[CREDIT: WSC] At left, Warwick School Committee Chairman Shaun Galligan explains Warwick School Committee cuts to the FY25 budget would be the first of three rounds.

WARWICK, RI — Warwick Schools face a $9 million FY25 deficit, so Warwick School Committee cuts of $2.8 million approved Tuesday will be the first of three rounds of expense reductions considered by the board.

In order to reduce the district’s $9 million budget deficit for FY25, $2.8 million Warwick School Committee cuts were unanimously approved by the School Committee during their Tuesday meeting.

“Expenses will have to be lowered to address the issues we are experiencing in fiscal year 25,” said Warwick Schools Finance Director Brandon Bohl. He noted his department has been meeting with the city weekly and also met with Auditor General David Bergantino Monday to discuss the School Department’s fiscal standing, which will take some time to sort out.

“We’re also working on a corrective action plan over the next five years to address this issue,” Bohl said. He also noted that projections of the district’s deficit were based on worst-case scenarios, which the district is working to minimize.

“The deficit, as Mr. Bohl pointed out, is a projection,” said Warwick School Committee Chairman Shaun Galligan. “We are projecting a $9 million deficit. However, that is if we do nothing.”

But Galligan said, the Committee will instead be starting with the first of what will likely be three rounds of budget cuts to the current fiscal year.

Warwick School Committee Cuts Jan. 14

Lunch Bills – Students $25,000
Assistant Principal vacancy at Warwick Veterans – $65,275
Fuel Oil Cut $100,000
Tennis Courts $200,000
Building Improvement Line $275,000
PayGo $500,000
WISE Pension Contribution $750,000
Cuts by Directors – $928,556
Double Counting NEST and Athletic Trainers $40,000

“I believe in transparency and open and honest government. There are going to be other reductions that need to be taken. I’m actually more concerned about FY26,” Galligan said.

Galligan explained the state budget deficit ($330 million) would also affect the funding formula for education, likely limiting what the city can depend on from that source as they work on the coming fiscal year budget.

“FY’26 is going to be very difficult,” Galligan added.

School Superintendent Lynn Dambruch vowed to address the district’s financial problems without hurting the students.

“We are working in full compliance with state law, closely collaborating with the Rhode Island Auditor General to come up with a comprehensive correction plan,” Dambruch said.

Dambruch said the district would be “conducting a thorough investigation” into the deficit to determine its “root cause.”

The district has had to deal with “unforeseen” and “unbudgeted” expenses, Dambruch noted, including the failure of a septic tank at Scott Elementary School. The expected replacement cost for that is approximately $250,000.

“I think at its’ core, this problem is a personnel issue,” said committee member David Testa. “It’s a head count issue and the fix is going to be a head count issue. We’re going to have to make some structural changes here. I don’t know what the exact solutions are. In my eight plus years here, this hit me in the face like a two by four. We need to know how we got here.”

RIDE Accountability Ratings Improve for Warwick Schools

In happier news, the school district has shown improvement in the RIDE Accountability Ratings, according to Lisa Schultz, the Director of Curriculum and Instruction.

“We increased by three points overall from last year which is great news,” Schultz said. “That’s not easy to do.”

Schools are ranked on a scale of one to five. The district’s elementary schools are mostly 3s. Lippitt Elementary went up to a 3. Oakland Beach also showed improvement in the ratings.

“We now have a lot of schools that are on the cusp of greatness,” Schultz said, noting Robertson Elementary, Greenwood, and Holliman have all improved their scores.

“Scott (Elementary) remains strong as a four star school, it is almost a five star school at this point. They keep getting better and better which is what we want to see,” Schultz continued.

The secondary schools all achieved a score of 2, expect for Winman Middle School, which scored a 3.

Schultz said Toll Gate High School would have scored a 3 if it wasn’t for lower scores for English Language Proficiency.

Testa was critical of the RIDE star ratings, calling them “extremely misleading.”

“That’s what people look at. So you have Toll Gate which has 1100 or 1200 kids. For the sake of 40 or 50 students, it’s a 2. If anybody had a performance review at their job where you’re only as good as your lowest score, you wouldn’t like that too much. It’s not a reflection of your school district at all.”

“The system itself is flawed,” Galligan said. “The fact that (RIDE) can take only one little snippet and pull down everything in terms of how you evaluate a school. It’s not appropriate in my eyes, it’s not a good measurement if a school is an adequately performing school or not.”

For more details on the ratings, google RIDE Accountability Ratings.

The full video of the meeting can be viewed online 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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