Halifax’s two-night Annual Town Meeting May 11 and 12 ended with voters authorizing $999,777 of the $1.5 million Proposition 2½ override that appeared on Saturday’s ballot, after Town Administrator Steven Solbo disclosed a $625,000 accounting discrepancy three days before the meeting. The ballot question itself cannot be amended, but town meeting’s appropriation cap means only the lower amount can be spent in fiscal 2027 without a future town meeting vote.
Halifax voters confronted the town’s worst fiscal crisis in years across two long, sometimes contentious nights, ultimately keeping the override alive for Saturday’s ballot while reshaping nearly every line of the FY27 budget through floor amendments. Selectman Jonathan Selig framed the stakes for residents: “We’re voting tonight not knowing what the outcome will be but knowing that the state doesn’t know the faces of those that go to the COA. They don’t know the faces of your children, the educators that stand to lose their jobs.”
Solbo opened Monday night with a sober briefing. On Friday, May 8, he said, the town had identified roughly $625,000 in accounting and budget compilation discrepancies that “significantly changed the financial discussion surrounding the override.” He warned against treating the discovery as a permanent fix. “Using free cash responsibly is like using your savings to repair your roof, replace your furnace, or handle an emergency car repair. Using free cash continually to support recurring operations is like using your savings account every month to pay your mortgage, groceries, and electric bill because your paycheck no longer covers your normal expenses.”
Silver Lake Regional School Committee Chair Gordon Laws moved first to lower the town’s Silver Lake assessment on Line 70 by roughly $200,000, citing a double-count in the regional district’s budget process. That amendment passed unanimously. Resident Gordon Andrews then moved $175,112 from the town’s general stabilization fund toward the Silver Lake assessment, a transfer that cleared the required two-thirds threshold.
The real fight came over Halifax Elementary School’s appropriation on Line 69. Andrews proposed raising the school’s town-funded share to $7,732,771, arguing that combined with state grants and circuit-breaker offsets, the figure would let the elementary school avoid any staffing reductions and eliminate the school’s portion of the override request. The amendment, he said, “allows no staffing reductions to take place at the elementary school. We do not need to cut the teachers and increase the class sizes to outrageous numbers.”
The Finance Committee and Board of Selectmen both declined to recommend the amendment. Finance Committee Chair Jim Walters cited “moving money out of a stabilization fund that is not meant for operational costs, which is really directly in conflict with any type of budget discipline.” Halifax Elementary School Committee Chair Lauren Laws warned that the budget figure would not satisfy the state’s net school spending requirement under Department of Elementary and Secondary Education rules. After a hand count, the amendment failed 153 to 253.
Selig immediately offered a compromise: $7,532,438 for the elementary school, returning roughly $200,000 to the override and spreading the budget pain across both municipal and school sides. “I think we’re all in this together,” Selig said. “I think to completely excuse that one side, in my opinion, is not the way to go.” The compromise passed by majority vote, with the Finance Committee backing it 5–2.
By the time Article 3B reached a vote near 11 p.m., the override allocation had been rewritten in real time. Walters initially moved a $775,042 appropriation, reflecting the new accounting picture. Andrews and Selig then noted that earlier cuts to police and fire wages had not been restored in Article 3A, meaning the override needed to cover them. After a brief recess, Walters re-stated the motion at $975,042 — restoring $150,021 to police wages, $140,000 to fire wages, $375,385 to the elementary school, and amounts for the Council on Aging, OPEB trust, and a reserve fund.
Resident Robert Mullen asked whether passage would mean no one loses their job. Solbo answered that one part-time assessor’s clerk position remained unfunded. Selig moved to amend the override motion upward by $24,735 to restore the position, bringing the final appropriation to $999,777. The motion passed by majority vote after a motion to end debate.
Selig stressed that the ballot question must still read $1.5 million by law, but that the town will only assess the appropriated amount unless a future town meeting votes to raise the rest. “You’re only going to be taxed on the [$999,777] this year,” he told resident Jean Gallant. “You’re not going to be taxed on the full $1.5.” Solbo projected that the $999,777 appropriation translates to roughly $276.73 in additional annual taxes on the average Halifax home, assessed at $532,178 — compared to an estimated $531 annual increase under the full $1.5 million figure.
The night ended in procedural chaos. After Article 3B passed, resident Peter Beals filed a motion to reconsider. Moderator Robert Gaynor ruled it out of order because the body was still in the middle of paired Articles 19 and 20 establishing a PFAS settlement stabilization fund. By the time those passed, a motion to continue the meeting carried, and Beals was promised a chance to raise his motion again Tuesday.
Day Two: Reconsideration Fails, Government Reform Splits the Town
Beals opened the second night by renewing his motion to reconsider the override. “It really seemed like we were in a beta testing type meeting that should have been hammered out well before it came to the town,” resident Matthew Beals told the floor in support. After a brief debate and a successful motion to end discussion, the reconsideration motion was defeated by majority vote, locking in the $999,777 figure contingent on the override.
The remainder of the evening turned to recommendations from the town’s Government Study Committee, a volunteer group commissioned in fall 2024 to review Halifax’s governance structure. Board of Selectmen Vice Chair Tom Pratt, who serves on the committee, framed each article as a choice for voters rather than a critique of any sitting officeholder.
