Council approves $4M to save school sports, programs

By ETHAN HARTLEY
Posted 7/25/19

By ETHAN HARTLEY With the clock striking close to midnight on a deadline that would have closed the curtains on school sports for Warwick students for the upcoming season, the Warwick City Council supported an amended resolution put forth by Mayor Joseph

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Council approves $4M to save school sports, programs

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Editor's note: The Warwick School Committee approved their version of the resolution on Thursday, July 25, to make the allocation of funding official. Full tory upcoming in Tuesday's Beacon.

With the clock striking close to midnight on a deadline that would have closed the curtains on school sports for Warwick students for the upcoming season, the Warwick City Council supported an amended resolution put forth by Mayor Joseph Solomon that appropriated nearly $4 million to schools to save sports and other essential programs that had been cut from the schools’ FY20 budget.

The amended resolution will carve $3,985,474 from the city budget from five line items, the majority of which comes from a $3 million cut to the city’s $4 million budget for road resurfacing. Another $350,000 will come from legal professional services; $328,578 from the line utilized for the lease purchasing of city vehicles; $266,896 from the line for any contractual obligations that may arise from collective bargaining negotiations; and $40,000 from the contingency line within the finance department.

Solomon’s amendment to the resolution was approved by six members of the City Council – with Merolla opposed and Councilmen Ed Ladouceur and Stephen McAllister being unable to attend the special meeting. The amended version of the resolution was then unanimously approved by all members of the council present.

“I am pleased that my administration along with the City Council and School Committee were able to collaborate on a resolution that will ensure the fiscal stability of our city while also providing students with the sports programs that they cherish and the best academic curriculum. I would like to thank all the Council members for supporting this resolution," Solomon said in a release after the vote was taken. “It is my distinct hope that as we move forward, we can continue to have open dialogues about what is in the best interest of our students and city at large.”

Solomon said Wednesday that the result of the resolution made true his promise made back in June when he spoke with students concerned about the programs being cut.

“I made a promise that school sports would be there and not to fret,” he said. “I sat down here with three students, a coach and I think she was a teacher assistant, and I made them a promise and I explained the process. One of them doubted my promise, but unfortunately she was wrong. I'd just like to say that it's great we were able to fulfill that promise working in conjunction with the school committee, the city council and myself.”

The timing of the resolution allows the Warwick School Committee to react and accept the terms during their special meeting, which has been scheduled for tonight. Following that, sports should be able to be scheduled for interscholastic leagues prior to the July 31 deadline, allowing students to participate, according to Pilgrim High School girls soccer coach Tom Flanders.

“I'm ecstatic and hopefully we can move forward and build a relationship,” said School Committee Chairwoman Karen Bachus on Wednesday. “This is all I really ever wanted, was to be able to work hand in hand with the council and the committee and the residents and everyone else for the betterment of our schools.”

The decision to cut $3 million from the road paving line was received with anger from at least one member of the public. Citizen watchdog Rob Cote said that last year, when the city budgeted $5 million for road paving, they wound up spending only $1.9 million. Despite this, the city budgeted $4 million once again this year, and is now utilizing most of those funds as the primary means to fund the school appropriation.

“It amounts to one of two things,” said Cote. “Either we knowingly and willfully padded the budget for paving and several other items knowing we'd be in a jam and we needed to steal more money from the taxpayers to fund the schools, or you're totally incompetent. Which is it? Either one you choose, it doesn’t make this administration look very good.”

The original resolution would have taken only $1.08 million from the road paving budget but an amendment, which included input accepted by the school committee and ultimately was voted down by the council, would have removed identifying specific line items for the appropriation at all – opting instead to figure out the appropriation through transfer resolutions at the end of the budget year.

“I am not in agreement with taking $3 million out of road resurfacing,” Merolla said, explaining his dissent from Solomon’s version of the resolution. “Our constituents deserve better than that. I won't support any amendment that cuts paving by that much. There are plenty of line items, and I think one of the reasons that this was removed in the first amendment was because at the end of the year we have to move all these line items around anyways. Because we never spend to the dime.”

