School Committee Approves $36.9m Budget

The East Greenwich School Committee this week approved a $36.9 million budget — an increase of 3.66 percent over last year.

It’s the largest proposed budget increase in recent memory even with substantial cuts throughout the budget, including $233,000 in staffing reductions, $176,000 from the capital improvement budget, $30,000 to nix a summer painting program and $80,000 by pausing the Chromebook rollout at Cole Middle School, among other cuts.

The budget does include funding for all-day kindergarten at Frenchtown Elementary School, which will cost $144,000. The program will model the existing program at Medowbrook Farms Elementary School. Though the implementation is not a full-on adoption of all-day-K district wide, it is a start, School Committee member David Osborne said at Tuesday night’s meeting.

Superintendent Victor Mercurio had proposed cutting two library media specialists, two school nurse teachers and a senior project coordinator at the high school to save more than $400,000 but concerns led to those cuts never happening.

The staffing reductions that did carry through included .2 full time equivalent reduction for a chorus teacher at Cole.

The budget now heads to the Town Manager, who has the difficult task of grappling with the school district’s request for a 3.66 percent increase, which is very close to the legal 4 percent cap, along with all the town’s needs.