CITY OF EAST PROVIDENCE

 

RHODE ISLAND

JOURNAL OF JOINT SCHOOL COMMITTEE & CITY COUNCIL

OCTOBER 27, 2008

 

The City Council with the School Committee meets in the Council Chambers on Monday, October 27, 2008 Assistant Mayor Bruce DiTraglia calls the meeting to order at 7:00 P.M.

 

Present:

Assistant Mayor Bruce DiTraglia

 

 

 

Robert E. Cusack

)

Council Members

 

Valerie A. Perry

)

 

 

Bryan P. Silva

)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Richard M. Brown

)

City Manager

 

William J. Conley, Jr.

)

City Solicitor

 

Virginia B. Nunes

)

City Clerk

 

 

 

 

 

Dr. Mario F. Cirillo, Jr.

)

Superintendent

 

Jerome Baron

)

School Finance Director

 

Daniel Kinder

)

School Solicitor

 

Chairperson Mildred Morris

)

School Committee

 

Vice Chairperson Robert Faria

)

 

 

Anthony Carcieri

)

 

 

Steven E. Santos

)

 

 

The invocation is read by Councilman Silva and the Salute to the Flag is led by Mr. Carcieri.  

 

Chairperson Morris asks for a motion to open the meeting go back into Public Session and to seal the minutes of our Executive Board.  Mr. Santo made the motion, second by Mr. Faria unanimously approve.

 

Dr. Cirillo, Superintendent presented a power point with Jerome Baron:

 

HOW WE GOT HERE

(2000-2008)Old Budget Deficit — Reduced each year, down to $1.2M for 2007-2008 fiscal year

 

(AT TIME BUDGET WAS PRESENTED - AUG. 26, 2008)

2007-2008 Fiscal Year

 

 

2007-2008 Budget/Deficit at start of FY

$1.00M

 

2007-2008 Estimated Expenditures

$76.51M

 

2007-2008 Budget approved

$73.24M

 

2007-2008 Budget Shortfall/Deficit

$ 3.27M

 

2007-2008 Total Deficit

$ 4.27M

 

2008-2009 Fiscal Year

 

 

2007-2008 Expenditures/Actual Costs

$76.51M

 

2008-2009 Cost increase over 07-08

$ 1.83M

(+2.5%)

2008-2009 Estimated Expenditures

$78.34M

 

2008-2009 Eliminate Deficit

$ 4.27M

 

2008-2009 Total Budget Requirement

$82.61M

 

Increase over 07-08 Budget

$ 9.37M

 

ADDITIONAL CITY APPROPRIATION REQUIRED

$ 9.37M

(+12.8%)

FOR FY09 AND TO ELIMINATE FY08 & HISTORIC DEFICIT (AMOUNT ASSUMED AT TIME FY09 BUDGET WAS SUBMITTED)

 

DIRECTED REVIEW OF 2008-2009 BUDGET REQUEST

 

PROBLEMS FOUND THAT AFFECTED REVIEW AND WILL CONTINUE TO HAVE ADVERSE IMPACT ON FINANCIAL OPERATIONS

 

 

OVER/UNDER-ESTIMATION OF REVENUE/EXPENDITURES

AFFECTING MAJOR COST DRIVER COST PROJECTIONS

COST DRIVER

BEFORE

NOW

BUDGET +1-

Health Insurance

$10,742,569

$10,312,970

($429,599)

Dental Insurance

$786,214

$ 718,39

($ 67,815)

Salaries

$42,466,106

$41,665,977

($800,129)

Transportation

$ 3,312,087

$3,094,087

($218,000)

Medicare Reimbursements

 

$ 1,600,000

 

$ 1,200,000

 

$400,000

Special Ed. Tuitions

$ 8,024,962

$ 8,707,046

$682,084

NET REDUCTION TO FY09 BUDGET PROJECTION

($433.459)

 

REVISED FY09 FINANCIAL SITUATION - REVENUE

Funding Source

2007-2008 Budget

2008-2009 Budget

2008-2009 Budget Increase

2008-2009 Budget % Increase

City Appropriations

 

 

 

 

Property Tax Allocation

$42,325,086

$42,725,086

$400,000

0.95%

Meals/Hotel Tax

$500,000

$500,000

$0

0.00%

 

 

 

 

 

State Aid

 

 

 

 

State Video Tax

 

$300.000

$300,000

 