However, others on the council felt that a specific accounting for where the money was to come from within the city budget was of crucial importance.

“I want to know now where that money is coming from,” Ward 6 Councilwoman Donna Travis said.

“I don't want to know later where that money is coming from.”

Repayment for FY19 deficit to be determined

Originally included in the resolution to be discussed Tuesday night was language that would instruct the Warwick School Department to repay the city for the deficit it incurred for the school year that ended in June. That deficit, according to the most recent numbers reported by the school department, will come to around $4.4 million.

The original resolution was amended to include a more specific repayment plan. It would instruct the school committee to pay back the deficit in various amounts over the next four fiscal years in installments of $1.8 million, $1 million, $1 million and $200,000 in the 2022/23 budget.

However, various concerns arose from this initiative, including how the schools would repay such a deficit, how long it would take, whether or not it would affect the maintenance of effort from the city towards the school budget going forward and whether or not any such plan would be amenable to the state Auditor General, who would have to approve any such deficit restitution plan.

Further muddying the waters, City Council President Steve Merolla reported at the meeting that the council received a letter from Auditor General Dennis Hoyle around 5 p.m. on Tuesday, shortly prior to the meeting’s start time at 7, with concerns regarding such a payment schedule.

“At 3 minutes of 5 [p.m.] we get a letter from the Auditor General today saying, ‘Be careful how you structure [a restitution program for the deficit], but I won't give you any suggestions on how to get there,’” Merolla said.

City Council attorney John Harrington further explained he had a phone conversation with Hoyle following receipt of the letter that didn’t add much clarity to the situation.

He said the two scenarios for restitution of a deficit that Hoyle was familiar with involved either a one-time, retroactive supplemental appropriation from the city (which would not contribute to the maintenance of effort), and a somewhat complex program involving the school department running consecutive surpluses in upcoming fiscal years that could then be applied towards the deficit.

Some opposed the very notion of the schools being instructed to pay back a deficit.

“We should not be speaking of the schools as having to make a repayment to the city,” said Ward 1 Councilman Rick Corley. “That is not something that happens. The schools do not have a bank where they can draft a check and send it to the city to repay us money. That is not the way the accounting is done. The city is the one that funds the schools and they have to send their invoices to the city in order to be paid. Everything is done through the finance department. So, when it comes to the language, we have to be careful to use the correct language.”

In regards to the schools running consecutive surpluses to achieve a paying down of the deficit, Corley was even more wary.

“That doesn't make any sense to me because I think it is generated from a fantasy world,” he said. “The schools do not operate to create a surplus. That is not what schools are designed to.”

Other council members wanted to focus on the issue at hand, rather than try to group separate issues together.

“This meeting is about the future,” said Ward 2 Councilman Jeremy Rix. “The current school year – not last school year.”

Ultimately, the language in Solomon’s amended resolution that was adopted struck any mention of “repayments” to the city, instead opting for less committal language reading, “The City and school committee shall work on a deficit reduction plan that satisfies the auditor general.”

Bachus shed more light on the potential restitution plan on Wednesday, reiterating a tentative agreement to decrease funding towards the school’s private pension plan in each of the next four fiscal years, which would be credited towards the deficit in the installment plan mentioned earlier in the story.

However, that plan would still need to be cleared with the Auditor General, and it is not known at this time how that plan would be received by the office.

Schools to engage in exploratory budget reduction

Another key element to the resolution prompts the school department to agree to a few parameters to receive the appropriation. First, it must acknowledge that the “supplemental appropriation described herein are in full settlement of any and all claims that the School Committee has for additional funding for fiscal years 2018-2019 and 2019-2020,” meaning the schools will have to live with the approximately $3.3 million in other cuts made to balance their budget.

