Newport School Department's Tentative Budget Cuts About 20 Jobs

Expecting it will receive the exact same amount of money next year as it did this year, the Newport School Committee slashed nearly $880,000 from its proposed budget. To meet that goal, the school department plans to reduce support staff, reduce capital improvements, save money in retirement and healthcare accounts and enact a major cut to Title I reappropriations.

Proposed staff reductions include the reassignment or reduction of a clerk, an building paraprofessional, two elementary teachers, two maintenance workers and a special education coordinator, totaling $470,000 in savings.

Grant fund eliminations totaled $149,000, resulting in the elimination of a World of Work teacher and a family service coordinator.

Support staff reductions totaled $372,000 in savings. An administrative clerk, four Thompson Middle School paraprofessionals, a paraprofessional, a cosmetology aide, and energy conservation coordinator were included in the reductions. The Triplett School will also share a maintenance workers with Underwood, with one custodian splitting time between schools.  Rogers High School will also adopt the custodial model with Thompson Middle School.

As of Monday’s budget workshop, the budget proposal totaled approximately $37.4 million, down approximately $120,000 from their

The committee discovered $200,000 in savings in a fund dedicated to capital improvements at Thompson and the Triplett School, allowing them to remove the cost from the budget proposal.

“We do have money that resides with the city and can be utilized to defray capital improvement costs,” Superintendent Dr. John Ambrogi said. “It’s been sitting there and it’s a dedicated fund. That’s a one-shot deal.”

The committee will also save another $140,000 by moving two special education preschool classes to Underwood Elementary School, which will receive Title I funding next year. Under Title I, the school can hire teachers and a family service coordinator with state rather than city funds.

Ambrogi said the next round of cuts will be to reduce personnel or bargain for concessions with the teachers' union.

“It’s about making better decisions with they money you have,” committee member Robert Leary said. “We just cut almost $900,000 and we haven’t really touched any programs.”

Committee member Jo Eva Gaines was quick to point out that the cuts still affect students, even though teachers and programs had not been cut. She argued that eliminating para-educators would still cut into classroom learning time.

“It’s our job to defend this budget . . . We know what our needs are,” Gaines said. “The city council doesn’t know our needs and, frankly, I don’t think they care. It’s our responsibility to defend and ask for what we need to run the schools appropriately and provide the needs for the kids.”

The city council may be able to cut funding to the school committee based on declining enrollment in the public schools, which committee members said is unwarranted.

Interim Business Manager John Souza said the school system does not save the cost per student for each student that leaves the system. The formula of multiplying the 50 students by the cost per student does not add up to any savings, he said. The cut would also be preemptive, as the school committee does not know whether the number of students will rise or decline in the upcoming school year.

“That cut is based on the past. It has nothing to do with our needs next year,” Gaines said. “The council doesn’t have to make that cut.”

The school committee is scheduled to present its budget proposal to the Newport City Council during a workshop on Wednesday, May 18, at 6:30 p.m.