Hanson Select Board warned $2.9 million override needed to avoid mass layoffs

HANSON — February 25, 2025 — Hanson Select Board hears warning that $2.9 million override is the only path to avoiding 36 layoffs. Town Accountant Eric Kinsella told the board Tuesday that the town faces a $2.9 million structural gap in fiscal year 2026, driven in roughly equal measure by a projected 9 percent increase in the Whitman-Hanson Regional School assessment and rising town departmental costs. Without a Proposition 2½ override, Kinsella recommended drawing $1.1 million from free cash and cutting $1.8 million from budgets — a scenario he said would eliminate the equivalent of 36 full-time positions and leave reserves at "dangerously low levels." The board also voted unanimously to appoint Fusno Noaki, currently the Veterans Service Officer in Randolph, to fill Hanson's long-vacant veterans agent post, and authorized Town Administrator Lisa Green to sign a $100,000 Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners design grant contract. The annual town meeting where residents will vote on the override is scheduled for May 5, 2025.