. “That grant is specifically earmarked to expand and update equipment in our Culinary Arts department and our carpentry program,” Boyle said. He met with both departments over the summer to create an extensive list of potential equipment and lab renovation ideas. “Once we were awarded the grant, we hit the ground running,” he said. He said meetings have already been held with an architect to plan a new modernized kitchen with a “strong footprint.” The grant’s requirements call for improvements that increase enrollment. Architectural plans for culinary allow for assets like the walk-in freezer to be moved, providing more room in food preparation areas, and allowing more students to participate in the program. [ The percentage of the budget increase was misreported in the Jan. 5 Whitman-Hanson Express. The Express apologizes for the error.]