HANSON — Oct. 13, 2026 — Hanson Select Board members called Tuesday for a sterner letter to the Plymouth County Retirement Board and took a voice vote on sending it, after the chair said the retirement board’s decision to stretch towns’ extra retirement payments a year longer and raise them would cost Hanson about $330,000 this year.
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Chair Laura FitzGerald-Kemmett said member towns had been counting on 2031 as the year the additional money they pay each year to Plymouth County Retirement would end. Last month, she said, the retirement board voted to extend that date to 2032 and to increase what towns pay, with very little communication. For Hanson, FitzGerald-Kemmett put this year’s added cost at about $330,000.
As she understood it, some assumptions behind earlier projections of what towns owed had been overly optimistic, and the retirement board revisited them, including the earnings rate. The chair said there was no doubt the methodology was fine, but questioned whether the retirement board had considered the downstream impact on towns.
$330,000 in a year when we’re already facing a deficit and all of our surrounding towns and everybody in Plymouth County is facing a deficit is a lot of money. It’s not a rounding error.
— Laura FitzGerald-Kemmett, Select Board Chair 31:22
Frank Milisi said the draft letter was far too polite and should be sterner, calling Plymouth County government’s transparency over his six months on the board abysmal and saying a search for a recording of the retirement board’s meeting came up empty.
Joe Weeks, who moved to send the letter, agreed it should be tougher and offered language for it.
People’s retirement plans are not to be gambled with, and asking for forgiveness after you’ve given inappropriate assessments based off of hasty calculations is disingenuous to the retirement community, which are the most vulnerable population, and you should be ashamed of yourself.
— Joe Weeks, Select Board 34:03
Weeks also said towns are left to scramble with taxes or free cash, and urged the retirement board to seek money from state legislators instead of towns. FitzGerald-Kemmett asked for a letter with more punch before the board’s voice vote on the motion.
The board also took a voice vote on a separate letter asking Hanover to reconsider building fees at South Shore Vocational Technical. Citing the superintendent, Town Administrator Lisa Green put the permit fees at $1.8 million to $2 million. FitzGerald-Kemmett said a charge of up to $2 million is spread across all the member communities, that Hanover’s town manager had said the town followed its normal permitting process, and that other towns have sent or voted to send similar letters. Weeks and FitzGerald-Kemmett laid out the sequence: member towns voted to provide money for the school, and only afterward was the school told the fee amount.
