By JOSEPH B. NADEAU
 
WOONSOCKET — There won’t be any easy solutions to the Education Department’s budget crisis and the city should be prepared to face some difficult decisions, Schools Superintendent Robert J. Gerardi Jr. warned the School Committee Wednesday night.

Gerardi reported work continues on a five-step plan aimed at finding solutions to the $2.4 million budget deficit forecast presented to the committee in September, but added that significant budget cutting may also be added to that effort as the process continues.
The problem for Woonsocket is that its school department has operated very efficiently for over a decade and, as a result, doesn’t have much beyond actual school programs and staffing as potential budget reductions.
And if a deficit is verified in the current budget review, Gerardi said the school department would be forced to correct that spending overage as required by law.
“If that is the case, we may be forced to make cuts in school programs,” he said.
Those cuts could affect anything the school department provides beyond the Basic Education Plan mandated by the state. Possible cuts include spring, fall and winter sports, yearbook and class advisors, band programs, art and music, according to Gerardi.
“I just want everyone to be aware — the School Committee, the community — that it’s not going to be easy to solve this problem,” he said.
Gerardi said he and his staff continue to work “diligently” at finding less painful solutions and there are talks under way with the department’s unions on potential cost savings in current contracts.
Richard Dipardo, president of the Woonsocket Teachers Guild, confirmed the talks are being held but added he couldn’t provide any specifics at the moment. “We are still talking and we are trying to find something to help the district with its problems. We don’t know if we will be successful but we’re still talking,” he said.
Gerardi is also talking with the city on ways to save money through sharing opportunities and has had department directors and principals identify several possible savings on expenditures already in the budget.
The next step, he said, will be a joint meeting with the City Council scheduled for next Wednesday evening at Harris Hall where more specific options and possible cuts will be discussed.
“It is our hope that we can solve this problem by working with the members of city government,” he said.
 Gerardi’s budget report drew mixed reactions from some members of the Committee. School Committeewoman Linda Majewski voiced concern that any cuts in the programs offered by the high school, including sports and music, could put its status with the New England Association of Schools and Colleges at risk.
“We are accredited at the highest level we can receive and I wouldn’t want to jeopardize that at all,” she said.

Gerardi said he was a former saxophone player in his school band and also played for the track, football and baseball teams and understands how those programs give children something to due during a period of the day when many juvenile problems occur.
But he also knows from experience at his former posts what happens when budget problems aren’t corrected.
“If we can’t solve problems in our own town, it goes to a judge,” he said. “The judge only looks at this on the basis of the basic education plan and not going above it and won’t care about accreditation,” he said.
School Committeewoman Anita McGuire-Forcier said she has already heard of cuts taking place at the middle school and said she is willing to support action to gain the department more funding if necessary.
“I think we just have to draw the line and stop taking from the children,” she said.
Gerardi said the problem facing Woonsocket is a complex one given the city’s frugal approach to school spending in the past. While the city level funded its school appropriation year after year, the state made up the difference with more state aid, he noted.
Then three years ago, the state started to level fund and at that point the past budget efficiencies came to roost. Because it had not increased school spending in the past, the city was limited in how much it could give schools under the state’s budget cap law, he explained.
“We’re a victim of our success, because we ran a tight district,” he said of the revenue limitations now facing the district.