The results were mixed. Article 9, which renames the Board of Selectmen as the Select Board, passed. Article 6 (Town Clerk from elected to appointed) passed 149–79 and is headed to Saturday’s ballot for final approval. Article 7 (Treasurer/Collector from elected to appointed) also passed. Article 8 (Highway Surveyor) and Article 10 (Water Commissioners) both failed after pointed opposition from elected officials and residents who said they would not surrender voting power to the Select Board.
Current Highway Surveyor Steve Hayward, who earns $84,000 plus a $12,000 cemetery superintendent stipend, argued the town would face significant salary pressure under an appointed model since he also serves as tree warden, recycle supervisor, and stormwater team member without additional pay. “Who’s gonna come here and do all this work for $84,000?” he said. Water Commissioner Chair Richard Clark, who has served the Water Department for 40 years and as a commissioner for 12, told residents commissioners have never been compensated in the position’s 75-year history.
Articles 19 and 20 established a special-purpose PFAS Settlement Stabilization Fund to receive proceeds from multi-district litigation against manufacturers including 3M, DuPont, BASF, and Tyco. After debate over oversight, the body amended Article 19 to remove a clause requiring Select Board approval for Water Commissioner expenditures, leaving spending decisions to the commissioners with town meeting appropriations.
Article 22, a citizen petition from Chris Winiewicz to adopt a soil reuse and contamination bylaw, passed unanimously despite a warning from Town Counsel Paul DeRensis that the Attorney General is likely to reject it as conflicting with Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection authority. Much of the discussion centered on Marilyn’s Landing, a capped landfill on Route 106 currently accepting contaminated soil to rebuild the cap, with eventual plans for a solar array. Interim Health Agent Robert Buker told the body the site currently operates within federal, state, and local parameters but encouraged residents to consult the town’s Board of Health website for specifics. Resident Frederick Hawley raised concerns about uncontrolled runoff toward Stoney Weir Rd., identified as a future town well site.
Other articles disposed of in the second night included a 2% cost-of-living increase for non-union staff, an anti-canvassing bylaw for commercial solicitation, expansion of the disabled veterans’ property tax exemption, acceptance of state law allowing conversion of wine and malt beverage licenses to all-alcohol licenses, and a $300,000 Reserve Fund appropriation amended to remove specific earmarks for police and fire.
At the ballot box May 16, the Override failed 714 to 867.

The applicant for the 60-unit Ricketts Pond Estates 40B development walked into its twelfth hearing with a revised plan that reconfigures every lot in the subdivision — a structural change designed to neutralize the central objection raised by the Board of Health’s hydrogeology consultant: that the project violated state nitrogen-loading limits by roughly a factor of two. The Zoning Board kept the hearing open, scheduled three additional sessions before its May 29 statutory deadline, and began voting on the long list of waivers the applicant has requested from local subdivision and site-plan regulations.
Ricketts Pond Estates, LLC is seeking a comprehensive permit under M.G.L. Chapter 40B to build 30 duplex buildings — 60 ownership units, 15 of them affordable — on roughly 24 acres straddling the Plympton-Carver line off Ricketts Pond Drive. The project has been before the Zoning Board since fall 2025 and has consumed a dozen hearings. The May 7 session was the first since the applicant, working through engineer Brad McKenzie of McKenzie Engineering Group and hydrogeologist Peter Dillon of Geoscience, submitted a substantially revised set of plans, identified as Revision 5.
The redesign responds directly to a March 24 report from Scott Horsley, the hydrogeology consultant retained by the Plympton Board of Health. Horsley, a hydrologist who has taught at Harvard and Tufts and served on advisory boards for MassDEP and the EPA, concluded the project as previously designed would generate roughly 1,049 gallons per acre per day of wastewater across the developed footprint — well above the 440 gallons per day per acre limit in Title V for nitrogen-sensitive areas, and above the 550 gallon threshold that applies when enhanced nitrogen-removal technology is used. Horsley’s lot-by-lot analysis showed loading rates ranging from 624 to more than 2,200 gallons per acre per day.
Rather than litigate Horsley’s methodology, the applicant changed its strategy. Dillon told the board the revised plan eliminates the previous design’s reliance on “credit land” — an 11.28-acre open-space parcel that had been used to dilute the nitrogen calculation for the whole subdivision. Instead, lot lines have been redrawn so every individual lot stands on its own under Title V’s per-lot loading formula, either at 550 or 660 gallons per acre per day, with enhanced nitrogen-removal technology installed on each septic system. “Title V basically gives you two options,” Dillon said. “One is to do aggregation of flow, and then the other is to meet the nitrogen-loading limits either by land size or land size plus treatment.” The applicant chose the latter.
The visual effect of the change is striking. Several lots on one side of the proposed roadway are now roughly twice as wide as in earlier versions. Others extend back through narrow “panhandle” corridors solely to capture enough acreage to satisfy the loading formula. McKenzie said the same 30 buildings will be constructed, with the same bedroom count — six three-bedroom units and 54 two-bedroom units — but some structures have shifted on their lots and several pairs of duplexes will now share a common 20-foot driveway. The roadway design, stormwater facilities, and infiltration basins are unchanged.
