Kingston residents will pay more to use the town’s transfer station starting in the 2026-2027 season after the Board of Selectmen unanimously approved a slate of fee increases designed to narrow the gap between sticker revenue and operating costs. Regular sticker prices will rise $20 to $280, senior age categories will be simplified, and disposal fees for items like mattresses and appliances will increase — changes projected to generate an additional $116,000 in annual revenue as part of a three-year plan to make the facility self-sustaining.
Highway and Tree Superintendent Shawn Turner presented the fee proposal to the board, framing it as the first step of a three-year plan to move the transfer station toward self-sufficiency. The facility’s total operating budget is approximately $815,000, and even with the proposed increases, an estimated $200,000 gap between sticker revenue and expenses would remain.
“We need to talk about going up on the fees,” Turner told the board. “You have to have the users paying for what’s being used.” He noted that the department had already cut Monday overtime and reduced its chipping program. “It’s either we raise these fees or what’s the next thing we do? We have to start cutting either days, close another day, or cutting some of the services.”
A key change under the new structure is the elimination of the tiered senior categories. The previous system divided seniors into those aged 62 to 65 and those 66 and older, each at different price points. Under the new plan, a single “Over 65 and Veterans” category would be set at $140. Second-pass stickers rise from $40 to $60, and recycling-only passes increase from $60 to $80. Disposal fees for bulky items also increase, including mattresses and box springs from $40 to $60, AC units and fridges from $10 to $20 each due to rising refrigerant disposal costs, and large furniture from $20 to $30. A new $5 fee for propane tank disposal was also added.
Vice Chair Kim Emberg noted the transfer station would still fall short of fully covering its costs even after the increases. Town Administrator Scott Lambiase confirmed that a deficit of roughly $200,000 would remain, and that the plan is to bridge the overall shortfall gradually over a three-year period rather than imposing a single large increase. Selectman Carl Pike called the increases “very reasonable” and said he would like to see the facility become self-supporting over time.
Turner and Lambiase also noted that the town is continuing discussions about a potential future pay-as-you-throw program as another avenue for funding, though Turner said that would not come this year and that educational sessions for residents would come first. The board voted unanimously to approve the new fee schedule.
Police Clinicians Formally Introduced; Family Services Program Goes Live
The meeting also marked the formal introduction of the Kingston Police Department’s two newly hired co-response clinicians, Gabby Cohen and Kate Eldridge, whose contracts were approved at a special meeting on March 3. Lt. Skowyra introduced the clinicians, describing their backgrounds in mental health counseling, crisis intervention, and forensic counseling. Cohen holds a master of social work from Simmons University and previously served as a co-response clinician in a multi-town assignment. Eldridge has more than two decades of experience and holds dual master’s degrees from Suffolk University in mental health counseling and criminal justice.
Police Chief Brian Holmes said the program would be fully operational the following Monday. The clinicians spent their first days in orientation, meeting with town fire department leadership, the Marshfield clinician program, Plymouth County Outreach, and Silver Lake school guidance staff. Intermunicipal agreements to share the clinicians’ services with Halifax, Hanson, Plympton, and Carver are in various stages of final legal review, with Halifax’s agreement already signed.
Chairman Eric Crone praised the department for the model. “I hope the public realizes that as well. We’re able to do this with grant money and partnering up with other towns so that Kingston was not bearing the brunt of this,” Crone said.
Blizzard After-Action Report Details Massive Storm Response
Fire Chief Mark Douglass delivered a detailed after-action report on the Feb. 22-23 blizzard, which the National Weather Service named Hernando. Douglass described snowfall rates approaching four inches per hour during the height of the storm, which began Sunday evening, Feb. 22, and continued with high winds through Tuesday.
The town’s Streets, Trees, and Parks Department began storm operations at approximately 10 p.m. on Sunday and continued at some level through Monday, March 2 — more than a full week. The operation deployed 11 dump trucks, 8 town pickups, 3 large loaders, 7 skid steers, a new trackless snowblower, and 32 private contractor vehicles. The state, through MEMA, also dispatched three dump trucks and three front-end loaders from the Vermont Transportation Authority, which assisted with intersection clearing from Wednesday through Saturday.
