Thornton

You won’t see students storming the mayor’s office demanding restoration of athletics, as they did two years ago, or a prolonged City Council battle over school funding, as has been the budget tradition, with Superintendent Philip Thornton’s proposed $185.8 million spending package presented to the School Committee Tuesday night.

Thornton’s budget calls for level city and state funding of schools, plus use of an additional $11.7 million in federal funds for the 2022 fiscal year starting this July 1.

But this is hardly a level-funded budget. For that to happen, the budget would have to be $193.2 million. Therefore, the superintendent is proposing $7.6 million in cuts that surely won’t sit well with the Warwick Teachers Union and parent groups.

Darlene Netcoh, president of the Warwick Teachers Union, voiced her skepticism Tuesday afternoon after having looked through the documents.

“I take all their numbers with a gigantic grain of salt,” she said.

Thornton said Monday in preparation for Tuesday’s meeting that the budget “aligns staffing with enrollment.” In other words, enrollment has declined and the School Department is looking to make a corresponding cut in staff. To be precise, the budget recommends the elimination of 35 FTE (full-time equivalent) positions.

Netcoh notes 35 is the number on one page and 34 is on another. Furthermore, she says, given the pandemic, distance learning and the cutback in busing this academic year, it is hard to project what enrollment will look like when students are back in school five days a week and busing is fully restored.

Netcoh is critical of the opportunity for the public to question the budget as the committee was set to start its review last night. She noted that written public questions are to be submitted, whereas in the City Council Zoom meetings live audio questions are entertained which provides for follow-up questions and dialogue.

Thornton makes the point that unlike prior budgets where the city did not initially fully fund the committee’s request, this budget does not call for the elimination or reduction in programs. That was the case in 2019 when the mayor’s budget cut $4 million from the committee request. To balance what it was allocated, schools made cuts including its athletic programs. Following protests, the council reallocated funds intended for road repaving to schools and athletics was restored.

In his budget summary, Robert Baxter, executive director of finance and operations, reasons the city administration has made it “abundantly clear” that it can’t support a tax increase and that taxpayers are struggling as a result of the pandemic.

“The school department could be considered fully funded with the highest per-pupil expense in the state ($22,271) which ranks among the highest in the nation,” reads the summary.

Consequentially, it goes on to say, the budget proposes “to over utilize” a projected $11.7 million in federal American Rescue Plan funding in order to minimize the number of staff reductions.

Hoping for no tax increase

With the use of federal COVID funds to meet operating expenses, Baxter is apprehensive of building structural deficits going forward. For that reason, he said the allocation of federal funds is separated from the city and state revenue streams.

Mayor Frank Picozzi is faced with a similar dilemma. For that reason, he is looking to use American Rescue Plan funding for capital expenditures such as infrastructure development (sewers) and repairs (water).

“We are hoping for no tax increase,” Picozzi said of city budget deliberations. He said he has been meeting regularly with Thornton and his staff and is aware of the issues faced by the department.

The federal funding side of the budget includes $4.7 million in federal IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act) and Title I funds plus $7.1 million in ESSER III (Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief) funding included in the American Rescue Plan. Warwick is slated to receive $17 million in ESSER 111 funding to be spent by 2024.

The hard reality of declining enrollment, yet the relatively consistent level of staffing, is illustrated in graphs. They show in FY16 an enrollment of 9,000 students and 936 teachers. Enrollment dips in the following years until it precipitously drops to 7,900. Meanwhile, the ranks of teachers is 887. The report finds the current ratio of professional staff to students at one teacher to 8.9 students as compared to a state average of one to 12.3 students.

The summary finds a “drastic enrollment decline” of 1,197 students in the past five years, yet a professional staff decline of 5 percent over the same period.

In an interview, Baxter said projections show the decline in enrollment accelerating over the next decade to the point where “we’re not going to need two high schools.” Projections made by NESDEC (New England School Development Council) put Warwick high school enrollment at 1,986 by the 2029-30 academic year. It is currently 2,451.

Addressing staffing, the budget summary reads, “In past years, the district would attempt to reconcile excess professional staff expenses at the expense of non-staffing expenses (forced reductions in technology, transportation and supplies) and non-certified staffing expenses (reduced funding for WISE pension). Attempting to reconcile the excess professional staff expenses against other areas of the district budget is no longer feasible.”