Board of Health representative Jared Anderson said the underlying conditions on the ground had not changed even if the numbers on paper had. “They’ve generated acres on paper, but the actual conditions have changed very little,” he said, urging the board not to decide before Horsley could respond and before a pending Notice of Project Change with MEPA — filed by a private party — was resolved. The applicant’s attorney, David Henig of Galvin and Galvin PC, pushed back hard. “We would be strongly opposed to waiting until something is done with MEPA,” he told the board. “It’s going to be a condition of approval that we have to comply with state law.”
The chair indicated the board would keep the hearing open to allow Horsley to respond to Dillon’s letter and to give the board’s own consultants — GEI Consultants on hydrogeology and JDE Consulting on civil engineering — a chance to review the revised submission. The board also acknowledged an arrearage on its 53G consultant account of roughly $14,000 to $15,000, most of it owed to GEI, which will need to be replenished before further peer review proceeds.
Plympton Fire Prevention Captain John Sjostedt, who described himself as the chief’s designee under Chapter 148, examined the new plan during the hearing and flagged several issues. He questioned whether vehicles parked along the new 20-foot common driveways could block emergency access to rear buildings, whether the spacing between adjacent buildings — McKenzie estimated 15 to 20 feet — was sufficient for fire exposure, and whether the new configuration would allow proper ladder-truck placement. Sjostedt said he would submit written questions to the board after reviewing the plan in detail. McKenzie noted buildings can be shifted on individual lots when septic and grading plans are finalized.
The hearing recessed shortly after 7 p.m. to allow the Board of Selectmen to convene in the same room for a separate hearing on an earth-removal permit. When the Zoning Board resumed, it returned to the comprehensive permit and continued working through the waiver list.
The board began voting tentatively on waivers from Chapter 350 (subdivision regulations) and Chapter 340 (site plan regulations), reserving final votes for a later meeting. The board indicated it was prepared to grant most requested waivers, in many cases with conditions recommended by peer-review consultant JDE: a partial waiver for plan-scale requirements (1-in-60 for the 40B plan set, 1-in-40 for construction roadway plans), waiver of the requirement for a second sidewalk, waiver of the standard 100-foot tangent between reverse curves, waiver of the 500-foot dead-end-street limit (the proposed road will run roughly 2,780 feet), and waiver of street-light requirements in light of Plympton’s dark-sky bylaw, with each lot to have a hardwired, photocell-controlled lamppost instead. The board provisionally granted the fire-protection waiver pending Chief consultation. Waivers tied to Title V — separation distances, advanced treatment technology, and wetlands — were held until the next hearing.
Resident Rebecca Lipton raised concerns about red-bellied turtle habitat on and around Ricketts Pond, arguing the species nests in the sandy soils that have been mined from the site. McKenzie said the site is not listed in the Natural Heritage atlas as priority or estimated habitat for rare or endangered species. Town counsel Carolyn Murray noted that state agencies, not the Zoning Board, would address protected-species concerns.
The board worked through the applicant’s request for a waiver from Plympton’s earth-removal bylaw. Counsel Murray noted the bylaw already exempts earth removal “incidental to” permitted construction. Henig said the applicant wanted clear authorization to remove excess material as needed to grade the site for the approved plan, without a separate permit process. The applicant agreed to delineate a “limit of work” line on a revised plan, with no removal or disturbance beyond it, and to accept conditions on hours of operation and truck traffic similar to those imposed in other Massachusetts 40B projects.
Ricketts Pond Estates, if approved, would add 60 ownership units — 15 deed-restricted as affordable to households earning up to 80% of area median income — to a town that, as of MassHousing’s December 2024 review, had a Subsidized Housing Inventory of just 4.99%, leaving Plympton 53 units short of the 10% threshold that protects communities from 40B overrides. The development’s path through the Zoning Board has been shaped by a fight over whether 60 septic systems and 25 private wells can coexist on roughly 24 acres above the town’s Groundwater Protection Zone without compromising drinking water. The applicant’s decision to redraw lot lines rather than continue arguing the science is a procedural pivot — but whether it actually changes the hydrogeology on the ground, or simply changes the math on paper, or did it even need changing, is the question the board will have to answer in the next three weeks.

Town Administrator Scott Lambiase delivered the first detailed look at the fiscal 2027 budget picture at the April 21 Board of Selectmen meeting, telling the board the state has certified Kingston’s free cash at $3.1 million. He called the certification a critical figure for shaping decisions on roughly $1.4 million in capital requests, snow-and-ice capital leases, and supplemental department requests.
Updated cherry-sheet numbers arrived earlier the same day and brought no significant change. Lambiase reported a roughly $116,000 increase in education aid, a $42,000 decrease in unrestricted government aid, and a $72,000 reduction in state assessments — leaving Kingston “basically flat from the last budget” without the help officials had hoped for.
