Photos by Tim Marshall
EAST PROVIDENCE — The current incarnations of the City Council and School Committee held what was said to be the first of regularly scheduled joint sessions Wednesday night, Oct. 21, an at times lively and seemingly productive meeting that last approximately 90 minutes.
Two key points to come from the discussion, which included eight of the 10 elected officials and newly seated City Manager Richard Kirby, were a basic agreement that the first priority in terms of facilities will be East Providence High School and a second joint meeting is scheduled for Monday, Jan. 11, 2016. School Committee members Joel Monteiro and Nate Cahoon were absent from the proceedings.
Of note as well, the bodies agreed to form a joint committee for budget and maintenance matters. The planned committee will include Mr. Kirby and to-be-determined members of the schools administration.
School Committee Chairman Charlie Tsonos said he “was very grateful to have the opportunity” to have the two boards get together, adding “this meeting is a step forward in making the city better for all of us, for the taxpayers.”
Council President and Mayor Tommy Rose said “schools are an important part of economic development” and “it’s very important the City Council and city manager know what the issues are” when it comes to the plight of the school department’s facilities.
The most pointed exchanges Wednesday came during talks about maintenance and budgets.
Ward 4 Councilman Tim Conley, who served on the School Committee prior to his election to the Council in 2014, said flatly, “I don’t think the issues are really that complicated.”
Mr. Conley then espoused his belief the city needed to fund its schools better. He claimed in decades past, East Providence once provided between “55 to 60” percent of its overall annual budget to the school department, “but that pendulum has changed completely” to spending more on the municipal side of government.
Mr. Conley added other neighboring municipalities are putting substantially more of their yearly allocations to schools. “We spend more on the city side and other communities aren’t doing that.”
In response, Mr. Kirby said there needs to be a “coordinated effort to formulate a comprehensive budget within our means.” The manager earlier in the meeting said one of his aims for the joint session was to create a better working relationship between his office, the two elected bodies and school administrators going forward.
Ward 2 School Committee member Tony Ferreira, often direct in his remarks, said too often in the past only “lip service” has been paid to the problems facing both the city and specifically it schools.
He said in his experience in the private sector a project proposal “is debated to a point, you put an amount on it and then you find the money to pay for it.”
Mr. Ferreira noted specifically an ongoing situation with the ventilation systems in a number of schools. The duct work has needed cleaning for several years, but nothing has been done. He also brought up the troubling case of the pool at East Providence High School, saying some $1.5 million was put into renovating portions of the facility before other more costly problems were found there and it needed to be closed down.
Mr. Rose and Ward 2 Councilman Helder Cunha each called on Mr. Ferreira and the Committee to take a more pro-active approach. Both said if there were ills that needed to be addressed it should be discussed during a meeting, brought to the attention of the administration, sent out for a Request For Proposal, then determined if the means were available for it to be rectified.
As for other issues, Ward 4 Committee member Jessica Beauchaine, looking ahead to contract talks in 2017, discussed the importance of teacher retention and recruitment, saying the district, with the backing of the city, must offer more competitive salaries specifically for more established instructors.
While East Providence offers competitive compensation for beginning teachers, it falls behind when they become more established. A Tier 8 teacher in East Providence, she said, earns a base salary of $61,000. A Tier 10 or top tier teacher in the city earns a base of $67,000, second lowest in the state.
At-Large Councilwoman Tracy Capobianco, who requested the figures be read into the record, appeared to support Mrs. Beauchaine’s stance, adding the topic “requires quite a bit more review on everyone’s part.”
Mrs. Beauchaine said she believed it necessary to not wait to begin discussing teacher contracts until they’re up in 2017, adding she would like to get started early next year.
Ward 1 Councilman Bobby Britto backed not only that premise, but said it was important that budgetary discussions take place throughout the year and not just around the annual season in the fall. Mr. Britto also said the city should begin to look at using a portion of its Capital Improvement Fund, the surplus created after East Providence reached its $10 million Rainy Day Fund threshold, to address some of its infrastructure issues.
In addition, both Mrs. Capobianco and Mr. Ferreira attempted to clarify where a portion of the additional funding for the school department included in the upcoming Fiscal Year 2015-16 budget was earmarked.
The Council approved some $300,000 in appropriation for what school administrators said will be put towards the hiring of five custodians. The officials asked interim School Facilities Manager Tony Feola to expound on the hires.
Mr. Feola told the officials currently there are seven hourly custodians who work only during the school year. Five of them will be brought on full time with the added resources.
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