By JOSEPH B. NADEAU

WOONSOCKET — School and city officials held an amicable meeting on the School Department’s financial crisis Wednesday but it remains to be seen if their time spent in Harris Hall will avert a future legal confrontation between the panels.

At the very least, the joint session of the School Committee and City Council in the second-floor conference room showed steps are already being taken toward a School Department bid for additional funding via a Caruolo school funding lawsuit.
School Superintendent Robert J. Gerardi outlined efforts he and Robert Strom, school department business manager, have made to address a combined $2.5 million shortfall in last year’s budget and the department’s current spending plan.
See CRISIS, Page A-2
As of Wednesday, Gerardi said the budget work has identified projected savings and spending cuts that reduce the deficit to $1.1million but suggested finding further cuts will be difficult.
That figure is based on a possible $850,000 in teacher contract savings being worked on in talks with the Woonsocket Teacher’s Guild and another $565,000 in capital improvements that would be cut from this year’s budget.
 Another $375,000 would be saved through reductions in supplies and materials purchasing and local students would see winter and spring sports programs cut at the middle school and All City Band and All City Chorus cut at the elementary level.
 The elimination of middle school basketball, baseball, softball and track would save the department $55,000, Gerardi said. Cutting All City Band will save the district $6,660, Gerardi said, and cutting All-City Chorus, $2,160.
 Beyond that, Gerardi said there is not much more the district could reduce without getting into the elimination of  all sports programs at the high school, music and art programs and extracurricular activities like class advisors and national honor society.
  “As far as finding cost savings measures, this district has been well run for a very long time,” Gerardi said of the lack of options for budget reductions.
 The department’s budget review found most classrooms on the elementary level to be at or near the contractual limit of 25 students, Gerardi said, and he also pointed to innovative class structuring such as combined grade classrooms as providing savings he has not seen in his prior administrative duties in other communities.
  At the secondary level, Gerardi said he found available class space that might allow the reduction of three additional teaching positions beyond those cut at beginning of the year but he also discovered the need for at least that number to comply with requirements the state’s basic education plan.
 The next try should come from the School Committee, the Council and city administration, Gerardi offered.
   “I’m hopeful that with your help, the help of everyone around the table, we are going to find some savings that me and Mr. Strom did not see,” he said.
 Strom told the panel’s that the budget problem he found when taking over the school post this summer surprised him because the department had always turned in balanced budgets while he served in his past position as the city’s finance director.
 The budget deficit was initially found in the just completed fiscal 2008 budget, he noted, and moved on into the fiscal 2009 spending plan when he used available revenues to reduced it.
 The $2.5 million shortfall represents a “structural” deficit that will continue to plague the department until more revenue is found to fund department programs, he said.
 After listening to the superintendent’s presentation, several of the Council’s members recommended city officials and local legislators band together to win relief from costly state mandates from the state Department of Education and a greater share of state aid through the establishment of a “fair funding’’ system for allocating state school support.
 A change in that system that has been bouncing around the General Assembly for several years would increase state funding to urban district significant in light of their greater numbers of special need students but has not yet made it to a final vote of the body.
 City Council President Leo T. Fontaine and Gerardi also indicated during the discussion that a solution to the budget crisis may have to be found far sooner than any option coming out of next year’s General Assembly session.
 The Council, in fact, may soon face a question as to whether it will allot more funding to schools, he noted.
“At some point, the discussion comes down to a yes or no,” he said.
 
If the answer is no, the next step could well be the filing of a Caruolo suit to win the needed funding. Gerardi and City Councilman John F. Ward, finance director in Lincoln and a former member of the School Committee, both described that process as having many disadvantages for the district even while it may secure more funding.
 The process would require the district to spend upwards of $75,000 on an independent program audit, Ward noted, and would encourage the school department to keep only required education offerings.
“They do push you into being absolute minimalists,” Ward said.
Gerardi told the council he and Strom will be meeting with staff at the state Auditor General’s office on Friday to provide them with an update on the department’s effort to correct its deficit. They also expect to learn more about the time frame under which a solution must be found.
 Mayor Susan D. Menard did not attend the meeting, but Fontaine said he hoped the sides could continue to work on the problem without becoming adversarial.
 “Hopefully, we can get these numbers down to where they are more palatable and get them to a level that we as a group can be more comfortable with,” he said.
 After the session, Gerardi said he was encouraged by the Council’s interest in finding solutions to the problem.
“I felt the tone of the meeting was supportive and that made me feel like we are moving in the right direction,” he said.