Lambiase flagged two potential revenue developments. The vendor approved to install an electronic billboard on Cranberry Road has cleared a five-year state Department of Environmental Protection review and could generate approximately $150,000 a year for the town, though the project still needs Conservation Commission approval before site work, including tree removal, can proceed. Town meeting voters first authorized the Cranberry Road billboard in 2020, Vice Chair Kim Emberg noted. Separately, the town continues to work with Eversource on a parcel adjacent to the Pembroke Street fire headquarters that has been eyed as a potential future police station site, though Lambiase said Eversource has its own long-term plans for the property and the arrangement may not work out.
Chair Eric Crone, attending remotely, asked about federal reimbursement for snow-and-ice costs. Lambiase said the request has been submitted to FEMA at the governor’s request but cautioned that any award would likely cover about 75 percent of eligible costs and would not arrive for “a couple of years” — and probably “more towards years” than months.
The June 6 annual town meeting will carry roughly 38 articles, Lambiase said, most of them housekeeping. He described the operating budget under preparation as a “level service” budget, with the Finance Committee meeting Thursday to finalize recommendations.
Kingston selectmen voted to approve a two-year extension of Police Chief Brian Holmes’ employment agreement, locking in department leadership for what will become a five-year tenure. The vote was 4-0-1, with Selectman Missy Bateman abstaining.
Holmes thanked the board with brief remarks at the podium. “Two years has gone by in a blink,” he said, calling Kingston “a great town, great workforce” and describing the position as “the best career choice I’ve ever made,” 40-minute commute and all. He told the board the department has engaged in recent training and is preparing for additional work ahead.
Emberg moved approval of the agreement as presented. Selectman Carl Pike said he had reviewed the final document and that it incorporated everything the board had discussed during negotiations.
The board’s only divided vote came on a request from Andrea Cunningham, an administrative assistant in the Town Clerk’s office, for permission to work the May 16 election. Cunningham’s husband, Joseph Cunningham, is a candidate for the Board of Selectmen, creating a financial interest tied to the position’s stipend.
Cunningham’s disclosure form, submitted under G.L. c. 268A § 19, listed restrictions on her election-day duties: setup and breakdown, filling in at voter check-in tables during worker breaks, logging hourly ballot-box totals in the clerk’s book, and food setup. She would not count or tally votes, and she would defer her usual responsibility for checking the ballot drop box to another worker.
Pike opposed the appointment. “I was brought up in the defense industry where any kind of a conflict, even the appearance of a conflict, is just as bad as the conflict itself,” he said. He argued she should not work this single election while her husband is on the ballot.
Emberg disagreed, pointing to the limits in the disclosure form. “There are things that are related to the elections that have nothing to do with the ballots, like setting up food, setting up tables,” she said. “It’s very clear that there are things unrelated to ballots that are part of the election duties that she could potentially do.”
The board approved the disclosure 4-1, with Pike opposed. Because Crone was attending remotely, Emberg as vice chair was authorized to sign the determination on behalf of the board.
Will Cushman of Main Street used the open forum to flag uneven sidewalks on the Route 3 overpass, describing sections that are sinking on both sides of the bridge and creating what he called a tripping hazard. He acknowledged the location may fall under state rather than town jurisdiction. Emberg directed residents seeking road or sidewalk repairs to the Highway Department’s Request Tracker on the town’s website. Cushman also encouraged residents to contact the Selectmen’s office about open seats on the Commission on Disability.
The annual town election is Saturday, May 16, at Kingston Elementary School. The annual town meeting is Saturday, June 6, at Kingston Intermediate School.

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.

Across Massachusetts, a municipal financial crisis is quietly boiling over, and the Silver Lake region finds itself squarely in the path of the storm. The Massachusetts Municipal Association (MMA) has characterized the current convergence of economic forces as a “Perfect Storm”—a structural decoupling of 20th-century revenue caps and the 21st-century cost of running a municipality.
For residents of the Silver Lake region, the math is becoming visibly strained. From debates over cutting teachers to looming multimillion-dollar roof replacements, the “Perfect Storm” is making landfall in our backyards. Here is a look at the mechanics of this crisis and the solutions local and state officials are trying to deploy.
The crisis statewide is defined by a structural collision: legally constrained revenues colliding with uncontrollable expenditure growth.
The core constraint on local revenues is Proposition 2½, the 1980 statute capping property tax levy increases at 2.5% annually. While that growth factor provided stability during periods of low inflation, it is not indexed to actual inflation. In the post-pandemic era, the cost of municipal needs—asphalt, energy, contracted labor—has skyrocketed, creating an immediate structural deficit when costs rise by 4% to 6% but revenues can only legally grow by 2.5%.
Historically, the state partnered with municipalities through Unrestricted General Government Aid (UGGA), heavily tied to State Lottery profits. Adjusted for inflation, however, UGGA funding in Fiscal Year 2026 is approximately 25% lower than it was in 2002—a long-term divestment that has forced towns to rely ever more heavily on overburdened local property taxpayers.
Meanwhile, towns are being squeezed by mandated, uncontrollable costs on multiple fronts. Municipal health insurance has risen over 60% since 2001, driven by specialty drugs and provider consolidation. Local retirement boards are hiking assessments by 6% to 8% annually to meet a state-mandated 2040 full-funding deadline—Plymouth County is still targeting 2031. State-set tuition rates for private out-of-district special education saw a historic 14% increase in FY24, decimating local school budgets. From 2021 to 2024, federal pandemic relief (ARPA) masked these structural deficits, but those funds must be fully expended by December 2026, creating a fiscal cliff as that money disappears.
