School Committee Discusses Potential Consolidation

East Providence City Council and School Committee members have talked about looking for ways to consolidate some functions between City Hall and the school district.

When it gets down to specific positions, the picture gets more complicated, however, as discussion during Wednesday night's School Committee meeting showed. The issue arose in part over the school department hiring for a secretarial position and advertising to fill the position of facilities manager. Longtime employee Joseph Tavares is retiring.

School committee chairman Charles Tsonos questioned additional hires and advertising, when the City Council and School Committee are considering consolidating.

Superintendent Mario Cirillo said Tavares was critical in helping East Providence  obtain $30 million in bonds to repair the district's buildings and pointed out that the work has begun.

Finance director Mary King said that Tavares had "very big shoes to fill" and that as the bond projects progress, it's critical to have someone in place who can assess whether something a project manager or contractor says needs to be done, should be done. The facilities manager is also responsible for overseeing ongoing maintenance of the district's buildings.

School committee member Chrissy Rossi said in an interview that there has been a "cry for consolidation," but that it might not always make sense.

"This is not a situation that should be taken lightly," Rossi said. "No one before us has been able to pull it off."

Finance is another area that City Council members have also talked about as a potential area of consolidation.

But Rossi said that school finance director king has herself, a comptroller and two secretaries in her department. And she's in charge of the district's roughly $73 million budget.

"She has no fat in her area," Rossi said. Meanwhile, on the city side, the finance department has been without a permanent director for some time.

City Council and School Committee members have said that any potential consolidation would not happen immediately.

Rossi, who has spoken with a human resources professional about it, presented the idea of spreadsheets that each employee in the overlapping departments could fill out, detailing the work they do.Then, she suggested that the school department collect that data and analyze it, then provide it to the city. 

Cirillo, who said he has already been considering some change within some school departments, said he liked the idea of gathering data from each department and analyzing it to make a strong recommendation.

Tsonos said that "no one is forcing consolidation in the next 30 days" and said the city would also likely face a tough budget year. But he pressed for data to be collected from departments within the next 30 days. School committee members also discussed going department by department.