Where's Billy?

We'll believe it get going now at four oh six PM.

Well, the clerk please call the roll.

Mr.

Snappy, Mr.

Gilweith, Mr.

Bowley, Mr.

Gebo, Mr.

Kirby.

Mr.

Lazarus, Mr.

Mudo, Mr.

Now, Mr.

Ray.

Here.

Would Councilman Rex please lead us in the salute to the flag?

One nation under God.

With liberty and justice for all.

Do we have a motion to reopen the public hearing on unfinished items of PCR fifty-five dash twenty-six and pcr fifty-six dash twenty six?

Second.

Any objection?

Seeing none, so opened.

No objection.

Alrighty.

So school department, you are up.

Thank you.

Mr.

President, members of the city council, the FY27 school budget was developed utilizing the deficit reduction plan created by the budget commission and approved by the auditor general.

This is a very lean budget focused on the core mission of Warwick Public Schools, delivering high quality instruction, supporting student achievement, and maintaining safe learning environments.

The budget prioritizes classroom instruction with meeting the basic requirements for the basic education plan established by the Rhode Island Board of Education.

The total proposed FY27 general funds budget is 203 million eight hundred and seventy-four thousand five hundred and seventeen dollars, representing a 2.68% increase.

The primary drivers of the increase are contractual salary obligations, employee benefits, pension contributions, non-staffing requirements, transportation costs, and out of district tuition expenditures for special education, career and technical education, and CHATA schools.

This budget was developed within the fiscal parameters of established by the budget commissioners approved deficit reduction plan.

The auditor general expressed concerns that certain expenditure expenditure line items present a level of financial risks that may limit the school department's ability to effectively manage escalating costs.

Those concerns outlined by the auditor general have become a reality within the recommended budget within the budget before you.

Please note that the FY27 budget reflects our commitment to maintaining educational programming despite significant financial constraints.

With me this evening is the school committee chair Sean Gallaghan, as well as our executive director of finance, Craig Enos.

At this time, I'd ask Mr.

Enos to come forward.

Thank you, Superintendent, Council President, members of the city council.

Thank you for your time.

Just to hit a couple of highlights within the budget that you have before you.

So the grant funds go away.

That position is very much needed.

And so we have now included that within the budget.

The other purchase services, transportation, out of the district uh tuitions, both to public schools within Rhode Island, special education schools, and charter schools.

We already have within our contract for first student a 5.5% increase for the coming year.

Um, one uh item to note for that we have done an uh audit.

Uh Ride had approached us earlier in the spring about uh participating in a transportation audit to look at our roots, look at all the students who are riding, um, and they were coming back to us with the recommendations on where we could where we could possibly make some re-reductions.

Uh what happened was when they did the first review of the audit, it didn't contain all of the bus routes.

But what it was able to tell us was that in some of our schools on the afternoon runs.

If we have a bus that can seat 48 students, and you only have three students that are riding on that bus in the afternoon, and that happens on a couple of runs, there are some efficiencies that we can do to really look at our um runs.

So we submitted the rest of the information to Ride.

We have an appointment with them later on for this week to review the rest of the findings, uh, but we really do feel that we can condense runs, adjust some of the bell times, and realize some significant savings for the community.

Um, in terms of our um public school placements, the students that are going to other schools uh for for high school.

That rate has not been set yet by Ride.

That usually comes out towards the end and end of the month.

Uh we are anticipating uh an increase of 20 students uh leaving us for this for next year.

So a hundred about 195 students um are going to be going to some other high school.

Uh we also have our um increases for special education out of district tuitions, which we have no um no choice over.