Whitman Board of Selectmen Approves DPW and Town Hall Union Contracts, Transfers Budget Funds

WHITMAN -- June 24, 2024, Whitman Finance Committee Chair Kathleen Otena publicly rebuked the Board of Selectmen over a $150,000 ambulance fund transfer that she says broke an agreed deficit-sharing formula after voters rejected a $2 million Proposition 2.5 override on May 17. Otena told the board that the transfer, approved without advance notice to the Finance Committee and announced at the June 11 special town meeting, effectively reduces the town's share of a $2,053,431 deficit to about 32 percent, versus the 68 percent borne by the Whitman-Hanson Regional School District, rather than the agreed 48-52 split. "I anticipate that future Whitman-Hanson Regional School budget votes will not be so cooperative, because this is not fair," Otena said. The board approved two three-year collective bargaining agreements, one with AFL-CIO Council 93 Local 1700 covering DPW workers and one with OPEIU Local 6 covering Town Hall employees, and authorized more than $55,000 in line-item budget transfers. Town Administrator Mary Beth Carter also reported that an underground storage tank was discovered and removed during demolition at the nearly complete DPW building site on Essex Street, with soil testing now underway, and that the town locked in a community electricity aggregation rate for just over four years following a favorable bid day.