School Committee Approves Budget Proposal

In a quick, 5-2 vote, the Newport Scchool Committee  approved the 2011-2012 budget proposal on Monday.

Superintendent John Ambrogi was due to The approved budget calls for reducing staff by 17.

After several series of cuts and shifting funds, such as hiring lower step teachers to replace retirees, and moving a special education class to Underwood Elementary School to qualify it for Title I funding, the budget comes in at $36,484,60, or 1.56 percent less than last year’s budget.

Committee Members Robert Leary and Thomas Phalen, the two dissenting votes, voted against the budget because of the clustering system at Thompson Middle School, which Phalen called a “glaring problem.”

Because the sixth grade class has 19 students over the 92-student cap on the three-cluster system, the school department is forced to add an additional cluster for the handful of extra students, which means four extra teachers. 

“We wasted $400,000 this year, we’re wasting $400,000 next year. . .until we get rid of [it],” Phalen said. “There are other things in the contract, but this really stands out.”

School Committee member Charles Shoemaker said he agreed the cluster system was costly, but that it was not a reason to vote against the budget overall, as it was not the issue at hand during the vote. The issue of clustering has to be addressed during contract negotiations, he said.

“A positive vote for the budget doesn’t mean you’re for the cluster,” Shoemaker said.

School Committee Chairman Patrick Kelley also admitted that despite the difficulty balancing this year’s budget, clustering may not be the best system.

“We have to invest wisely because resources are scarce, we might not be doing that here,” he said.

In previous budget meetings, several members said the budget could easily be tipped with the addition of one or two special needs students to the district.