General Aid

$21,572,539

$21,572,539

$0

0.00%

Student Equity

$2,767,561

$2,767,561

$0

0.00%

Group Home Aid

$756,000

$756,000

$0

0.00%

Literacy Aid

$541,397

$541,397

$0

0.00%

Language Assistance

$406,668

$406,668

$0

0.00%

Early Childhood

$235,022

$235,022

$0

0.00%

Professional Development

$231,685

$231,685

$0

0.00%

Vocational Equity

$176,000

$176,000

$0

0.00%

Technology

$135,129

$135,129

$0

0.00%

Full Day Kindergarten

$63,000

$63,000

$0

0,00%

Charter School

$3,251

$3,251

$0

0.00%

State Housing Aid (Via City)

$1,163,867

$1,245,632

$81,765

7.03%

 

 

 

 

 

Additional Revenue Sources

 

 

 

 

Medicaid Reimbursements

$1,600,000

$1,200,000

-$400,000

-25.00%

Tuition Revenue

$375,000

$350,000

-$25,000

-6.67%

Building Rental & Fees

$155,000

$110,000

-$45,000

-29.03%

Career & Technical Center Sales

$75,000

$0

-$75,000

-100.00%

Athletic Department Revenues

$61,000

$0

-$61,000

-100,00%

Summer School

$51,026

$38,000

-$13,026

-25.53%

E-Rate Reimbursement

$42,000

$42,000

$0

0.00%

 

 

 

 

 

Budget Totals

$73,236,231

$73,398,970

$162,739

0.22%

 

REVISED FY09 FINANCIAL SITUATION – EXPENDITURES

 

 

 

Budget

Budget

Budget

 

Increase

Budget

 

 

 

 

% Increase

 

 

 

 

 

Salaries

 

$43,719,906

$41,665,977

($2,053,929)

 

Benefits

 

$16,438,353

$18,494,115

$2,055,762

12.51%

 

Tuitions

$5,453,436

$8,707,046

$3,253,610

59.66%

 

Transportation

$2,287,831

$3,094,087

$806,256

35.24%

 

Utilities

$1,381,653

$1,557,481

$175,828

12.73%

 

Non-Public Transp. & Services

$457,670

$355,607

($102,063)

-22.30%

 

Nursing/Therapy/TestingServices

$300,610

$337,000

$36,390

12.11%

 

Insurance

$210,642

$212,688

$2,046

0.97%

 

Legal Services & Negotiations

$175,000

$350,000

$175,000

100.00%

 

Technology

$159,500

$211,347

$51,847

32.51%

 

Maintenance

$157,700

$289,500

$131,800

83.58%

 

Dues

$125,473

$127,294

$1,821

1.45%

 

Athletics/Extra-Curricular

$124,590

$146,453

$21,863

17.55%

 

All Other Services

$285,565

$321,594

$36,029

12.62%

 

Textbooks & InstructionalSupplies

 

$431,914

 

$446,001

 

$14,087

 

3.26%

 

Non-Instructional Supplies

$343,582

$555,589

$212,007

61.70%

 

Equipment & Capital Outlay

$217,335

$162,029

($55,306)

-25.45%

 

Non-Public Textbooks

$25,000

$25,000

$0

0.00%

Debt Service

Debt-Service

$940,471

$447,626

($492,845)

-52.40%

Budget Totals

 

$73,236,231

$77,506,434

$4,270,203

5.83%

 

OTHER COST REDUCTION EFFORTS

 

 

For example: If Council funds budget shortfall, any FY09 surplus gained as the result of union negotiations will be deducted from FY10 budget request (in addition to reduced requests for specific line items in FY10 budget ).

 

Dr. Cirillo introduced Mr. Baron, Finance Director and he explained define the term cross road I’m using that term for going to one accounting system to another, the school district about six months ago began conversation of its account code structure expense accounts as well as converting to a new payroll system the cross road unfortunately there is no workable cross road from the old to the new, expense account with no budget accounts next to it, another three pages of budget accounts that have no expense accounts next to it.  Two systems essentially don’t talk to each other; we have to find a way to make this work. 