Public safety dispatchers handled approximately 300 calls during the storm, with 105 on Monday alone. The police and fire departments increased staffing beginning Sunday evening. Both departments assisted in relocating residents of the Town and Country mobile home community who lost power for an extended period. National Guard personnel — two trucks and four soldiers — also assisted with that relocation effort.
Notable incidents included two generator failures at Town Hall and the Council on Aging due to snow blowing into air intakes, a plow driver struck by a large tree limb that came through his windshield near 59 Grove St., and the collapse of the Sacred Heart gymnasium roof, which Douglass attributed primarily to snow load. The storm also produced a medical emergency in which a bystander’s CPR on an elderly resident who went into cardiac arrest while snow-blowing was credited with saving the man’s life.
The town’s snow and ice deficit has grown to approximately $700,000 following the blizzard, and options for covering that shortfall — including potential draws from free cash or the town’s stabilization fund, which exceeds $3 million — will be presented at a future meeting. Pike said he believed this was a year to consider tapping the stabilization fund, given the severity of the winter. “When I have a storm of, I’m calling it the 50-year storm, then I think it’s reasonable to consider using that,” he said.
Douglass praised the town-wide radio network funded through the CARES Act, which he said performed “flawlessly.” He recommended improvements in public communication, including more frequent Smart911 updates during major storms and designating a single person to manage official social media postings. He also extended thanks to State Representative Kathy LaNatra for helping expedite resource requests through MEMA.
The town submitted an initial damage assessment to the state for $440,000 in storm-related costs.

On Monday, March 9 the Plympton Board of Selectmen voted to issue a notice of intent to award the Town House Front Entrance Community Preservation Committee renovation project to DDC Construction Incorporated, the low bidder among four submitted bids. DDC’s bid came in at $35,500 — well below the high bid of $63,427, a difference the Town Properties Committee confirmed at its March 11 meeting. The project’s architect reviewed and approved DDC’s qualifications and references before recommending the low bid, which Selectman Nathaniel Sides described as “pleasantly surprisingly low.” The award is contingent on Town Counsel review of the contract documents.
The board also unanimously approved an $8,500 expenditure from Plympton’s opioid settlement funds to support drug prevention efforts at Dennett Elementary School. The funds will cover materials for the LEAD (Law Enforcement Against Drugs) educational program being delivered through the police department, a radio communications upgrade for the school resource officer and Dennett staff, and cruiser decals. Chair Dana Smith explained that the police department had applied for a grant to cover the project but was not successful, making the opioid fund an appropriate alternative given the direct connection to drug prevention.
Town Administrator Liz Dennehy noted that Dennett School Secretary Judy Hanson had independently contacted the board Friday about potential grant funding for the same project. If the school secures separate grant money for any portion of the work, Sides confirmed, those opioid settlement funds would remain available for other town uses within the approved scope.
TPC Authorized to Pursue Fire Station Grants
The board approved a blanket authorization for the Town Properties Committee to pursue grant funding and federal earmarks for the proposed new fire station. Dennehy, participating remotely, recommended the broad authorization so the committee would not need to return to the board for each new opportunity, while noting that any award requiring a local match would come back before the Selectmen.
Sides used the item to remind all town board and committee members — flagging correspondence from the TPC that had arrived via personal email accounts — to use their official town-issued addresses for official business. “If there’s a Freedom of Information request that comes in periodically, we need to be able to reproduce those easily,” he said. “If they’re using a personal email address, that could get cumbersome.”
The fire station issue loomed large at the Town Properties Committee’s March 11th meeting two days later. TPC Chair Pierre Boyer reported ongoing code violations at the existing station: an exposed electrical panel at risk of water spray from adjacent pipes, water actively seeping through floor vents, unresolved floor drain issues, and a leaking roof that worsened significantly during the recent blizzard. Boyer said the committee is still awaiting a joint meeting with Town Counsel and the Selectmen to chart a path forward on both the fire station and a separate water infrastructure project.
