The Warwick School Committee’s Finance Subcommittee’s first meeting since Galligan took over as chair was one that he hopes is emblematic of future subcommittee meetings throughout all of the School Committee’s subcommittees.

“Really, what we’re trying to do is to increase the effectiveness of this committee, the efficiency of this committee and the school committee in general,” Galligan said.

The revamped subcommittee consists of Galligan, Superintendent Lynn Dambruch, Director of Finance Brandon Bohl, Director of Technology Jeff Taylor, and two members of the public, Ray White and Chris Mark.

Mark is a data analyst and consultant, and father of  four children who are either in or have gone through Warwick’s schools. White, by contrast, is a recent resident of Warwick, moving to the city in 2021, and works for Rhode Island Energy.

Bohl gave an overview of progress on the city’s current fiscal year, saying that Warwick Public Schools (WPS) has gone through 48.46% of its budget through January. He expects WPS to run a small surplus this fiscal year.

“For the year, we’re doing relatively well- we’ve so far expensed $90.1 million out of the $185.91 budgeted,” Bohl said. “At the same time last year, we had spent about 48.97% of the budget, so a little less, percentage-wise, of the budget spent.”

Bohl specifically mentioned the transportation budget, which is typically WPS’s third-largest expense, as one that the school department is saving money on, though that data only goes through December at the moment.

Warwick Public Schools is earmarked to receive $46.38 million in Gov. Dan McKee’s Fiscal Year 2025 proposed budget, which Bohl believes is “not likely to be revised.”

Committee members also scheduled two budget hearings for WPS’s upcoming Fiscal Year 2025 budget on April 23 and April 30. That option was unanimously chosen over the alternative given, April 11 and April 25, due to the shorter turnaround between the dates.

Galligan explained that it wouldn’t be possible to make any other dates in April due to April vacation and prior commitments from other School Committee members.

WPS’s budget has traditionally had to be in to the mayor by early May, though Bohl said he has not yet heard from Mayor Frank Picozzi as to when he wants the schools’ proposed budget by this year.

Bohl said that currently, the budget has an almost 20% increase over the current one, though he said that it’s “to be expected” as the requests include plenty of wish-list items, and it will get pared down.

Galligan also gave Bohl, who has been with Warwick Public Schools for just over a year, credit for “formalizing the budget process.”

“Brandon’s done a great job since coming on,” Galligan said. “He’s taken a little bit of what they did in the past that was good and he’s kind of backing into it very nicely.”

The subcommittee’s next meeting will be on March 11 at 4 p.m. Galligan said that he’s changing the meeting time in order to make it more accessible to members of the public and less disruptive for members to attend.