To the Editor,

At the Nov. 13 Warwick School Committee meeting, the department’s director of finance, Brandon Bohl, briefed the committee on the fiscal year 2025 Monthly Financial Report and Year End Review for fiscal year 2024.

In his briefing he provided a spreadsheet that showed that the summarized expenses for compensation for fiscal year 2024 (Line Item 5100) was over budget by $5,979,871. Also, the fiscal 2025 salary line item was projected to be significantly over budget. The fiscal FY24 budget would end with a deficit of approximately $2.4 million. 

By state law, school departments are not allowed to have budget deficits. The School Committee will be required to submit a remediation plan to the state auditor general to correct the problem.

Mr. Bohl indicated $95.4 million was originally budgeted in 2024 for salaries. He stated, “through the process of adding programmatic head count and the expiration of COVID era federal funds, we now know this amount was far less than the district needed to budget for salaries. While a significant adjustment was made to adjust the salaries in the current fiscal year, we anticipate being over budget in fiscal year 2025.” 

Why would the School Committee approve the administration’s request to add head counts to COVID-funded programs knowing that those funds were one-time funds, and that additional head counts would not be paid for by the federal government? This should have easily been identified and stopped by the School Committee before any new head counts were added to these programs, resulting in a multimillion-dollar deficit. 

Overspending the 2024 salary line item by $6 million didn’t happen overnight. Why wasn’t the salary deficit identified early in the year by the administration and addressed when it became clear that a large deficit would materialize? 

Why didn’t the School Committee take a more proactive role in making sure the department stayed within its budget with more rigorous oversight since the salary line item had been in deficits in prior years? 

Did the School Committee consider what effect giving teachers a new three-year contract early this year that would cost taxpayers $10+ million in salary and benefits would have on the salary deficit? 

With this revelation, how can Warwick taxpayers trust the School Committee to move forward with oversight on the $400-million project to construct two new high schools when they can’t even hold the department to salary spending levels promised in the annual budget?

Mayor Picozzi needs to use the power provided in the city charter and appoint four Warwick taxpayers to join the School Committee in making decisions regarding the construction of the two high schools. 

Mr. Bohl indicated that a plan would include placing a freeze on all discretionary spending for the remainder of the year and the administration revising the remainder of this fiscal year budget. The department will cut custodial supplies, equipment, classroom supplies and maintenance supplies.

 Will dirty school be the new norm? Will maintenance programs be halted? Isn’t that what caused schools to deteriorate faster than they should have, requiring new construction?

 Lastly, Mr. Bohl indicated that the administration would be looking to “develop clear projections of exactly how much the district will spend in fiscal ’25 on salary and benefits,” and work with budget managers to develop a spending plan for the second half of the year and present a revised budget to the School Committee that reflect the increase salary and benefit costs. Wasn’t this work supposed to be part of the budget process last May when the School Committee approved the budget? 

Superintendent Lynn Dambruch, school administrators and our elected School Committee are not doing their jobs. In the private sector heads would row! But in Warwick bailing out irresponsible spending with new taxes is common. However, this time it will be different.

 A fiscal crisis will envelop Warwick very soon with devastating consequences for many and especially Warwick’s elderly population!

Robert Cushman

Warwick

Robert Cushman is a former Warwick city councilman and School Committee chairman.