After minor cuts, schools ask city for added $6.9M

Matt Bower
Posted 4/30/15

Through the passing of three amendments to the superintendent’s recommended $166.6 million budget for fiscal year 2016, the Warwick School Committee trimmed a total of $123,505 before narrowly …

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After minor cuts, schools ask city for added $6.9M

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Through the passing of three amendments to the superintendent’s recommended $166.6 million budget for fiscal year 2016, the Warwick School Committee trimmed a total of $123,505 before narrowly approving the amended budget by a 3-2 vote Monday night, which will now be forwarded to the mayor and City Council.

Before the amendments were made, the recommended budget included a $126.5 million request from the city, approximately a $7 million increase in current funding. With the amendments made, that increase has been reduced slightly to a total of $6.9 million.

While a number of amendments were attempted in an effort to reduce the increased city request, only three were approved, resulting in the $123,000 reduction. Those amendments included cutting $21,005 from athletics, $100,000 from curriculum and $2,500 from the superintendent’s budget.

The amendments came during a long back and forth discussion with individual budget managers regarding what they’ve requested for next year. Monday’s meeting lasted nearly five hours before it was all said and done.

Motions that passed

The first amendment to be approved was reducing the supplies line item in the athletic budget by $21,005, bringing it to an even $50,000. The motion was made by Bethany Furtado and received unanimous approval from the committee.

Prior to the vote, Furtado said she had a problem with the fact schools have to budget nearly $60,000 in fees to the city for students to use McDermott Pool and the ice rink at Thayer Arena. As residents of the city, she said students should have the right to use those facilities without the schools paying fees.

When asked how many school fields are used for city sports, Director of Buildings and Grounds David LaPlante said all of them are used, although some are just for practices.

“Maintenance of the fields is handled by school employees, apart from the football field at Gorton across the street; that’s handled by the city,” he said.

School Committee Chairwoman Jennifer Ahearn asked if schools can charge the city for use of its athletic fields, since the city charges schools for use of the pool and ice rink.

“We don’t need to do that because we’re showing good sportsmanship by letting them use it,” said committee member Terri Medeiros.

When it came to Siesel’s curriculum budget, first suggestions were made to cut individual line items, such as cutting $37,000 from general supplies and materials, nearly $34,000 from equipment, and considering cutting entirely the $8,000 for uniform/wearing apparel supplies as well as reducing the $12,400 for professional organization fees.

“If the professional organization fees [line] is cut, we will not be able to pay for all secondary teachers to be members of all their organizations,” Siesel warned. “Teachers of subject areas pay fees to belong to organizations that provide professional development opportunities and support access to resources.”

Siesel continued, saying in order for students to participate in events such as music festivals and art shows, their teachers must be members of organizations.

“If this budget is cut, the first responsibility will be to pay teacher organization fees in place of competition fees,” she said.

As far as the $8,000 for uniforms, which would provide uniforms for marching band, chorus and orchestra students, Ahearn asked if the schools are required to provide those.

“If the performances being given require uniforms, we are responsible for them if the performances are in Rhode Island,” said Rosemary Healey, director of human resources and legal counsel for the school department. “For chorus and orchestra, if we want everyone to wear the same jacket or dress, there’s nothing requiring that.”

Ahearn said the committee needs to look at areas of cost savings that don’t impact instruction.

“That may mean we ask the students to purchase X, Y and Z,” she said.

Finally, Medeiros made a motion to reduce the curriculum budget by $100,000 and let Siesel “tweak and shape to get the best out of the program.” The motion passed by a 3-2 vote, with committee vice chairman Eugene Nadeau and Karen Bachus voting against.

“If we’re going to pick and choose, why not hit the whole budget with a 10 percent cut? At least then we’d be fair,” Bachus said.

The final motion to be approved was a motion to reduce the supplies and materials line item in the superintendent’s budget by $2,500, which was unanimously approved by the committee.

MOTIONS THAT FAILED

Although only three amendments were passed, several others were attempted but fell short of being approved. These included an attempt to cut $9,000 from the secondary education budget that would pay for all juniors (this year’s sophomores) to take the PSAT exam; $28,547 from the elementary education budget that would pay for color printer cartridges used for printing out STAR student assessment reports; $245,000 from the human resources budget that would be used to establish a legal services department separate and apart from the existing human resources department; and cutting $174,000 in legal services and $84,000 in special education legal services, for a total cut of $258,000, then adding $225,000 into the superintendent’s budget to outsource legal services as well as $25,000 for arbitration purposes, for a total addition of $250,000, thereby saving a total of $8,000.

SEPARATING HUMAN RESOURCES & LEGAL SERVICES

The first motion to eliminate the separation of legal and human resources at a savings of $245,000 was made by Furtado, but it failed by a 3-2 vote, with Furtado and Medeiros voting in favor.

“I move to strike the separation of human resources and legal from the budget entirely and re-entertain [that move] when appropriate,” Furtado said. “I would prefer to buy more Chromebooks for students rather than add administrative positions.”

Ahearn disagreed with Furtado, saying she ran the numbers and projected the school department could realize a savings by eliminating the additional staff needed to create a separate legal services department (approximately $90,000) as well as the current special education legal counsel ($84,000), cutting the legal services line item in the human resources budget ($174,000) and outsourcing legal services for the school department (adding $225,000, as well as $25,000 for arbitration).

“What you lose with outside counsel is the ability to triage problems before they occur by answering questions,” Healey said. “That’s why you used to have 100 grievances per union. When you’re paying someone by the hour, it can cost a small fortune to get that, to be able to answer people’s questions.”

Healey said the last time the district had an outsourced attorney handling matters; the district regularly spent $65,000 a year at a cost of $135 per hour.