Boyer laid out the committee’s planning approach: rather than sizing a new building around current apparatus, the TPC intends to first analyze call volume trends by category, staffing models, mutual aid usage, and population projections over a 25-to-30-year horizon before any design work proceeds. He noted that Plympton’s population has declined slightly — from approximately 2,900 to 2,813 as of the 2024 annual report — while total call volume has risen and mutual aid calls now account for 24% of all responses. “The data will tell you the factual story,” Boyer said. He added that a preliminary service-model analysis is expected to be presented to residents in the coming months.
Appointments and Community Recognition
The board unanimously appointed Gabriela Falconeri to the Community Preservation Committee to fill a member-at-large vacancy. The appointment runs from March 9, 2026, through June 30, 2029. The board also approved an Eagle Scout project for interior renovations to the Holt Field Snack Shack, which had received prior Recreation Commission approval and is overseen by Ross MacPherson.
Smith closed open session by praising the highway department’s response to the recent blizzard — which he compared in scale to the Blizzard of 1978 — and by recognizing the passing of Donald Vautrinot, a longtime Plympton resident, Vietnam veteran, former deputy fire chief, and former police officer in Plympton and Carver. “It’s definitely a part of our town that is missed,” Smith said.
Plympton TA Appointed in Easton
The Plympton Board of Selectmen closed their March 9 meeting by voting unanimously to enter executive session to discuss the Town Administrator’s employment contract — several hours before the Easton Select Board returned from its own closed session to formally vote to hire Plympton Town Administrator Liz Dennehy. The dual proceedings underscore what is now a near-certain leadership transition in Plympton.
The Easton appointment did not happen overnight. A week earlier, on March 2, the Easton Select Board had interviewed all three finalists — Dennehy; Jonathan Beder, the current Town Administrator in Avon; and William Chenard, the current Town Manager of Pembroke — before voting 4-1 to select Dennehy pending successful contract negotiations. Avid readers of the Express have seen this situation play out in Halifax and Kingston, who have each hired new Town Administrators in recent months.

In recent years, getting kids to school has evolved from a predictable administrative duty into a fiscal burden capable of triggering structural deficits, service cuts, and Proposition 2½ override battles.
Locally, the Silver Lake Regional School District and Superintendency Union 31 are currently insulated from the absolute worst of the crisis by a competitively bid contract with First Student signed in 2020. Last month, the school committees exercised a Year 7 option with a highly favorable 4.51% increase. But as Plympton School Committee Chair Jason Fraser warned, “We’re going to be in a very interesting position when this contract runs out”. Fraser has bluntly characterized the current school bus market as a “monopoly”.
He isn’t wrong. A February report from the Office of the Inspector General revealed that 67 percent of Massachusetts districts received only one or zero bids in their most recent general education procurement cycle.
When our local contract expires, we will be thrown into a predatory market. Even now, out-of-district special education transportation costs are surging 10 to 21 percent year over year. In Plympton, an $84,000 surge in out-of-district vocational tuition and transportation for just two students essentially wiped out a $93,000 increase in net state education aid.
How did the basic function of getting kids to school become a financial vulnerability? And more importantly, what can our local and state decision-makers do about it?
To solve the problem, we must understand the structural forces driving up the costs:
1. A Disappearance of Vendor Competition: The days of shopping around for competitive bids are largely over. The school transportation market has seen massive consolidation, increasingly dominated by a handful of private-equity-backed national firms. Today, just four companies control over 50 percent of the national market. Without competition, districts lose all bargaining power and are forced to accept massive annual price hikes.
2. The Uniquely High Cost of Special Education Transport: Transporting students to specialized out-of-district (OOD) programs is the primary escalator of student transit costs. Statewide, it costs an average of $13,825 to transport a special education student, compared to just $1,045 for a general education student—a 13:1 ratio. This is exacerbated by Massachusetts’ stringent regulations on “7D” vehicles (typically passenger vans). The state mandates these vans be equipped with features like alternating flashing lights, backup alarms, and child reminder systems. These state-specific modifications add $30,000 to $40,000 in upfront capital expenses per vehicle. Furthermore, they must carry “Pupil” license plates, which legally prevents drivers from using the vans for rideshare services like Uber or Lyft during their downtime, restricting the labor pool.
