When the W-H Regional School Committee votes to set the fiscal 2017 assessments — as they were slated to do on Thursday, March 17 — there may be no budget cuts recommended.

The committee continued its conversation about funding the budget Wednesday, March 9 and, while no votes were taken that night, the mood of members was evident from discussion: cuts and large transfers from the $1,365,310 in excess and deficiency are not popular choices.

There is a $1.4 million shortfall in a level-services budget proposed for fiscal 2017, and committee members are concerned about the wisdom of using too much from that one-time money.

“We need it all,” said School Committee Chairman Bob Hayes of the Student Success plan. “I don’t think anybody on this committee wants to take anything out of that Student Success budget.”

No one disagreed with him.

“We need every single item,” Superintendent of Schools Dr. Ruth Gilbert-Whitner said. “It’s hard to say which piece you could cut and then the other piece doesn’t fall apart. Truth be told, we need more than $3 million.”

She noted the Student Success plan was the product of a lot of work by staff, leadership and parents.

“I’m not in favor of cutting a penny from the Student Success budget,” said committee member Fred Small, who had cautioned against tapping into excess and deficiency. “We need that and everything that’s in there. … What our needs are — those are our needs and those aren’t changing, no matter what the dollar amounts are.”

The district is allowed to put up to 5 percent of its operating budget into the excess and deficiency line to cover emergency expenses for which a regional district is responsible. It currently has 2.88 percent in the account.

Every year, transfers are made from excess and deficiency to help balance the budget, but officials said it is getting harder to replenish what is taken out. In fiscal 2016, $750,000 in excess and deficiency funds were used to fund the budget. Over the course of the school year $643,000 was replenished largely due to insurance and energy savings. A new budgeting software also limits over-budgeting.

School committee and district representatives have already met with finance committees in both towns where it was indicated a 3-perecent assessment increase was manageable, but probably not more, reported Hayes.

“They [Whitman] are not sure if it could be 4 or 5 percent, but they’re pretty sure they could handle 3,” he said. “At this particular point they don’t have any idea, either,  because they’re [still crunching numbers].”

Hayes said Hanson painted a similar picture.

If $750,000 were transferred from excess and deficiency to return school librarians and help close the budget gap, there would still be a $1 million shortfall that would take a 5-percent assessment increase to close, Hayes said of the level-service budget. It would take an additional 15 percent to raise the additional $3 million involved in the Student Success plan.

“Both towns are saying it’s probably going to have to go to an override” to fund the Student Success proposal, according to Hayes. “Neither town has the amount of funding to fund it without going to an override.”

He also said the presence of concerned residents at the meeting with Whitman’s Finance Committee did not go unnoticed.

“They were thrilled to have some people come, because finance committees are often  in meeting rooms where nobody shows up,” he said.

Whitman resident Shawn Kain again spoke in favor of the Student Success plan at the school committee.

“I think the override is just,” Kain said. “I think when we go to the people of the towns I think we can, in a very fair and honest way say, ‘It’s reasonable for us to support the override.’”

He argued that, with the one-time virtualization debt exclusion going off the books this year, the average Whitman taxpayer would see a net effect of $250 tax increase on a $300,000 house if an override passes.

“The challenge is we still have to balance the budget, which is why we are where we are today,” said Gilbert-Whitner.

Hanson resident Christopher Howard reminded the committee that there were more items of concern in the Student Success plan than just returning the library program.

Teacher honored

In other business, the school committee congratulated high school faculty member Julie Giglia on receiving the Business Educator of the Year Award.

“This is a tremendous honor and we feel so pleased that it’s a W-H person who’s receiving this,” Gilbert-Whitner said.

Giglia outlined the “extensive” application process, noting the award wouldn’t be possible without support from her fellow business educators and school administrators.

She also gave a plug for the school’s inaugural Credit For Life Fair from 9 a.m. to noon, Friday, April 1. During the event, each senior is provided with a career and income scenario and must budget life expenses to balance out by the end of the session.

Computer update

The committee was also updated on the progress of the district’s computer virtualization project.

Funded by town meetings last year, virtualization project is on pace for completion sometime in June.

Virtualization replaces the individual hard drives of classroom computers by linking the monitor, keyboard and mouse to remotely accessible server. It also extends the life of desktop units with the best performance possible.

“It doesn’t get tired, it doesn’t get bogged down,” said district IT Director Chad Peters. “Every time someone logs in, it creates a virtual desktop for them.”

The network infrastructure and software was replaced last summer, followed by the upgrade of existing classroom computers in late fall and trained the first two groups of teachers by this month. The remaining teachers will be trained as upgrades continue through May. Upgrades of old computers will continue into June.