Silver Lake Feels It
In Kingston, Halifax, and Plympton, the consequences are tangible, particularly in the shared Silver Lake Regional School District. To hold its FY27 budget increase to 2.5%, district administration identified $586,000 in reductions, including cutting five teachers, two administrators, and two paraprofessionals. If enacted, high school students may face larger class sizes and fewer elective or Advanced Placement offerings.
The district is also sitting on a $50 million backlog in critical building repairs over the next decade, including the high school’s wastewater treatment plant, failing HVAC systems, and central office facilities. The district can no longer rely on its Excess and Deficiency (E&D) reserves to patch these issues—those funds have been severely depleted.
The state-local mismatch is on sharp display in Plympton. The town recently received $93,000 in additional net state aid—an amount immediately consumed by an $84,000 surge in out-of-district vocational tuition and specialized transportation for just two students. The school committee adopted a “net zero” budget strategy, moving routine operational expenses—including a $12,500 phone system overhaul—out of the general budget and into a separate Town Meeting warrant. Compounding the pressure is the Dennett Elementary School’s aging roof, a project expected to balloon from $1.3 million to $3 million by the time it reaches Town Meeting in 2028 or 2029.
Halifax is entering what then Interim Town Administrator Bob Fennessy called a “very fiscally conservative year,” with department heads under strict instructions to reduce expenses. Anticipating rough waters ahead, the town has formed an Override Study Committee to evaluate whether to ask voters for a tax increase.
What Officials Are Trying
A Local Fix: The Debt-to-Capital Shift
To tackle the Silver Lake district’s $50 million infrastructure deficit without spiking taxes, officials are proposing a novel accounting approach. As old construction bonds on the middle and high schools are paid off, the towns’ debt assessments will drop. Rather than returning that savings to taxpayers, the district is considering keeping the assessment flat and redirecting the freed-up money—starting at $700,000 and growing to $1.3 million annually—into a dedicated Silver Lake Stabilization Fund. The Kingston Select Board and Finance Committee have already voted unanimously to support the strategy as a way to avoid a massive future debt exclusion override.
Fighting the Transportation Crunch
Plympton School Committee Chair Jason Fraser has highlighted what he described as a “monopoly” of school busing contractors, arguing that small towns face limited competitive bidding and outsized pricing power. To limit the damage, Silver Lake is exercising a “Year 7” option on its current contract to cap increases at 5%, avoiding the double-digit hikes seen in neighboring districts. Officials are also supporting state legislation—House Bill 4066—aimed at addressing pricing in school transportation.
“351 for 351”: The State-Level Push
On Beacon Hill, the MMA is lobbying the state to share what it describes as an “inflationary windfall” from income and sales taxes. The association is pushing a “351 for 351” plan—a $351 million increase in UGGA funding, representing an average increase of $1 million per municipality. The goal is to restore the purchasing power towns have lost to inflation over the past two decades. This is not in the Governor’s Budget proposal.
The Municipal Empowerment Act
Governor Maura Healey has proposed a package of local options to help municipalities diversify their revenue streams. The Act would allow towns to raise the local meals tax cap from 0.75% to 1%, increase the lodging tax, and add a 5% surcharge on motor vehicle excise taxes. While these tools help tourist-heavy communities, the MMA and local officials have noted they generate modest returns for suburbs and rural communities like Halifax or Plympton, doing little to address the structural limits of the property tax cap.
The Reckoning Ahead
For Kingston, Halifax, and Plympton residents, the upcoming spring Town Meetings will be pivotal. Without systemic reform from the State House, Silver Lake communities will be repeatedly forced to choose among three unpleasant options: eroding municipal services, deferred infrastructure maintenance, or asking property taxpayers to pay more. The “Perfect Storm” is not on the horizon—it has arrived.

The Plympton School Committee convened on Feb. 9, 2026, for a wide-ranging session that included a favorable FY27 budget update, a discussion of mounting infrastructure challenges at Dennett Elementary School, and a vote to raise the administrative assistant’s hourly wage. A net increase of $93,000 in state education aid, released in the governor’s House 2 budget, arrived just in time to absorb an unexpected $84,000 cost tied to two new vocational school applicants.
The centerpiece of the evening was a budget update delivered by Chair Jason Fraser and Finance Director Sarah Hickey. Two Plympton students have applied to Norfolk Agricultural High School for the upcoming school year — one more than the single student that had been budgeted. The combined cost of tuition and transportation for those two students totals $84,000: $70,000 in tuition and $14,000 in transportation.
In the same week that cost became known, the governor released her House 2 budget, which showed Plympton netting $93,000 more in state education aid compared to last year. “I was excited that we had the $93,000 come in,” Fraser said, “and the next morning Sarah was like, ‘we have $84,000 more of vocational students.'” He noted the Finance Committee and Town Administrator have been informed and are comfortable with the committee proceeding on that basis.