Mr. Carcieri asks when you got here you came across this, why is there no connection between the old and new.  Mr. Baron states I expect it was a general lack of oversight.  Mr. Carcieri asks who would have been in charge of that and Mr. Baron states he’s not familiar with the names.  Mr. Carcieri states there has been a lot of discussion of why we brought you in and I want you to itemize and point out where you saw deficiencies that was as a result of a new system brought in.  Mr. Baron states yes there was chart accounts that was developed in accordance with the State Department of Education was trying to set up a uniforms chart of accounts.  The City went into a new data processing system which had not been installed in other communities.

 

Assistant Mayor DiTraglia asks to write the questions that we want to ask later.

 

Mr. Baron continues explaining the problem with no cross roads.  The payroll processing that was implemented in August is still in the development stage.  The two systems cannot speak to each other there is a tremendous amount of manual effort taking place our clerks are verbally calling names and hours from one to the other to try to insure accuracy in the payroll system.  There have been a number of errors that I’m aware of including my payroll checks have each been wrong.  They are good employees working hard in a very difficult environment. 

 

Dr. Cirillo states one of the options that we’re looking at is the buildings we have and I’m putting together a group to study the opening of an alternative learning center for some of our Special Ed students for the Waters building.  We have about 94 students emotionally disorder behavior students that we would like to bring back.   The tuitions for those students range from $41,000 to up to $65,000 a piece per year.  As far as other buildings Grove Avenue and Platt building we would like to continue working with the City with the possibility of surplusing, selling or leasing those building.  We are aggressively pursuing a cost reduction in our collective bargaining agreements with the teachers, custodians and the support staff.  Also the School Department will continue to pursue all possible cost cutting to reduce our operating expenses.

 

At the end of the presentation Assistant Mayor DiTraglia asks the School Committee to ask questions first however Mr. Carcieri states he’s more interested what the Council has to say because I watch the Council Meetings and it seems they had a lot of questions concerning the whole business.

 

Mr. Faria states at Life Span we changed our system and it took us eighteen months preparing for it and it was a disaster and we’ve gone eighteen months since then and we’re just getting out of the mud now. Do you see us working through this and Mr. Baron states I’m hoping to work this out internally.  We’ll be starting an audit soon and if any vendors are here we currently have $5.5 million dollars of bills that we cannot pay.  

 

Mr. Santos asks in regard to Special Ed tuitions do you have any idea if we would have gotten the same low back that Providence got to expand our class size to the State mandate 10 to the Federally guideline of 12 how much of an impact would that have.  Dr. Cirillo said I don’t think it would have much of an impact on us right now.   The problem we’re facing here seems the sped numbers are very high the elementary numbers a low of 8% to a high of 29%, the Middle schools 28 – 29%, and our high school 25%.  I came from a big Urban district of 26,000 kids and our sped numbers were not that high.


Ms. Morris asks Dr. Cirillo that alternative learning center that you’re thinking about do you propose to have that started up this year or something for next year.  Dr. Cirillo states I’m thinking of this year as a planning year and doing it right I think it wasn’t done right the last time.  I think these children that fall into this category I look at it as they have a continuum of needs and you’ve got to make sure you complete that circle with an overlay of continuum of services. 

 

Councilwoman Perry ask Mr. Baron you mention about the inaccurate reporting do you think that if the set up was better that over the years this kind of deficit would have been avoided if we had a better system.  Mr. Baron states clearly the better information better decision making process. 

 

Councilman Cusack asks Mr. Baron on the reported financial situation back to Aug 26, 2008 you started off with a deficit of $1.00M then estimated expenditures of $76.51M then budget approved $73.24M with a shortfall of $3.27M.  Now I recall back the $76.51M number was prepared by the School Department last year, the budget approved by the School Committee was $3.25M less.  There’s a deficit of $3.25 plus the $1M, the $3.25 is overspending from what I’ve heard that $73.24M budget approved number was unrealistic because those cuts of $3.27M couldn’t be achieved because they were required contractually, statutorily one way or another had to be spent.   The last page other cost reduction efforts regarding study opening of Alternative Learning Center possible major cost savings from tuitions, surplus/sell/lease building not used and aggressively pursue cost reductions in collective bargaining.  When you look at the budget we gave you $700,000 more then you budgeted last year not what you spent.  What do we do about this $3.25M new deficit money that you spent, how can you fund at this $78.3M what you need to operate today unless you obtain savings in the teachers contract.  If you get $3 or $4M bucks of savings that would bring that down to $74 - 75M and we would be starting to get close we’re good I have no idea how that’s going or if it’s achievable.