On Saturday, March 5 residents, recovering addicts, those who have suffered loss of a family member due to an addiction, community activists and law-enforcement officers gathered at Whitman-Hanson Regional High School to discuss the problems surrounding substance abuse and including the on-going opioid crisis in the state and country.

State Rep. Josh Cutler, D-Duxbury, was scheduled to speak but could not be present due to a family matter, according to forum organizers. His Legislative Aide Rick Branca spoke briefly on his behalf regarding the representative’s efforts in the legislature to tackle the issue, including advocating for a law tightening rules on opiate prescriptions, with versions passed by both the House and the Senate and currently in a conference committee for reconciliation.

Branca also spoke of graduating from Whitman-Hanson Regional High School not very long ago, and witnessing too many fellow classmates pass away from substance abuse disorders.

Following Branca, Brendon Curran, a former drug abuser in recovery told his story. Currently 39, he said that it took him 12 years of attempts to finally “get clean.”

Curran said that his problem began when he began smoking marijuana around the age of 13, and that despite not liking the high, marijuana eliminated negative thoughts he was having. But this quickly led him to other drugs.

“Less than a year later, I had a needle in my arm,” he said. By 14, Curran was using heroin and other I.V. drugs. He was also smoking crack. This led him to a string of serious life problems, including stints in jail.

Today Curran is sober, and putting his life back together. “Addiction doesn’t discriminate; it can happen to anybody,” he said.

He went on to describe his thoughts on solving addiction issues.

“Punitive measures don’t work,” Curran said. He believes that more vocational programs to teach useful skills to those in recovery would be helpful.

Everything lost

Another recovering substance abuser, 36-year-old Sean Merrill, who works as the Executive Assistance/Community Relations Liaison for Teen Challenge in Brockton, a faith-based recovery program for adults, described his story of addiction and recovery.

Merrill became an electrician at age 22, and was doing well in life, he said, including buying a house, getting married and having a daughter.

But by the age of 25, he and his younger brother began experimenting with opioid painkillers, which he stated led to him becoming “hooked, and losing everything, including his house, his wife, his electrical license and visitation rights to see his daughter.

In February 2011, Merrill’s younger brother died due to his addiction. This tragic event in Merrill’s life prompted him to get sober. After getting sober through a Christian recovery program, which he now works for, he and his wife got back together, and they now have two children.

“My son has his father back, my daughter has her father back, my wife has her husband back, and my mother has her son back,” he said.

Foundation in faith

Rich Barnes, 48, of Bridgewater spoke next. Also a former substance abuser in recovery, he said he started drinking at age 10.

He continued drinking until 17, when he progressed on to other drugs, such as cocaine, and by 22, he was smoking crack. “I loved it…[it] buried pain and negative thoughts.”

He married in 2000, but said that he was soon spending $10,000 a month on crack and cocaine. “My life was a negative vortex,” he said.

But as life continued with a new daughter, and he continued to struggle, he decided finally that enough was enough after a suicide attempt. “I missed the first 2 and a half years of my baby’s life due to addiction,” he said.

Now sober for 10 years, Barnes is writing a book with the working title of, “From Stealing to Healing,” and is an inspirational speaker and author of the website richfulthinking.com.

“Never, ever think that it’s not going to be your kid,” he said. “You don’t know what an addict looks like…addiction affects everyone.”

For Matthew

Mary Peckham, of Halifax, addressed her son’s death from addiction, in September 2012 at the age of 27. Matthew Peckham was a “normal kid from a normal family,” said his mother.

Peckham became involved in drugs in high school, and in a now all-too-familiar scenario, it involved other students trading, buying and selling pain medication prescribed for minor sports injuries or pulled wisdom teeth. Mary Peckham never noticed anything amiss.

The secrets began to come out, however, in April 2011, when Matthew Peckham was found overdosing on heroin on his bedroom floor. His drug dealer had sold him heroin that was cut — diluted to increase its weight and volume — with cement. He was brought back to life by first responders with the medicine Naloxone, commonly known by its brand name Narcan, which reverses the effects of an acute opioid overdose.

Peckham denied the drug use, even when in the hospital confronted with positive blood tests for heroin, due to embarrassment. Mary Peckham lost her son the next year.

Peckham strongly stated her belief that her son’s death could have been prevented. She had harsh words with regards to doctors who overprescribe pain medication, calling pain killers “heroin in pill form.”

As for pharmaceutical companies, she had this to add: “They are making money off the backs of our children.” She also faults expensive recovery programs and complex insurance issues that she feels contributed to the death of her son.