These cuts include things like 90 percent of the technical hardware budget and 100 percent of the budget for district software, all professional development for the district and the purchase of new library books (including periodicals and reference books).

The resolution then mandates the Warwick School Committee to “conduct a thorough review of each of its budgeted line items in comparison to comparable districts, such as Cranston, and to prepare a detailed report of such, which it will disseminate to the City Council at least six (6) months prior to submitting its proposed budget for the 2020-2021 academic year.”

The School Committee will also be tasked with developing “a plan of action to reduce expenditures, and will prepare a detailed report of such, which it will disseminate to the City Council at least four (4) months prior to submitting its proposed budget for the 2020-2021 academic year.”

For all of these conditions, the school committee “will allow the City Council or its designated representatives to participate in the entirety of the process for both the above stated review and the development of a plan of action, without limitation.”

Ward 8 Councilman Anthony Sinapi, who was instrumental in the drafting of the originally amended resolution last week that made a $4 million appropriation possible, praised these provisions.

“Now the school committee is basically going to be doing a deep dive into their budget line by line comparatively with other districts,” he said. “Now it's going to be comparing to similar school districts so we can figure out what they're doing and, if they're doing anything better, how we can live up to that standard. Also, to figure out if maybe we're actually doing it right. That way we can substantiate, look, the money that we're spending on certain things is actually valid and maybe we even need more.”

Sinapi felt that the language providing the city access to these studies and reports “without limitation” would open up better communication and transparency between the two branches that hasn’t occurred in recent years, often leading to disputes and a general distrust between the two sides.

“So, there's no more everyone pointing the finger at everybody else saying, 'I wasn't privy to that. I wasn't involved.' Now everyone is involved,” he said. “Everyone can work on it together to make it work. That way we're not sitting at budget hearings having the same discussion I heard this year and that I've seen in years prior.”

For some, like Ward 3 Councilman Timothy Howe, re-establishing trust is a more difficult process. He mentioned how the school department has regularly come before the council asking for huge sums of money claiming the “ceiling is going to fall,” while not clearly identifying savings garnered from consolidation of schools and laying off of teachers. He expressed doubt that school sports – which the schools warned would be cut last year to the tune of $850,000 – this year costs $1.3 million.

“I do believe in moving forward,” Howe said. “I want to move forward, but I can't keep getting slapped in the face by someone and then have the same person for the last three years come and say, 'trust me.' I just can't have it. So, I am going to be cautious.”

Comments

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  • Reality

    Howe said. “I want to move forward, but I can't keep getting slapped in the face by someone and then have the same person for the last three years come and say, 'trust me.' I just can't have it. So, I am going to be cautious.”

    Mr. Howe the taxpayers were slapped in the face with your voting for the $4 mil. After all your rambling, you caved like usual. Didn't you hear the plight of senior citizens who came before the council last week and said how this yrs big tax increase will destroy them.

    What a hypocrite Travis is. Donna voted for this yrs budget without having the city audit numbers. Next time you see her question her about Warwick's finances. That should be a very quick conversation because she doesn't understand them. Everyone knows her allegiance to Scotty.....we would all be willing to carry his water pale if he gave your daughter a high paying job at the library. Does anyone know what deal she made with Solomon?

    "It's all about the kids" so says the teachers' union. Notice they did't relinquish one dime to make up the school department shortfall.

    The taxpayers got SCREWED AGAIN !!!!!!

    Thursday, July 25, 2019 Report this

  • Happy

    We all knew well in advance it was going to work out this way!

    Just don't fix the roads and raise the taxes, problem solved!

    Moral to the story my friends, Don't mess with the School Committee and Don't mess with the unions!

    Thursday, July 25, 2019 Report this

  • Justanidiot

    nice dat granny and grampy pay fer da kids to play sports. they never had dat, they just played pick up games. dey are getting screwed at both ends of da age spectrum

    Friday, July 26, 2019 Report this