“One hand giveth. One hand taketh. I’m happy being at net zero” Fraser added.
A complicating factor in the vocational budget line is the state’s new blind lottery process for Chapter 74 vocational program seats. Students who apply are no longer guaranteed admission even if qualified, meaning the committee may be budgeting for students who ultimately do not attend. Fraser noted the district will know by April 1 which students have applied, and if any are not admitted, the excess funds would be returned to the town at year-end. Final budget adoption is planned for the March 9 meeting.
Hickey presented the committee with a recommendation to exercise the seventh-year option year in the existing First Student transportation contract, which is shared across Silver Lake Regional School District and Superintendency Union 31. The option year comes in at less than a 5% increase over FY26 — a figure the committee viewed as a significant relief given broader market conditions.
“This is an absolute financial no-brainer with double-digit increases and many transportation costs,” Fraser said. “We’re going to be in a very interesting position when this contract runs out.” The vote on exercising the option will be taken by the Silver Lake School Committee and the Joint Committee; no Plympton vote was required that evening.
The discussion broadened into a candid conversation about the state of public school transportation procurement. Committee members noted that competitive bidding rarely produces more than one vendor in a given area. Wilhelmsen observed that the district had effectively no meaningful competitive alternative and that a 15–20% cost increase would be the likely result of going out to bid.
Fraser pointed to House Bill 4066, filed by State Rep. Michelle Badger — a former Plymouth school committee member — as one legislative attempt to address what he characterized as “predatory pricing” of school transportation. He said the Massachusetts Association of School Committees has long called for full reimbursement of regional transportation costs, which the governor’s budget is close to achieving, and has also advocated for either a circuit-breaker mechanism or direct regulation of transportation vendors. Hickey noted that the procurement is governed by M.G.L. Chapter 30B and that districts have no legal mechanism to control how many vendors respond to a bid.
The Capital Improvement Planning subcommittee, led by Wilhelmsen, reported on a meeting held the prior week and outlined a series of pressing facility needs at Dennett Elementary. The discussion painted a picture of a building with aging infrastructure across multiple critical systems — and limited funds to address them.
The subcommittee is focused on a building conditions assessment, initially estimated at $70,000. Wilhelmsen said the committee pushed back on that figure, arguing that a prior roof assessment has already documented the roof’s condition and does not need to be re-studied. He suggested a more targeted scope could bring the cost to $30,000–$35,000. As a reference point, Silver Lake recently completed a comparable assessment covering four buildings for approximately $67,000. The committee agreed to pursue a formal cost estimate before going out to bid, since any assessment project exceeding $10,000 requires a public procurement process.
Among the facility issues reviewed: the building’s roof is described as failing and in need of ongoing emergency repair funds — a $15,000 placeholder was discussed to keep the roof “limping through” additional school years until a full replacement can be financed. HVAC is a major concern, with six rooftop units in need of full replacement; one newer unit is already five years old, and estimates for individual replacements have ranged from $80,000 to $110,000 per unit. The gym floor requires a comprehensive resurfacing, with a rough estimate of $30,000 raised but not confirmed. A well cleaning and spare pump were estimated at $20,000. PFAS treatment equipment requirements from the state Department of Environmental Protection are also on the committee’s radar, though Wilhelmsen said he does not intend to plan for an expansion of the well room until DEP makes requirements clear.
The committee agreed that a building conditions assessment — and a roof repair placeholder — should be positioned as warrant articles or budget placeholders, with specific figures to be confirmed as the town meeting season approaches. Wilhelmsen said he expects major infrastructure work will require borrowing. Fraser added that having an active capital improvement program and engineering reports in hand strengthens any future application to the Massachusetts School Building Authority, potentially increasing the reimbursement percentage the district could receive.
Fraser provided a legislative update, noting that rural aid was increased to $20 million in Governor Healy’s House 2 budget — a substantial increase from last year. He cautioned, however, that the governor’s budget is expected to face significant resistance in the House, which he said may “not even pay attention to what she had and rewrite it themselves.” He warned that rural communities in particular could see funding cut back. He advised the committee to treat the governor’s budget as a floor, but with less confidence than in prior years.
Chapter 70 funding for Plympton has grown substantially in recent years, from approximately $570,000 to $1.2 million — a near-doubling, Fraser said, achieved in part through advocacy by the district’s state legislative delegation. Taking into account Chapter 70 aid, grants, and circuit breaker reimbursements, Fraser estimated that state funding covers roughly one-third of the district’s total budget. Wilhelmsen suggested that point be made clearly in budget presentations, as many residents may not realize the degree to which state dollars offset local property taxes.
The committee also noted that a joint meeting with the Silver Lake Regional School Committee is scheduled for Feb. 27 at 5 p.m., to be held in person.

The Silver Lake Regional School Committee received a sobering budget presentation Feb. 5 outlining $586,000 in reductions—including staff layoffs—needed to maintain a 2.5% increase for fiscal year 2027, while simultaneously advancing a $700,000 capital stabilization fund that would repurpose expiring debt payments to address $50 million in facility needs.