 

I can respond on the bargaining front, I’m Dan Kinder, Counsel to School Committee.  I can’t go into detail I will say we are involved in mediation we are talking turkey with the teachers union right now, both sides are working diligently.  I will say this if the teachers step up to the plate they will be heroes in the City of East Providence and should be.  This is a deficit that threatens the very program that the school children in this City have enjoyed for many years.  The cuts are going to be very severe on kids if we have to do them.  Councilman Cusack asks we’ve appropriated $74M what would you do to the program if you had to bring your $78M down to $74M.  If you had to would you lay off 40 teachers, how would you do it.  How would you go about accomplishing that?   Dr. Cirillo states that’s a very difficult question to answer, we look at a budget that’s very lean, we’ve attempted everything we can do not to impinge on the integrity of our education program.  We have about $700,000 left in discretionary money in this budget, if we took this out it would mean an end of sports, after school activities, extracurricular activities, clubs things of that nature.  You’re not dealing with a budget that has a lot left in it for education supplies and textbooks so it would be extremely difficult.  Councilman Cusack states the difference is $4.3M basically if you are meeting all of the contractual and statutory obligations it seems to me that the only alternative the Council would be assuming is that it’s got to come out of the teachers.  Dr. Cirillo yes.  Councilman Cusack states the City Council is assuming if we stick to our budget which we have adopted we’re assuming you’re going to get that $4.3M bucks of concessions out of that bargaining unit which starts this weekend.   Ms. Morris addresses Dr. Cirillo you can’t lay off teachers they have to be notified by March 1st. Councilman Cusack states the Council is assuming to get $4.3M concessions out of the teachers and Dr. Cirillo states to talk about that level of money that’s the only way you can get it.

 

Mr. Carcieri asks Dr. Cirillo in the budget the number for maintenance for the whole school system is that adequate and Dr. Cirillo states no, we have a physical plan challenge, it would be nice to get to the point that we had a fund balance in this budget and we could allocate a certain percentage to capital improvements.  I’ve watched previous Council meetings and I’ve heard a lot of comments regarding the School Committee and the way the spending is taking place there were a lot of allegations about wily nily spending and no one was pulling the reins back.   Assistant Mayor DiTraglia states when it’s my turn I’ll speak.

 

Assistant Mayor DiTraglia asks Mr. Baron what the figure is and Mr. Baron states $77,506,000 Assistant Mayor DiTraglia asks Mr. Baron   how much of an increase and Mr. Baron states approximately $4,270, 000.

 

Assistant Mayor DiTraglia states to answer Mr. Carcieri every year has been in a deficit and I believe some of the Council members have commented on every year there’s a problem getting this balanced.  It keeps on going and nothing is being done about it.  Now we get into this dilemma that we’re facing $4.3M increase.  The City Council doesn’t have the $4.3M increase, the taxpayers don’t have the $4.3M increase so that means more cuts because there is no way we’re going to raise the taxes to make up the difference.  Mr. Carcieri asks cuts where Mr. DiTraglia.  Assistant Mayor DiTraglia states we have to go through the whole City and Mr. Carcieri asks you’re not just talking the school and Assistant Mayor DiTraglia states no, I’m talking everyone because of the situation we have here.  We just got a small tax increased passed the budget I believe it was $17.80 more now we’re going to have a $4.3M increase.  I know contractors that are not getting paid.  Nobody likes to see this happen but it’s the only way to make the budget we have to have major cuts in the City.  It’s a shame that we have to take it out on the City because the City’s running fine on the City side.  We already started with the cuts on the bus monitors I think it came out to $256,000 but then we hired somebody over $100,000 and we’re back where we started.  This is what I don’t want to see anymore because we keep over spending.  We have to face facts we’re going to be cutting services, cutting jobs unless this budget is met with negotiations with the teachers.

