The Valley Breeze

For No. Smithfield schools: $1.2 million in cuts coming

Hamilton under fire from all sides as ’10 budget passes

By ETHAN SHOREY, Valley Breeze Staff Writer

NORTH SMITHFIELD – After grappling with the numbers all evening Tuesday, the Town Council here was unable to eke out any additional school funding, leaving the School Department $1.2 million short and one leader claiming Town Administrator Paulette Hamilton’s administration is both “incompetent” and “indifferent” to the schools’ needs.

It took more than five hours for the Town Council to reach a consensus on a combined $34 million budget for the 2010 fiscal year that will mean a 4.75 percent tax increase for North Smithfield residents. But it was the questions over school funding and who would be determining a 2011 budget that stole the show.

Hamilton was under fire from all sides Tuesday: from School Committee members for failing to give the schools any additional funding of the $800,000 appropriation increase they had sought for the 2010 school year, and from Town Council members who said she tied their hands when she finally hired a new finance director last month at the former director’s salary.

School Committee Chairman Robert Lafleur told The Breeze after Tuesday’s budget meeting that the decision to give the schools just $4 more than last year will likely mean an additional $900,000 in cuts beyond the $353,000 they were able to carve out prior to Tuesday’s budget hearing.

“In the 35 years I’ve been going to budget meetings, never have I witnessed a group of individuals behind that table who knew so little about what they were doing,” said Lafleur, who clarified that he was speaking of those behind Hamilton’s table and not the Town Council.

School Committee members, who found $353,192 in additional cuts prior to Tuesday’s meeting, including the elimination of four teachers, say they’re also looking to make an additional $962,795 in cuts at meetings next Monday, July 6, and Tuesday, July 7.

The total $1.2 million in cuts and changes to the school program could include:

• The eradication of middle school and junior varsity school sports, for a savings of $47,680;

• The elimination of full-day kindergarten, for a savings of $52,000;

• The cutting of four full-time and one part-time high school teaching positions, for a savings of more than $218,000;

• The elimination of one full-time and one part-time middle school teaching positions, for a savings of $93,697;

• The termination of one grade 5 teacher, for a savings of $62,465;

• Leaving vacant the North Smithfield Elementary School assistant principal position, for a total savings, with benefits included, of $102,000;

• Cutting two custodians, one maintenance person, a clerk and a secretary, for a total savings of $251,760;

• Deleting $10,000 from the schools’ ice rental budget;

• And $62,100 realized in new electricity savings at the middle school.

The school budget did get one boost when the council inserted more than $200,000 in what they had expected to be an additional cut in state aid to North Smithfield’s overall budget.

The total appropriation to the schools for the next year is $21,094,090, compared to $21,094,086, for a total increase of just $4.

School leaders may also choose to ignore what they call unfair mandates from the state, said Lafleur, and may drop state-required school bus monitors, establish a fee structure for school sports or institute fees for full-day kindergarten.

Lafleur was especially angry at Theodore Przybyla and Donald Gray, North Smithfield’s part-time finance directors, who urged council members to go ahead with a plan to replenish the town’s surplus funds with $100,000, even as the schools suffer.

“It’s mind-boggling and it concerns me as a taxpayer that no one knows what’s going on in this community,” said Lafleur. “Not once did any of the three interim or part-time finance people, including the town administrator, come in and ask for information about our budget. We have never had that happen before.”

Hamilton had defended her level funding proposal for the schools, agreeing with a Budget Committee recommendation that there were still cuts to be had in the School Department.

Hamilton’s proposal, if approved, would amount to the maximum allowable 4.75 percent increase in the town’s tax levy, or amount collected in taxes, but no additional funding would go to schools.

In last week’s edition of The Breeze, school leaders were quoted as saying that a “verbal commitment” was made between the School Committee and Town Council in 2008 on a plan to fund the schools up to the maximum allowable appropriation for two years after school leaders agreed to return $373,000 in surplus funds and a payment from the Northern Rhode Island Collaborative to the town. A council that included three current members agreed to give an additional $496,000 to the School Department to open up the new North Smithfield Middle School.

After urging Town Administrator Paulette Hamilton for months to get a full-time finance director in place, the council Tuesday unilaterally slashed the salary of incoming Finance Director Cheryl Ficarra just six days before she was to start next Monday, July 6.

“You’ve been asking me to get a finance director,” said a noticeably upset Hamilton. “She starts on Monday and I think this is grossly unfair.”

“I am certain now that she will not accept the position,” said Hamilton.

Council members, who were angry that Hamilton had hired Ficarra at the $79,160 salary spelled out in North Smithfield’s wage ordinance, would later reverse their 3-2 decision to cut Ficarra’s salary 20 percent, by $15,000 to $63,328 after dire warnings from Przybyla and Town Solicitor Richard Nadeau if they did so.

“I hope you’re understanding the litigation that you’re facing here. It’s extraordinary,” Przybyla reiterated after the vote. “You’re going to get to $100,000 in no time. This woman files suit and you’re going to blow through this $15,000 in no time.”

“We’re in a legal jackpot here,” said Councilor Paul Zwolenski, who voted with councilors Paul Leclerc and Steven Biron to cut the salary before reversing his decision. After council members learned of the ramifications of cutting Ficarra’s salary, and reflected on the fact that she already quit her higher paying position at Textron, all but Biron changed their vote, reinstating her former $79,000 salary.

Council President David Lovett, who like others appeared exhausted as Tuesday’s meeting approached midnight, urged his fellow council members, whether the decision to hire Ficarra at $79,000 was “right, wrong or indifferent,” to consider that “our finance situation at Town Hall is not good.

“We really need to get on track going forward in the right direction,” he said. “We’re caught between a rock and a hard place on that one.”

Council members, several of whom have indicated they believe Hamilton was responsible for forcing former Finance Director Jill Gemma to leave after she took office last year, stated Tuesday that even at the $63,000 salary, Ficarra would be making more than Gemma when she first started in North Smithfield at a salary of $62,000.

Like Gemma, they said, Ficarra should prove herself over a period of months before she gets any kind of raise.

Hamilton, though, has said Ficarra comes with more experience than Gemma had and claimed that it’s “unfair to pre-judge someone” who hasn’t even started yet.

Several testy exchanges between council members and Hamilton showed that an ongoing rift may be widening between the two branches of town government, who have disagreed in recent months over everything from how to handle the town’s ongoing sewer project to Hamilton’s various budget proposals.

Biron repeatedly expressed frustration Tuesday as his calls for cuts across departments, including eliminating a $10,000 grant writer, cutting Town Council pay by 10 percent, eliminating summer concerts on the common, and reducing the Town Hall maintenance and supply budget, were rebuffed by fellow council members or Hamilton for a variety of reasons.

All five members of the council repeatedly expressed their frustration that they were given several different budget drafts in recent days but that there were still more changes explained Tuesday.

Under the final budget plan approved by the council, North Smithfield will add one police officer, at a base salary cost of $63,440 and a secretary in Tax Assessor Chris Belair’s office, at a full-time salary of $25,644, even though Belair indicated that as of now the demands of the office don’t merit a full-time assistant.

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