Summary of the Financial Crisis

Here is a letter recently published in HWNews which sums up Wenham’s financial crisis.

To the Editor:

On April 5th, Wenham residents will be asked to vote for a new $142M consolidated elementary school to be built in Hamilton on the existing Cutler School site. Wenham cannot afford a new school no matter how much money the state chips in. Wenham is facing perhaps the largest and most crucial fiscal crisis in its 382-year history.

According to the Wenham Finance Committee, the new consolidated elementary school alone will raise our property taxes by 12%, and that’s not a one-and-done. That 12% increase gets baked into our tax rate for the assumed 20-year term of the bond-loan. Next, it’s estimated that the Hamilton Wenham Regional School District (HWRSD) will need another $2M Prop 2½ tax override to fund the newly signed teacher union contracts in 2026. Those contracts have already been signed. That money must be paid to fund our current teaching staff; without it HWRSD will have to fire 20 teachers. That tax override will be part of our tax rate forever.

Wenham is also in the middle of contract negotiations with its employee union which will necessitate a town operational override in 2026. We are borrowing from our reserves this year to avoid an operational override at the same time we are voting to pay for the new consolidated school. Are you seeing the pattern here?

And we haven’t even gotten to the implications of the MBTA 3A law which our Select Board seems so eager to see implemented. 3A threatens to exhaust our town services: fire, police, water, and most likely require the addition of a sewer system, none of which we can afford. An approved 3A is also a loss of local Wenham town zoning, giving Massachusetts control of all 3A districts forever. The Wenham Select Board on January 21 voted to support the new school without evaluating any financial analysis from the Wenham Finance Committee. They have failed in their fiduciary responsibility to Wenham taxpayers. And no one is mentioning the coming overrides for the school and town in 2026. Why aren’t these being talked about? We are now in financial freefall.

I have paid close attention to the Wenham FinCom, a dedicated group of volunteers who now find themselves in the middle of this maelstrom. At their last meeting on January 23, a member stated: “This is the hill I die on.” May I add that one way or the other, this is the hill we ALL die on. Wenham Finance Director, Jeff Soulard, stated at the same meeting: “I can’t see how we’re going to be a town in 20 years.” We won’t be, only I think it will be closer to five years from now when we turn off the lights for good.

The HWRSD has gutted our two towns. Paying our share of the school budget consumes 60% of Wenham’s budget, yet there is zero oversight of what HWRSD does with our money. Twice we voted money to repair the high school roof, twice that money was spent elsewhere. The boilers failed over the winter break. On January 22, we were told we received almost the highest ranking the state can give to a school district because our schools are so well maintained. And the very next second, Eric Tracy, HWRSD Superintendent, claimed we must build a new school because Cutler and Winthrop are at their end of life and in disrepair because we haven’t done maintenance in 30 years. Which is it, please?

The HWRSD contract will be renegotiated in the coming months. I say we put the brakes on a new consolidated elementary school project which will most certainly bankrupt us. Let’s get a contract negotiated with the HWRSD which allows financial oversight, most likely in the form of an outside audit every three years or so, which will enable us to see exactly where and how our money is being spent.

All of us are committed to excellent education and most of us believe our small schools should be saved. Let’s all work together for a different plan to support our children and teachers that balances excellence with expense.

Mark your calendars now! Be at the Buker School at 1pm on Saturday, April 5th. Show up and vote NO! And then let’s work to find a better way forward. Let’s stop this madness before there is nothing left of the town of Wenham we love so much.

Respectfully, Marjorie Gajeski, Wenham