 

Ms. Morris asks what has happened to consolidation.  Mr. Brown states consolidation was based upon generating money from the sales of buildings that hasn’t happened.  It was also based upon consolidating some departments one of them was finance, rather than consolidating the Finance Department the School Committee hired for their own reasons I’m not going to dispute, their own Finance Director who in fact is being employed at a higher salary then the one that works for the City.  Quite frankly I believe that every effort for consolidation has been torted at the School Committee level at the same time we are still working to try to assist the School Committee, we have additional funding in our budget to bring in a part time electrician.  That electrician will be working our buildings and the school buildings.  We are working with the Parks Department and school maintenance folks to do some addition work on some of the open space and grass cutting but wholesale consolidation has not happened.  Mr. Faria states we have buildings and grounds which would have been the perfect template to set going forward and we haven’t done that and I’m not saying who dropped the ball.  I thought finance absolutely and legal was one and we have not aggressively pursued consolidation of the services.   Mr. Brown states I met with the Superintendent when he first got here and I told him I was concerned that consolidation had stalled and I asked him to go back to you to make sure you were committed to the project  I have not heard back.  The way you do it is not to simply maintain the duel functions within one department or another you simply eliminate them in one and have the City or the School depending on who does the service maintains that service the money has to follow it.  Right now with the scope of the deficit that you’re undertaking my worry is to get into a consolidation effort were in fact all the work follows on my folks and no money follows that. 

 

Mr. Carcieri asks did anyone hear what was discussed tonight, you’re talking about parks and buildings and grounds you could start on one versus the legal, versus the finance which is a lot more complex.  We had that meeting I remember Mr. DiTraglia said we can take care of this ourselves.  Roger Williams closed with a list of things the City could do and they advised that we bring a mediator in.  Regarding the legal and finance with where we are today and what we’re dealing with the contract I think it is so important that we have our own legal the School Department, we brought in a law firm that people are complaining about.  I’m not trying to be combative but I listened to the last Council meeting where Council members was taking shots at it, the School Department is spending money when they don’t have it bringing in a Legal Counsel that cost more than the previous Legal Counsel and as Councilman Cusack eloquently stated the real cost of the previous Legal Counsel would be for not having the adequate representation that we should have had for the last fifteen years regarding collective bargaining and so on.  Now we have a labor lawyer who specializes in this.  And regarding the Finance Director, the gentlemen spent time; I wanted to ask questions during his presentation because what I was trying to do was illustrate some of the deficiencies that existed.  The Finance Director that we brought in comes with new credentials, many experiences and many successes and he comes into a school department and finds a lot of deficiencies in our accounting set up.  I think our accounting system is going to be at the top very shortly.  The same thing with this law firm they do a good job and at some point in the future we’ll look back on this and say it was a very good move bringing Kinder in.  Taking pot shots and saying the School Department’s spending money and I’m mad with them and I don’t want to hear anymore about it and I’m not going to give them any money and I’m not going to talk to them.

 

Mr. Baron states I think I have a better understanding what happened data processing six or eight months ago probably reminiscing on what I just heard about consolidation we’re going to sell a few buildings and that money will follow and that will be our consolidation I haven’t heard one word about adequate planning meetings taken place about a time table about task assigned.  We’ll sell some buildings what I heard tonight I don’t want my colleague who I respect highly on the spot but I think he would be the first to say that to consolidating finances would be a folly.  It would be a failure it would not have the single slightest chance of success.  Mr. Brown states and that is precisely why I want to insure that the School Committee is committed to the process because if one of the two parties is not committed to the process then you don’t do the planning and establish goals and timetables.  Mr. Carcieri asks are you committed Mr. Brown to it.  Mr. Brown states I’m committed and when you tell me you’re committed and the School Committee is committed then we can start with the process again.  Mr. Carcieri states I’ll speak on behalf of the School Committee we’re committed so let’s start let’s work with Mr. Baron and Mr. McDonald, we have our Superintendent who’ll work with the City Manager and I’m saying it publicly we’re committed.  Mr. Faria states I’ll second that.  Councilwoman Perry states I’m a little confused you say the School Committee is committed to consolidation.  Mr. Carcieri states working toward some consolidation wherever we can wherever it works for both parties absolutely.  Councilwoman Perry states ok so not with finance because I just heard Mr. Baron….Mr. Carcieri states no because Roger Williams came in and we paid or the City paid for a study….. Ms. Morris states $20,000 I believe.  Mr. Carcieri states ok $20,000 these people came in and presented to the City and the School Committee they had a whole list of recommendation and as I said at the closing it would be good and there’s obvious savings to be enjoyed that we strongly recommend that you bring in a mediator or maybe it was a facilitator.  Mr. DiTraglia closing comments were thank you very much but I think we can do this ourselves. Councilman Cusack states they were meeting with the Superintendent and the City Manager and it happened several times and there were feelings on the City side that there was a lack of commitment lack of support for it and that the meetings weren’t really sincere because there seemed to be no we’re not going to do that, not going to do this maybe this and I never heard from the school side but it seemed like a lack of follow through.  Our side we were not going to take all the custodians and privatize them we’re not going to do that.  Roger Williams said we’re going to save a lot of money on pensions, benefits and hourly wages and health care benefits but that’s something that can’t happen, Council members said that we’ll save because we are one city and we will save at the supervisory level there will be fewer supervisors.  At that meeting we agreed the City would be in charge of buildings given the fact that the primary mission of the School Department is educational instruction and so I thought that was pretty much agreed to.  I don’t know what happened after that.  I felt Mr. Brown had sincere intentions but he was also mindful of the pitfall of not having money follow it and not having authority.  We have a whole new team since we started and we have an election next week who knows I would think it could be restarted and I know the problem with the buildings it’s a weak market.  Mr. Carcieri restates as of tonight we are committed as a School Committee to work towards seeing how we can consolidate and if we get the same commitment from you Mr. Brown let it begin tomorrow.   Mr. Brown states my recommendation following up on Councilman Cusack’s observation is that look at the area of buildings and building maintenance and identify the recourses in the school budget for those activities and we transfer those funds and authority over to the City’s side.