Superintendent Jill Proulx and outgoing Director of Finance and Operations Sarah Hickey presented the district’s FY27 budget proposal, which calls for a $42,360,551 budget—a 2.5% increase over the current year’s $41,660,551 budget, plus the additional $700,000 line item for the stabilization fund.
“We scrubbed the budget and made sure that we eliminated anything that we could before considering reduction in force,” Proulx told the committee, describing multiple meetings with building principals and central office staff to identify cuts.
The $586,000 in proposed reductions includes unspecified staff positions, stipend eliminations, supply cuts, and increased unemployment costs. According to the presentation, 57% of the district’s budget goes toward payroll, with fixed costs comprising 15% and health insurance increases estimated at 10%.
High School Principal Michaela Gill warned that the cuts would directly impact educational offerings. “It would certainly impact class sizes. It would impact what we could offer,” Gill said. “It actually might impact some of the honor and AP classes that we provide, because we would need to make sure that we remain in compliance so that all of our classes remain inclusive.”
She added that stipend position reductions would eliminate clubs and activities that “hook” students into the high school experience. At the middle school, Principal Becky Couet indicated that seventh-grade elective exploratory classes would become difficult to sustain, though class sizes would initially remain stable—until further cuts forced them to “increase tremendously.”
Much of the discussion centered on the proposed $700,000 stabilization fund, which would use money freed up by the expiration of debt payments on the middle school and high school construction projects. Currently, the three member towns—Halifax, Kingston, and Plympton—collectively pay approximately $1.3 million annually in debt service, which drops to $657,895 in FY27.
Committee member Jason Fraser explained that a recent facilities assessment identified more than $50 million in needed repairs across district buildings, with engineers warning the work must be completed within 10 years—or escalate to an estimated $73 million. “We have zero dollars for a capital plan,” Fraser emphasized. “Not a single cent.”
He detailed presentations made to the Plympton and Halifax boards of selectmen, where officials acknowledged the plan’s merit but expressed concern about their towns’ fiscal capacity. “Jonathan Selig literally said, ‘it’s brilliant, it’s a no-brainer. I don’t know if we can do it, even though I know we would regret it in the future,'” Fraser recounted of the Halifax meeting.
The stabilization fund sparked debate among committee members. Jeanne Coleman challenged the decision to make staff cuts while simultaneously proposing capital funding. “The staff cuts to put aside money for capital planning doesn’t sit well with me right now,” she said, noting that the $700,000 currently belongs to the towns’ debt exclusion vote, not the school district.
Committee Chair Gordon Laws pushed back, noting that Halifax officials had complained last year when the district avoided reductions by using $1.2 million in excess and deficiency funds. “There were various entities in Halifax that were unhappy with our approach last year,” Laws said. “They felt that the failure to do so put additional burden on them…that it was through unsustainable means with E&D, and that it was in many ways fundamentally irresponsible.”
Fraser defended the decision not to use this year’s $809,358 E&D balance to offset reductions. “I am absolutely against using it this year to supplement the operating budget. I think you said it well when you said the situation we were facing last year was much more dire,” he told Laws, referencing the potential for much larger layoffs proposed in fiscal 2026.
Fraser also emphasized that the $700,000 annually would not fully address the $50 million capital need—at that funding level, it would take 56 years. However, the stabilization fund would allow the district to replenish its E&D reserves to the statutory maximum of 5%, providing emergency capital flexibility and enabling pursuit of additional warrant articles in the future.
Coleman ultimately requested that administration prepare two budget scenarios for presentation to the towns: the proposed 2.5% increase with $586,000 in cuts and the $700,000 stabilization fund, and an alternative “level service” budget that would restore the cut positions, which Hickey estimated would require a 3.7% increase.
“Unless we were to talk about a three-town approach towards an override,” Coleman said, noting that multiple neighboring districts face similar or worse fiscal crises: Whitman-Hanson’s “situation”, Duxbury’s failed override after cutting nearly 20 staff members, and Abington’s $1.2 million shortfall requiring 30 position reductions.
The committee directed Hickey to prepare both budget versions for Fraser to present to the three towns’ boards of selectmen, with feedback to inform the district’s March budget vote. Mark Guidoboni suggested administration also examine “efficiencies” such as having coordinators teach one course to potentially save teaching positions—strategies the district has employed in past budget crunches.
The budget assessments presented Wednesday show varying impacts across the three towns, driven by enrollment shifts and the structure of debt payments. Halifax would see a 1% assessment increase, Kingston 3.4%, and Plympton 8%—though Plympton’s higher percentage reflects a zero-increase last year and significant student population growth. When combined with each town’s elementary school budgets—which have not yet been voted—the presentation showed total education costs would rise at different rates across the three communities.
The assessment presentation also included a request for four business department positions totaling approximately $300,000 that are not currently included in the shared cost budget: a budget analyst, grants manager, accountant, and full-time treasurer. Guidoboni argued that a grants manager could potentially generate revenue exceeding the position’s $70,000 cost by securing additional grant funding.
In other business, the committee approved exercising year seven of its transportation contract with First Student, which will increase costs by 4.51% in FY27—a rate Coleman called “a no-brainer” compared to the 10-15% increases other districts are experiencing when rebidding contracts. The committee also approved course description updates for the high school’s grade 9 wellness program and middle school science curriculum aligned with updated state frameworks.

