WHITMAN – Zero raises, layoffs, closing departments, and using more free cash to balance the town budget could be the cost to Whitman of a failure to reach accord on a school budget, according to Town Administrator Mary Beth Carter.
“As I really got into it, I didn’t think that I would have to hit every single one of those to reach the number,” she said. “I had to decimate the budget and the only reason is because of the difference the School [Committee] certified from 5 to 11 percent. Call it what you want, but had they come in at 5 percent I would not be suggesting an override this year.”
She told the Select Board on Tuesday, March 26 that everything is on the table as the town seeks to balance the budget following the School Committee’s vote to certify a $63.5 million level-service budget last week. The Select Board has to vote on whether to place an override on the Town Election ballot at its next meeting, Tuesday, April 9.
“These reductions in the budget are drastic and debilitating to the town if an override is not put forth at the May annual Town Meeting,” Carter said during a joint meeting between the Select Board and the Finance Committee on Tuesday, March 26, as she listed the cuts she had to make as she worked all weekend to balance the fiscal 2025 budget.
“We’re here to listen,” said Finance Chair Rick Anderson, who said his committee had completed its meetings with budget managers of all departments and had scheduled meetings with town boards that night. “I know Mary Beth and [Assistant Town Administrator] Kathy [Keefe] are working very diligently on a challenging budget.”
Carter began by emphasizing her connection and commitment to Whitman schools – and that of her family, from her six siblings to her three children and three grandchildren, who “are or will be attending schools in the district.”
“Four of my siblings have spent their careers in education and administrators at the grade school level, the middle school level and the high school level,” she said. “I’ve always been pro-schools and pro-education, so for anyone to think otherwise, they would be mistaken.”
She said, however, that she is “disheartened” because the efforts of her office to hold meetings between the town and the school district earlier than in past years, failed to have a more positive and collaborative certified operational assessment for Whitman.
“I am only speaking for myself and not for the [Select Board], when I say that I feel that this year and every year going forward, that the district should certify their budget understanding that any amount that the district certifies each year over 5 percent, will need to be placed on an annual Town Meeting warrant as an override article and a subsequent ballot question at the annual Town Election for an operational override for the schools,” she said. “It would simplify the budget process each year for everyone.”
She added it would leave the question of increasing funding for the district up to the voters.
“The town has worked very hard to reduce all department budget requests for fiscal 2025 to ensure that an operational override is not put forth to our taxpayers his year,” Carter said. “I feel that there is, however, some light at the end of the tunnel.”
That light takes the form of an unfunded pension liability the town has been funding through Plymouth County Retirement, expected to be retired in 2029. The expected new annual amount will be “significantly lower than the assessments currently budgeted,” she explained.
In fiscal 2025, however, that assessment is $3,208,051. But by fiscal 2030, Carter hopes $1.5 million of $2.5 million saved will be put toward Whitman’s OPEB liability, allowing the remainder to be used to fund town departments.
But for this year, she painted a bleaker picture.
While the School Committee is charged with putting forth a budget for the district, I am charged with putting forth a budget for the [Select Board] that is balanced and meets the needs of all departments,” she said. That charge takes the shape of two warrant articles for the May Town Meeting.
The budget certified by the School Committee on March 20 with an assessment increase of 11.03 percent to Whitman, Carter said she has been tasked to present a dual budget to Town Meeting – the 5 percent projected increase the town anticipated as a school assessment as a “TA budget” and an 11.03 percent assessment increase offered as an “alternate budget,” reflecting the budget certified by the School Committee.
The alternate budget reflects the “potential impacts and reductions necessary if the district’s certified budget increase is put forth without an override,” Carter said, providing a stark breakdown of what that might mean.
Those cuts would mean “all non-union employee raises were eliminated for fiscal 2025, we laid off the following positions: three police officers, three firefighters, one DPW employee, one employee in the clerk’s office, one employee in the treasurer-collector’s office, one employee in the assessor’s office, two part-time [Council on Aging] employees, our technology specialist, we’ve also added in closing the library,” Carter said. “We also included in that budget, shutting down the Recreation Department.”
Three other full-time town employees would see their jobs cut to part-time hours.
Closing the library would also carry the financial sting of lost state aid as the town would lose its library certification and would need to operate for a full year on reopening in compliance before being certified again. Whitman is expected to receive $40,817 in library state aid for fiscal 2024.
Chair Dr. Carl Kowalski echoed Carter’s connection to the schools.
“I’ve always been a schools guy, also,” he said. “I’m as concerned as she is about what’s going on this year.” A 14-year past member of the School Committee, Kowalski said a sister and his son had also served on the School Committee.
“We are school people and this is a painful year that we’re looking at right now,” he said.
Select Board member Justin Evans commended Carter’s work, noting she had been working all weekend on the budget.
“To balance a budget in just a couple of days …” he said.
Anderson deferred to Kathleen Ottina for the Finance Committee’s position, noting that she has done a lot of work reviewing the school budget.
“There is money to be found in this school budget that does not affect the quality of education for children,” she said, emphasizing that some examples of non-sustainable small class sizes could be adjusted while leaving the ESSER positions alone.
Ottina expressed dismay that an email she sent to school officials with recommendations on non-mandated busing had, so far, gone unanswered. In the letter she identified two items where costs could be trimmed, one of them being non-mandated busing, citing her service for the past two years as a non-voting member of the Regional Agreement Committee.
“My one goal was to have the transportation language in the RA amended to reflect working that would more fairly assess Whitman for non-mandated busing,” she said. “Right now, the School Committee has the ability to just vote busing – mandated or non-mandated – and split it 60-40.”
They could also split it out and bill the towns for their non-mandated busing costs. The current configuration costs Whitman at least $40,000 – or $80,000 in fiscal 2025.
She said that, while considering herself a school advocate, she was disheartened by last Wednesday’s certification vote.
“They didn’t touch a penny,” Ottina said. “They didn’t touch a single item, knowing that both towns are in trouble.”
She likened it almost to a game of “chicken” to see which side blinks first.
“I don’t think we can call for a school override,” she said. “It’s not within our purview. … It’s time to call someone’s bluff.”
She said she could not support the budget as presented by the School Committee.
“They have some work to do,” Ottina said. “If we go to Town Meeting prepared to defend the budgets that our town departments need, and they haven’t made any work to get to the table and negotiate, then I don’t know what happens. … It’s a disaster.”
Select Board member Shawn Kain said it is a difficult conversation.
“Honestly, I think communities are judged by how well they have difficult conversations,” he said. “We’re talking numbers and accounting, but behind those numbers are people.”
His viewpoint was that the School Committee was saying if an override is needed, why not seek a level-service override. He didn’t see it as a way to get a budget passed at the expense of the towns.
“If we just clearly discuss our perspective and lay out what we’re trying to do, it’s a reasonable plan and I’m hoping they get on board with that,” Kain said.
Carter said the only reason she feels an operational override would be needed this year is because of the difference in the 5 percent operating assessment and the 11.03 percent put forward.
“I did what the schools did as well,” she said. “I took everybody who would be laid off or had their positions reduced and I added in [$400,000 in] unemployment costs.”
Carter also asked what departments could do to increase fees. The Fire Department is raising ALS 1 fees, the treasuer/collector is increasing demand fees to $25 from $25, she also asked the Select Board office and Police Department to increase fees as well.