3. A Severe Labor Shortage: The industry relies on part-time, split-shift workers. However, the booming logistics and delivery sectors (Amazon, UPS) have lured away drivers with flexible, year-round work that doesn’t require managing children. To drive a yellow bus, applicants must obtain a Commercial Driver’s License (CDL), requiring 60 hours of training and passing a daunting “under the hood” engine components test—a requirement critics argue is absurd since modern drivers are strictly forbidden from performing mechanical repairs.
4. A Reactive and Broken State Funding Model: Massachusetts is a national outlier. It is one of only six states that relies on a reimbursement model for transportation, and one of only three that provides zero transportation aid to districts during the year the expenses are incurred. Under the Special Education “Circuit Breaker,” districts must front the entire cost of expensive OOD transport and wait until the following fiscal year for partial reimbursement. Worse, the state habitually underfunds its promises. While state law (M.G.L. c. 71, § 16C) legally obligates the Commonwealth to reimburse 100 percent of regional school transportation, the state has not honored this commitment in over 15 years, hovering around 87 percent in FY2025. Furthermore, non-regional municipal districts—like the elementary schools in Kingston, Halifax, and Plympton—receive zero state reimbursement for regular day transportation, leaving local taxpayers to foot the entire bill.
With contractor prices soaring, some districts try to take back control. Brockton Public Schools made headlines in 2021 by purchasing 64 buses for $5.4 million to build an in-house fleet, estimating it would save millions. It was a disaster. A 2024 internal audit revealed a dysfunctional department with a “stunning lack of mechanics”—just three mechanics for 140 vehicles. The district faced rampant driver absenteeism, had no spare vehicles, and had to rapidly hire private vendors at premium rates to cover dropped routes. Brockton is now considering relinquishing control of the buses and returning to outsourcing.
To survive this crisis, action must be taken immediately. Here is a guide for our local School Committees and our state legislators on Beacon Hill.
For Local School Committees:
Aggressively Pursue the Regionalization Study: In January, the UMass Boston Collins Center launched an 18-month study to examine folding our three elementary schools into the Silver Lake Regional district. If the elementary schools join the regional district, their current transportation costs become eligible for the state’s regional reimbursement program. This single administrative change could save local taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars annually and relieve pressure on the town budgets.
Coordinate OOD Special Education Routes: Do not send a half-empty 7D van to a specialized school if a neighboring town is doing the same. Expand partnerships with educational collaboratives to co-route students across district lines. Sharing a van can reduce the base cost of a run by tens of thousands of dollars.
Demand Itemized Invoicing in the Next Bid: When the First Student contract finally expires, do not accept flat “daily rates” per bus. Require bidders to provide unbundled, itemized cost data detailing labor, fuel, maintenance, and profit margins. You cannot negotiate effectively if you don’t know what is driving a vendor’s 15 percent rate hike.
For State Legislators:
Pass Pending Relief Legislation: Rep. LaNatra has already co-sponsored H.513, which would create an “Extraordinary Routes Relief Fund” to help districts with severe bus, fuel, and driver costs. Rep. Badger has filed House Bill 4066 to combat predatory pricing by vendors. These bills must be prioritized in the current session.
Transition to Same-Year Funding: The state must abandon the archaic reimbursement-only model. Transitioning the Special Education Circuit Breaker and transportation aid to a proactive, same-year funding system will immediately relieve cash-flow strains on municipal budgets.
Create a Centralized Contract Database: The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) should host a public repository of all school transportation bids and contracts. Currently, districts negotiate in the dark. Allowing our business officials to instantly compare contract terms and daily rates with neighboring towns will eliminate the asymmetric information advantage held by national bus companies.
Review “7D” Vehicle Mandates: The state must evaluate whether the strict customization rules for special education vans provide measurable safety benefits over standard federal regulations. Relaxing these rules could lower capital costs for vendors and allow drivers to use the vehicles for ridesharing during off-hours, attracting more workers to the profession.
Fully Fund the Promises Already Made: The Legislature must honor its statutory commitment to reimburse 100 percent of regional school transportation (passing H.697/S.328).
The era of cheap, reliable school busing is over. If we want to keep Silver Lake’s education dollars inside the classroom, officials must stop treating transportation as an administrative afterthought and start managing it as the systemic financial crisis it has become.