The Halifax Board of Selectmen heard a proposal from Silver Lake Regional School Committee member Jason Fraser requesting the town commit about $700,000 annually to a stabilization fund for capital maintenance of the aging regional school buildings—a figure that would replace expiring debt payments and result in no net increase to taxpayers.
Fraser presented the request at the Jan. 27 meeting, explaining that Silver Lake Regional has been funding capital maintenance from its excess and deficiency fund for the past decade, but that funding mechanism is not sustainable. A comprehensive facilities assessment completed last year revealed that the 25-year-old middle and high school buildings require approximately $50 million in immediate repairs and upgrades, a figure that could balloon to $73 million if addressed over ten years with inflation.
The facilities assessment identified $6.9 million in urgent repairs needed within one year, including roof work, HVAC systems, windows, and epoxy floors in the career technical education wing. An additional $26 million in projects must be addressed within five years, according to Sarah Hickey, Director of Finance and Operations, who attended the meeting alongside Fraser.
“The buildings aren’t getting any younger,” Fraser told the board. “We’re looking at buildings that are both about 25 years old each, actually part of the CTE wing of Silver Lake High School from 1974. And we really need to look at a long-term way of maintaining these buildings.”
Fraser’s proposal hinges on the expiration of two existing bond payments for the Silver Lake buildings. The first, totaling $700,000 annually in exempt capital costs shared by Halifax, Kingston, and Plympton, expires this fiscal year. The second bond of $600,000 expires in fiscal year 2028. Rather than allowing those costs to roll off residents’ tax bills, Fraser proposed redirecting them into the Silver Lake Stabilization Fund, which town meeting established several years ago specifically for capital expenses.
In fiscal year 2027, the district would receive $700,000 from the new stabilization fund contribution plus $600,000 from the remaining bond payment, maintaining the current $1.3 million total. When the second bond expires in fiscal year 2028, that $600,000 would also shift to the stabilization fund, keeping the annual investment at $1.3 million. Halifax’s share represents roughly 35 percent of Silver Lake’s costs based on student enrollment.
Fraser emphasized the financial consequences of failing to maintain the buildings properly. If the facilities deteriorate to the point of requiring full replacement, an estimated $400 million debt exclusion would cost the three communities $34.4 million annually over 20 years at current interest rates, with Halifax responsible for approximately $10 million per year.
“We shouldn’t even be talking about that because the buildings at age 25 should last us for at least another 25 years if we maintain them well and beyond,” Fraser said. He added that taking out a $60 million exempt capital bond to address the issues immediately would quadruple Halifax’s current capital contribution to Silver Lake.
The stabilization fund approach would provide a “sustainable, predictable method that would have zero impact on our taxpayers,” Fraser argued. He acknowledged that $1.3 million annually won’t cover all $50 million in needed repairs but said it would address the most pressing issues while allowing the district’s excess and deficiency fund to replenish itself. The district may also seek warrant articles for specific major projects to supplement the stabilization fund.
Fraser noted that in preparing the proposal, the Silver Lake School Committee discussed reducing its overall budget increase to 2.5 percent, which would require cutting four teaching positions, two teachers’ aides, and one administrator from the district. “We are definitely willing to work with the towns to try and deliver to you guys a sustainable budget that is affordable to the three towns,” he said.
Hickey detailed specific urgent needs from the assessment, including roof repairs stemming from damage during the 2015 snowstorm when crews had to shovel roofs and punctured the membrane in roughly 1,000 places. The district used capital funds to not only repair the roofs but restore them under the original manufacturer’s warranty. Additional priority items include air handling equipment, window replacements, and CTE wing floor work.
The board did not vote on the proposal Tuesday night, with Fraser indicating this was the start of ongoing budget discussions. Board Chair Jonathan Selig thanked Fraser for the presentation, and the board is expected to continue evaluating the request as part of the broader fiscal year 2027 budget process.
New Town Administrator Begins Work
The meeting also marked the official introduction of Steven Solbo as Halifax’s new town administrator. While Solbo’s first official day was Monday, Jan. 26, the major winter storm forced town offices to delay opening, making Tuesday his effective first day on the job.
“The people of Halifax are seeing a new face here at the table,” Selig said in welcoming Solbo. “I saw him meeting with all various department heads and I will say Steven, great job. You looked to hit the ground running.”
Selig noted that even before officially starting, Solbo had been meeting with town staff and familiarizing himself with operations. A former Halifax resident who lived in town from 2005 to 2013, Solbo told the board he was “looking forward to helping out not only the Select Board, but also the residents here in town.”
Solbo reported completing his ethics training and being sworn in that afternoon. He said he would be meeting with Town Accountant Lindsay Martinelli to finalize budget numbers and noted that based on the override study committee meeting the previous night, Halifax appeared to be ahead of other communities in its budget preparation process.
“I’ve hit the ground running. It’s exactly what I expected to do. And I’m just looking for more to do,” Solbo said.
Board members welcomed the new administrator, with Thomas Pratt saying, “I look forward to working with you and collaborating with you for the betterment of the town. Hopefully it’s a long-lasting partnership on both ends.”