![[CREDIT: Rob Borkowski] A list of Warwick Teachers Union related reductions proposed to help meet the Warwick Schools FY26 deficit, including teacher layoffs.](https://e8dgfhu6pow.exactdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Warwick-Schools-FY26-Budget-WTU-reductions.jpg?strip=all&lossy=1&ssl=1)
The district’s FY26 budget proposed laying off 25 teachers, but 5 of those cut positions were eliminated through attrition, by not replacing retiring teachers, said School Committee Chairman Shaun Galligan.
Galligan, Leah Hazelwood, Sean Wiggins, and Michelle Kirby Chapman voted ‘yes’. David Testa abstained from the vote.
Teacher Layoffs Not the Last Deficit Decision
The amended school budget, with an extra $1.7 million found by Councilman Ed Ladouceur’s diligent eye, is now $196,228,049, still $1,934,011 short of the school department’s intended $198,162,060 budget.
Galligan said he was “very grateful that we got more than was initially advertised to us in the city’s proposed budget. Although we are cutting math interventionists, we are not cutting the function itself. Students are still going to get the support that they need.”
The current situation is a far cry from when the district entered the budget planning season $9 million behind, sparking the creation of a state-approved Warwick Schools Budget Commission as the School Committee worked on reductions lowering the total.
Galligan defended the School Committee’s handling of the district’s budget crisis.
“We felt it would have been dangerous to make mid-year cuts,” Galligan said, “It was at that time that we were honest with the general public after we continued operating on a deficit. We still need to look at the structural deficit on the back end of this budget.”
Galligan pledged to take a “slow, methodical” look at future school budgets, as well as “identify cost savings” and “operational efficiencies.”
“We’re caught between a rock and a hard place,” Hazelwood noted. We still don’t know what we’re going to do with the $1.9 million that we are short. It’s just a horrible situation.”
Darlene Netcoh, President of the Warwick Teachers Union, said it was “unfortunate that 15 (employees) will be losing their jobs.”
Netcoh said she “hopes the City Council will see fit to properly fund (the district).”
Toll Gate Steel Build Bid OK’d
The committee also approved the Toll Gate Early Bid package for steel in a unanimous vote.
Testa, who also serves on the School Building Committee, noted the bid came in $2.4 million under budget.
“Cumulatively so far with the bids we’ve sent out for the two high schools, we are approximately $6.75 million under budget,” Testa said. “We’re sitting in a pretty good spot so far in this project.”
Groundbreaking ceremonies for the new Toll Gate and Pilgrim High Schools will be held on June 9 and 10, according to Chris Spiegel from Left Field Project Management. Spiegel told the school committee on May 13 that the project was “trending below budget.”
The entire meeting can be viewed on the district’s YouTube channel.
Author: Joe Siegel
Joe Siegel is a regular contributing writer for WarwickPost.com. His reporting has appeared in The Sun Chronicle in Attleboro and EDGE.
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