Peckham recently started a support group, Matthew’s Candle, for those who have lost a loved one due to an overdose, stating that she has experienced stigma in other grief or loss-support groups because of the cause of her son’s death. Matthew’s Candle meets in Hanson, and the group can be reached at [email protected] for more information.

There’s HOPE

Finally, Susan Silva, an East Bridgewater mother of a son in recovery, described the work she is doing with other local activists and local law-enforcement. She was inspired to take action spreading awareness because of the stigma her family went through on her son’s years-long path to sobriety

She described extended family turning against her family, her church turning against them, even neighbors wanting them, “removed from the neighborhood.”

“I know what it is like to feel stigma.”

She eventually teamed up with the East Bridgewater police, and led a coalition of local stake-holders with the goal of creating a model for law-enforcement and the community to help those suffering from addiction rather than send them to jail or prison.

The fruition of their efforts is the EB HOPE Outreach Center, a twice-monthly drop-in center open on the first and third Thursday of each month from 5 to 9 p.m. at the Community Covenant Church, 400 Pleasant Street, East Bridgewater. The center is open to the community at large, not exclusively residents of East Bridgewater.

The EB Hope Center can provide information about and access to a variety of services, including inpatient and outpatient detoxification programs, addiction recovery services, resources for family members (including training to administer Naloxone/Narcan and information on how to obtain the medication), and on-site mental health triage.

First responders

Although East Bridgewater police personnel are present as partners of the Center and as a resource, according to Police Chief John Cowan the presence is not intended to intimidate anyone or keep anyone needing help away. He stated the purpose of the program is to help substance abusers and their families, not arrest them.

East Bridgewater Detective Sgt. Scott Allen, a career drug-crimes detective himself involved with the center, summed it up this way: “I think we’ve realized that we can’t arrest our way out of this problem.”

The EB Hope Center can be reached at (504)-800-0942 or at www.ebhopes.net.

Nearly every speaker continuously made the point that addiction can affect anyone, anyone’s family, anyone’s child, anyone’s neighbor, anyone’s friend. Addiction does not discriminate, and the public needs to educate themselves on the issue of substance abuse, as addiction is often “hidden in plain sight,” according to those who have lived it.

Whitman-Hanson school budget gains support

A group of nearly 500 concerned parents, community members, educators and business leaders who have teamed to form Whitman-Hanson Supporters of Schools (SOS). Representative members from both towns presented their concerns to the School Committee — and pledged to affect change in school budgeting — during the committee’s Wednesday, Dec. 16 meeting.

Kara Moser of Whitman read the group’s mission statement, which was printed in the Dec. 17 Whitman-Hanson Express opinion page.

“We aim to be a credible, proactive resource for accurate information to support education and drive informed action,” Moser read from the statement. “Together we will support our schools to build the future our children deserve.”

They were joined by retired Hanover Schools teacher, and Hanson resident Peggy Westfield, who also urged greater budget transparency to ease the effort to adequately fund the schools.

“I’m not here to chastise anyone,” Westfield said. “I’m here to say I’m very happy to defend the schools in Whitman-Hanson, but I cannot defend the way the budget is presented.”

Westfield said she had downloaded the fiscal 2016 budget from the district website and compared it to area schools, in particular the Hanover school budget posting.

She found the differences glaring.

“Transparent means open, frank and candid, and looking at the [W-H] budget on the website it is not open, frank or candid,” Westfield said, noting that Superintendent of Schools Dr. Ruth Gilbert-Whitner offered to sit down with her and explain it. “The Hanover school budget is a line-by-line budget and you know every thing that the Hanover Schools spent … right down to copy paper/postage.”

School Committee Chairman Bob Hayes said that information is printed in the town reports, but Westfield urged that it be available online. He applauded her for asking the questions.

“She’s not hitting us over the head and I know that,” Hayes said. “Communication is everything.”

Westfield stressed that, if people don’t know what the school district does with the money, they don’t want to give it any more.

“You have no trust out in the community,” she said.

Westfield also related that state Rep. Josh Cutler, D-Duxbury, has said Whitman-Hanson has the highest percentage of state aid than any school system on the South Shore.

Committee members and district officials said that assertion is inaccurate.

“We have to be very specific in telling [legislators] that increase didn’t cover anything,” said member Steve Bois. “It could have been $200 or $400 — after the charges from the state … it’s not an increase.”

Committee member Fred Small said the increase in Chapter 70 funds was actually $125,000 — only $25 per pupil.

“Part of the issue is, they look at what the state gives Whitman-Hanson [reimbursement rate] vs. what other towns are and they don’t take into consideration we are a regional school system,” said Hayes.

