School Committee approves deal intended to help district weather fiscal crisis

By JOSEPH B. NADEAU
 
WOONSOCKET — Local teachers and paraprofessionals were praised for a willingness to help out as members of the School Committee voted unanimously Wednesday to adopt negotiated contract changes saving the School Department $815,000 immediately and additional staffing costs in coming years.

School Committee Chairman Marc A. Dubois credited members of the Woonsocket Teachers Guild with “making a good faith effort” to help the district during its financial crisis.
“I think we will be the envy of every city and town around when they hear we were able to get a wage freeze from teachers for two years,” Dubois said prior to the committee’s ratification of the pact.
Dubois had been very pleased to hear the Guild’s members had ratified the contract changes by an overwhelming majority on Tuesday, the committee chairman said.
“Sometimes teachers take a lot of criticism for their salaries and their hours but I’ve always said we have the best teachers in the state and I want to thank you for helping us out,” he said.
The agreement between the sides will allow the school department to increase the size of special education classrooms at the high school and middle school by specified percentages and also weigh revisions to the high school’s block scheduling for additional savings.
The biggest benefit to the district will come through the extension of the expiring three-year contract for two years without a new pay raise or change in benefits during that period, according to School Superintendent Robert J. Gerardi Jr.
The extension agreement defers a portion of this year’s 4-percent pay hike to teachers and
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paraprofessionals for a period of five years and also puts off a final 1.5 percent raise due at the end of the current 3-year-pack in September for the period of the two-year extension.
The teachers in turn won a reduction in required professional development hours and the elimination of one of the two faculty meetings required each month.
The sides also agreed to reopen wage talks if the state moves to increase state aid to the city in the future.
The committee vote on the pact came after a former member the panel, Allen Auclair, voiced concern that the proposed contract extension could violate the city’s charter and also questioned whether the department should have put off contract discussions until more information was known about the state’s interest in changing its system of awarding state aid.
But School Committeewoman Eleanor Nadeau said she took offense at those comments while describing Auclair’s view as “short sighted.”
Nadeau, who sat in on the talks with teachers along with Dubois, said the agreement resulted from “people putting an effort to try and bring about change to help us get through this year.”
The move to meet with Woonsocket Teachers Guild President Richard A. DiPardo and his team of negotiators came after Gerardi announced a projected $2.5 million deficit for the department accruing from last year’s budget and projected spending this year.
With the agreement from the Guild now ratified by both parties, Gerardi said the next step in correcting the budget red ink will come on Monday when the City Council and Mayor Susan D. Menard are expected to weigh in on a request for additional city funding to complete a budget correction plan.
The department would need approximately $1.1 million in additional city funding to resolve it budget problems and Gerardi said he has been encouraged by the City Council and the mayor’s willingness to discuss funding options as a next step.
Committeewoman Linda Majewski joined her peers in praising the work done to date on the budget problem. “I am happy we were able to come to some consensus on this and some concessions were made,” she said. “We are all trying to do what is best for our children so they won’t lose out,” she said.