 

Mr. Baron states I’m not opposed to consolidation finance I think it would be a mistake from position of weakness and we demonstrated tonight about our weakness because of our system changes to do accurate financial reporting at this moment in time.  Mr. Brown states with the problems you just outlined I wouldn’t want to touch that; I want to start with buildings.  Ms. Morris states there was a vote taken at that meeting.  Mr. Brown states there was a vote taken of a lot of things that didn’t happen.  Mr. Carcieri states a vote taken to authorize you Mr. Brown to examine what buildings could be surplus what the dollars might be what the market might be we gave you authorization to research.  Mr. Brown states that process started and there was an offer on one of the buildings I transfered that offer to the school system and asked for direction and I have not heard.  Ms. Morris states when I received that letter the difference with what they started out by being with you and what they offered there was a great difference and I believe members of the School Committee decided that we shouldn’t go forward.  Mr. Carcieri states it was a little convoluted because the present tenant was supposedly interested in buying for a certain number and then the next step they didn’t want to buy they wanted to lease.  Mr. Brown states no they never told me that and Ms. Morris agrees they wanted to buy.  Mr. Carcieri states I met with the previous legal representation Bob Silva and the other gentlemen Drew and they talked about not wanting to buy but wanting to lease and we reviewed the lease and the next thing I heard is that they wanted to buy again but at a much different number.  Mr. Brown states the market has changed so dramatically that I’m not sure if we could negotiate a sale that would be favorable to any of us.  This is a situation that I’m negotiating on behalf of another entity and I don’t have full authority to do that and now it’s not in their best interest to purchase at the price they originality offered.  Mr. Carcieri states my feeling is before we sell any property we should do a master plan for the whole School Department up against the city and how the two can work together and where we can consolidate.  Mr. Brown states the original plan for the sale of those properties was to generate a substantial amount of money to pay off the deficit reduction bond.  The Auditor General has not approved that and that also takes the pressure off of selling.  One of the things I learned tonight is that one of the buildings that we were talking about being on the market is now being thought of as an Alternate Learning Center.  I don’t know what the numbers are but the savings bringing back those activities in house maybe far more dramatic than the sale of the property. 

 

Councilman Cusack states we talked about the physical plan I read about the state of the high school with respect to fire code compliance and the cost that might be required and at the same time an accreditation review is underway at the high school for the purpose of accreditation.  Nowhere in these budgetary numbers are there any capital spending budgets for the upgrading of our buildings. 

 

Councilwoman Perry states when Roger Williams suggested a Mediator or Facilitator I thought that makes sense. I’ve been saying for years the mentality in this City is it’s always us and them.  We’ve got to work together and have someone with no special interest in the middle.

 

Mr. Brown states because we don’t have any money to spend I’ll look around for some of the resources that we would like to bring to bare that might be available on a pro bono basis.