On the transparency issue, Gilbert-Whitner also noted that the district puts together a community guide to the budget, available online and at both town meetings. The committee also holds a meeting at which the budget is presented the first week of February. This year that meeting will be 7 p.m., Wednesday, Feb. 3.

The budget is certified in a public meeting in mid-March.

“Nobody comes to the meetings,” Gilbert-Whitner said. “As we move forward with FY ’17 we’ll be working on making it more and more transparent.”

Chris George of Whitman suggested that part of the communication problem stems from the fact that, as a regional school district, the budget for the schools appears as a single line in the budget warrant article.

“If you come to the meetings they are [being transparent], but folks aren’t coming to those meetings so how do we put it back in their face — to say ‘Here it is. You’re voting on one line item, but here’s every single line in the budget,’” George said. “We need to do something different in how we present it.”

The committee has also planned a meeting on Wednesday, Jan. 13 at which Cutler, state Rep. Geoff Diehl, R-Whitman, and state Sen. Mike Brady, D-Brockton have been invited, and will attend, to discuss budget issues.

State aid

Gilbert-Whitner said an important issue about which they must be informed is proposed formula changes for Chapter 70 state aid that could be felt by fiscal 2018.

“The more aware we are about the change in that formula, the more intelligently we can speak to our senator and our two representatives,” she said.  “Whitman-Hanson runs on its Chapter 70 money — $24 million of our $47 million budget comes from the state.”

Bois, who arranged the meeting as a member of the Legislative Affairs Subcommittee, said it is important for the legislators to see and hear from the large groups of teachers and the members of SOS who have attended recent School Committee meetings.

“It’s going to be very interesting and I’m asking them all to be here for the January meeting, because we told them it’s going to be somewhere between an hour to an hour and a half,” Hayes said. “We have people that have questions. Our task to you would be come with some questions. Ask them.”

Communication is a large part of the job, he stressed.

Whitman accidents injure 2 pedestrians

WHITMAN — Police and fire personnel responded to two separate pedestrian accidents on Thursday, Dec. 17 in which the pedestrians involved were both transported to South Shore Hospital.

No charges have been filed against drivers in either incident, according to police.

At about 7 a.m., Dec. 17, a female high school student was transported to the South Shore Hospital for non-life threatening injuries after being struck by the side mirror of a car near 309 Washington St., while she crossed the road to get on the school bus.

During rainy conditions at about 5 p.m. that day, another accident seriously injured a pedestrian in the crosswalk in front of the post office on South Avenue.

The victim Leon Baker, 68, of School Street in Whitman was walking in the crosswalk. He was dressed in dark clothes when he was struck by a Honda Civic, according to police. Baker sustained serious injuries and was listed in fair condition Saturday at South Shore Hospital.

The 33-year-old male driver from Brockton, whose name has not been released, immediately pulled over, according to Police Chief Scott Benton.

“He stopped and went to Mr. Baker to try to help and was cooperative with Whitman police,” Benton said.

A Massachusetts State Police Reconstruction Team responded to the scene and, based on the analysis at the scene with Whitman’s investigating officers, it was recommended and then determined that the driver would not face charges.

Contributing factors to the incident were weather conditions and poor lighting.  The driver was not found to be at fault, said Benton.

“Our thoughts and prayers are with the family of Mr. Baker,” Benton said. “He and his family are well known in town. He participates in town government and he is a volunteer. At this time of year with the holidays we hope he makes a full and speedy recovery.”

Leon’s Brother Lenny Baker, also a Whitman-Hanson graduate still living locally, is a famed musician of television and the musical group Sha Na Na.

No further information was available on the condition of the teen hurt in Thursday morning’s accident.

The initial investigation by Whitman police was that the side mirror of a car struck her as an elderly woman went past the stopped school bus, according to Benton.

The bus driver, whose name has not been released, works for First Student Bus Company. She initially reported to police her red flasher lights were on for the students to safely cross the street. However, after a statement and corrected report by the bus driver to Whitman police she informed the investigating officer her yellow lights were on, not her red lights, which would have activated the cross board on the front of the bus to signal that all traffic must stop.

“The bus driver made the determination to allow two more cars to pass before activating her red lights. The student, anticipating the red lights, then stepped into traffic and was struck by the car. She was not hit by the bus,” Benton said clarifying incorrect information that was possibly started on social media.

The women driver of the grey sedan was shaken and did stop at the scene. A male who identified himself as the son of the driver said his mother “is elderly and very upset.” He did not want to speak further.

He was driving her home following the accident.

Two women who reside across from the bus stop said approximately five students wait at the bus stop daily.

Tina Burnell, whose daughter is a high school student, said her daughter was right behind the girl who was struck and that she had been upset by the incident.

Benton said Monday that no charges were filed against either driver.