WHITMAN – When Whitman convenes its special Town Meeting at 6 p.m., Wednesday, June 11, voters will see a warrant with only three articles – a revised Article 2 budget, and two articles dealing with union contracts for the police and fire departments, if they have been finalized by then.
The Select Board in a meeting lasting just over nine minutes, discussed an update on the budget and Town Meeting.
“It’s a very short warrant,” said Town Administrator Mary Beth Carter, who described the union contract articles as placeholders as of the May 27 meeting, before the board voted to approve the warrant and voted in support of Town Clerk Dawn Varley’s request to appoint checkers for the June 11 Town Meeting.
Select Board member Shawn Kain said that the budget working group has been fine-tuning “the numbers that we’ve been sharing all along,” since the override failed at the ballot box during the May 17 Town Election.
“There’s nothing out of the ordinary, there’s no big change, just the final numbers after they’ve been fine-tuned,” Kain said.
Finance Committee Chair Kathleen Ottina had been “kept in the loop” and Carter recently reached out to Superintendent of Schools Jeff Szymaniak to advise him of an “assessment cut” – a decrease in what had been proposed – of $1,064,765.
“In order to make up the deficit, the district is asked to cut a little over $1 million,” Kain said. “On the town side, we’re asked to cut a little bit under $1 million. What that looks like for a percentage of the budget moving forward is a 4.01 percent increase to the school and a 1.62 percent increase [if all things were bundled together on the town side]. Just to give some comparison and a bit more comparison on that … if you took the new revenue that we have this year, for fiscal ’26, compared to fiscal ’25, it’s about $830,000 … of that $781,000 is going to the schools.”
Kain said the budget group wrestled with it several ways, and they feel they have come up with a fair compromise.
“The schools need to look at their budget real good,” Board Vice Chair Dan Salvucci said. “I don’t want to put this town in danger by eliminating staff – especially fire and police. … The whole town is important, we serve, what? 17,000 people?”
DPW office
building
Carter also provided a brief progress report on the DPW building.
During an appearance by Whitman Food Pantry officers at the May 27 meeting, a question was asked about the square footage of the building, she explained. The pantry, operated in partnership with the St. Vincent dePaul Society, has expressed interest in using the building now serving as the DPW’s administrative offices.
“I sent a letter off to town counsel, after last week’s meeting, just to see what the steps would be if we want to move forward with either selling or leasing the property,” Carter said, noting that she had received a list of things to do, had already begun and would provide more information at the next meeting.
On the main floor, that area is 1,980 square feet.
“There is [also] the full basement, “ she said, which puts the total building space at 3,960 square feet.
Salvucci offered some advice for the Food Pantry staff: they should go checkout “all aspects of the pantry building to make sure it fits their needs.
“I hate to have them get out of one place and get into that place [and encounter problems] or it’s still not big enough, or it’s not handicapped accessible or something like that” Salvucci said. ”I think they have to take a real good look at it.”
Any improvements needed to bring it up to any code requirements involved “would be on them,” he argued.
“The town hasn’t made any decisions yet on any direction,” Carter said.
In other business, the Select Board voted to appoint Sharon LoPiccolo as the town’s temporary treasurer/collector.
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