Director of Special Education Jennifer Connolly said she concurred with Healey, adding that she would have grave concerns if John Anderson, the special education legal advisor, were cut from the budget.

“I have access to John as much as I want and whenever I want. It will be very difficult to transition to someone that is billing hourly,” she said.

Healey said while Connolly may speak with Anderson as much as three times a day, she speaks with the superintendent and administrators nearly 10 times a day.

“You won’t get that with outsourcing,” she said.

Medeiros pointed out that Healey is not the only one serving a dual role in the school department.

“We have other directors that hold dual positions and we were accused of excess administrative positions when we tried to split them up,” she said.

Nadeau questioned whether there was a conflict of interest having one person serve as both human resources director and legal counsel.

“I take my ethical obligations very seriously. The interests of human resources and legal are aligned,” Healey said. “My interest is in what’s best for Warwick schools.”

Ahearn said if the district is able to save money for programs while splitting positions and dedicating support for legal and human resources, it should take advantage of it.

“The majority of other [school] districts [in the state] separate these services and are able to handle it,” she said.

Connolly said it only takes one case to put the district in a vulnerable position.

“Although you might not see the ramifications in other districts, it could take one case to have significant implications for the district in the millions of dollars,” she said.

Furtado agreed.

“The devil you know is better than the devil you don’t,” she said. “John Anderson knows the game and does it well. For us to sit here and split hairs – we can, we might, we will – for this minute amount of money, let’s take a step back and look at this.”

Furtado continued, pointing out the committee has already hired two additional lawyers (one to handle the investigation of a science teacher that allegedly drew inappropriate images on students, and another to assist with contract negotiations).

“How many more will we need? This is not the right move at this time,” she said. “I don’t see a savings.”

Medeiros said the committee needs to work together.

“We’re not one person in power. We’ve hired two lawyers, we brought in a consultant to tell us what we already know; we’re spending money but we’re standing still and not moving forward,” she said. “This shouldn’t be about pushing for what you want to fit the puzzle that you’re building.”

Ahearn fired back.

“We would save money with outsourced legal services, and the committee unanimously approved hiring an outside attorney to handle the [teacher] situation because we couldn’t handle it in-house,” she said.

Ahearn’s motion to cut $174,000 from legal and $84,000 from special education legal, then add $225,000 to outsource legal services as well as $25,000 for arbitration failed by a 3-2 vote, with Ahearn and Nadeau voting in favor.

CAREER & TECH CENTER

Another motion that was under consideration before being withdrawn by Furtado was to cut the career and technology budget by $24,000.

Ahearn pointed out that $58,000 was requested for FY 2014 but only $38,000 was spent, and that while $38,000 was requested for FY 15, so far only $25,000 has been spent. However, the budget request for FY 16 nearly doubled at $74,000.

“Historically, you haven’t spent that money and you’re not projected to spend that this year,” Ahearn said.

Director of Secondary Education Dennis Mullen, who addressed questions in place of Career and Tech Center Director William McCaffrey, who was not present at the time, said a $24,000 cut would affect the amount of consumables in every program, such as cooking, construction, etc.

“It would hurt tremendously,” he said. “We’re looking at a group of students not necessarily going to college; this is their trade. That $24,000 cut is not fair to students. That’s all they have.”

Mullen said the career and tech center serves 400 students, 200 of which are from Warwick.

Medeiros said, “I feel the career center is the gem of our city and I would like to protect it as is.”

BUDGET ADOPTION

Prior to the overall budget vote, Ahearn pointed out that one of the goals is to provide one-to-one devices (Chromebooks) to the entire school population, but it will cost the district a total of $3.1 million in technology-related hardware and software just to reach one-fourth of that capacity, covering all ninth-graders and all high school teachers.

Nadeau said he didn’t make many changes to the budget because he was focusing his concentration on where cuts will need to be made if the schools don’t get the money they need from the city.

“Chances are they won’t give us that money and we will need to come back and eliminate $7 million from the budget that excludes salaries and benefits, which accounts for the 15 percent of the budget that is used to run the schools,” he said. “I hope everyone realizes the extent of cuts that will have to be made.”

The amended budget passed by a 3-2 vote, with Furtado and Medeiros voting against.

Comments

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  • markyc

    Even though the economy appears to be improving, Warwick taxpayers can not take a $ 7 million hit. Hard choices need to be made. Maybe the cost of Chromebooks will need to be spread out over numerous(2-3) years. Maybe ALL depts., including non-school depts.(are you paying attention Mayor Avedesian?). will have to get by with less. It's also past time for the School Dept./Committee/Community to make some tough choices that SHOULD HAVE been by this time. With a declining student enrollment what would you rather have-school buildings as they presently exist, with all the required upkeep costs, or more in the way of educational program choices;an expanded kindergarten, school sports, and technological offerings such as computers, Chromebooks, etc. ? Plus, even though the school dept. can expect an increase in State aid, the State is also in a difficult position that it can't tax its way out of. I don't reasonably see how the School Committee can anticipate a $ 7 million increase from the City's share.

    Thursday, April 30, 2015 Report this

  • JohnStark

    Understand, it is never, ever, ever enough. And it will never be enough. At $18k per student, Warwick should be an absolute educational jewel. It is not. Track meets can not be held at any of the city's three high schools due to the deplorable conditions. Mold flourishes on many ceilings, and bathrooms resemble those found in the third world. What's the message to kids? All the while, enrollment continues to understandably plummet as families avoid Warwick and/or it's schools. It is a rudderless, rusting ship overseen by a school committee that farms out it's elective responsibility to a 'consultant'. What a mess. Our kids deserve better, and taxpaying parents deserve other options.

    Friday, May 1, 2015 Report this