 

Councilman Cusack asks what is this you’re suing us for, what’s this Caruolo Action.  Mr. Kinder states this is something that the School Committee determinately resisted a year that the School Committee was deeply troubled to do and I advised them under the law they had no choice.  The law says the School Department must not end a year with a deficit, it has two choices it can cut or it can bring a law suit to get the money necessary to cover their budget.  By the time I arrived the day when they could have made cuts was long gone.  There had been a collaborative effort between the City and the School Department they went to the Auditor General with a plan that was largely the product of the City Manager who had done some creative and good work and the Auditor General said he would not approve the budget deficit reduction plan.  I know it is the profound hope of the School Committee that you will all work together that you will take a look at the school budget and recognize what you can cut.  My hope is that you will work it out without having a Judge sitting in the middle, if you don’t the law provides for a process that the School Department with the greatest reluctance has undertaken at my strong urging because it’s the law. 

 

Mr. Faria states at a meeting at the high school my colleague Mr. Santos made a motion that failed in committee to reiterate the Superintendent to make whatever cuts were necessary to stay within budget and that did not happen.  After that point we were never going to be in the limits.  What do we do from this point?  I don’t know what the time frame is.  Mr. Kinder states you are in court on last years budget that’s about to conclude I’ve never known a Judge who would did not want the parties litigant to settle litigation without him or her or with him or her acting as a Mediator rather than as a Judge.  That’s up to the Council and the School Committee but this is an accelerated legal process.  Mr. Carcieri asks can the City help us with $3.27M dollars do you have the money to give to us and Assistant Mayor DiTraglia says no.  Mr. Carcieri states so if they say no what options are left for them to raise the money.  Assistant Mayor DiTraglia states I believe I answered that earlier there would be a tax increase, layoffs and cuts in services to make up that deficit. Mr. Carcieri asks would the City consider doing that.   Assistant Mayor DiTraglia states we would have to discuss that with Council when we have this meeting together, I don’t see it happening any other way.  Assistant Mayor DiTraglia states I like to have a motion for both parties to sit down before we leave here tonight.   Mr. Carcieri asks Mr. Kinder if it would be a public or private meeting and who would be there.  Mr. Kinder states I suggest a discussion between the Manager and the Superintendent and reporting back to their separate groups and then if an emergency meeting needs to be held and with the advice from their legal counsel.  Mr. Brown states I think it’s a good point to break for the evening while I appreciate Mr. Kinder’s opinions on the matter Council needs to be advised by its legal counsel. 

 

Councilman Silva asks Mr. Brown if he knew what the value of the buildings and Mr. Brown states Dr. Cirillo is looking at using a building for Alternate Learning Center so let’s wait until we get those numbers.  Councilman Silva asks if there would be a scheduling of a consolidation of a timetable.  Mr. Brown states we will move as quickly as we can but I don’t know what Dr. Cirillo’s schedule is and he doesn’t know what my is.

 

Assistant Mayor DiTraglia asks on this Caruolo Action isn’t this a lose - lose situation whereas if they lost in court it comes back to the taxpayers and they still have to pay it.

 

Mr. Conley states this discussion is getting interesting I really like what Mr. Kinder said about subsistent discussions in a close session after each side has an opportunity to examine some of the issues raised in the law suit. 

 

Mr. Santos states I want to respond to Councilman Cusack when he raised the question why are you suing us.  I don’t want to relive that meeting.  I have a problem with this decision I did not support it.  I have never supported it.  I have said this for years even before I got here I think it’s a bad move suing oneself is not the answer.   The problem exists the problem needs to be solved part A against part B just doesn’t work.  I’ve seen it firsthand I have good friends that lived this nightmare in Portsmouth and believe me the wounds are still there.  I want the people to know it was not a lets go get him type of thing there was a lot of heated discussion on this a lot of it coming from me.  I think this is a piece of legislation that never seen the light of day hopefully at some point in time it will not see the light of day again dragging each other in court and have a Judge tell you what’s good for the School Department or that program is good and that program is no good and to arbitrarily make decisions.  I don’t think its right.  That’s why we were elected I’m glad we had this discussion like Councilwoman Perry says I don’t live in the school department of East Providence or I don’t live in the city side of East Providence, I live in the City of East Providence and it’s time we started acting like we are trying to do what’s best for the City of East Providence.

 

ADJOURNMENT

 

Assistant Mayor DiTraglia adjourns the meeting at 9:30 P.M. on a motion of Councilman Silva, seconded by Councilwoman Perry.

 

Ms. Morris adjourns the meeting at 9:30 P.M. on a motion of Mr. Faria, seconded by Mr. Santos.

 

Attest:

 

 

_________________________________

Virginia B. Nunes

City Clerk

Approved:   November 18, 2008

Published by ClerkBase
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