A. Meeting called to order at 6:06 p.m.

B. Roll Call:

1. Town Council:

a. Members Present:

Councilman Licciardi

Councilman Messier

Councilwoman Williamson

Council Vice President D’Amico

Council President Gosselin

b. Members Absent: n/a

2. School Committee:

a. Members Present:

Joseph A. DiMartino

Rene Coutu

Luis R. Colon Jr.

Susan St. Amand

Steven Lawton

b. Members Absent: n/a

C. Quorum on Record Declared by Deputy Town Clerk

D. Statutory pre-budget consultation between the West Warwick School Committee and West Warwick Town Council

pursuant to RIGL 16-2-21 and a review of revenue and expenditure projections.

Karen Tarasevich:

Joint meeting re: expenditures and revenues and Joe Spagna has always done a great job working with all of our directors and myself and drafting budget for FY22 always keeping in mind the needs of the school department but as well as our commitment to the town in terms of fiscal responsibility and partnership and collaborating with you know making sure that the town’s financially stable as well.

Joseph Spagna: The draft budget does show an increase of 6 percent over the FY 21 amended budget which is about 3.9 million dollar increase so it totals about $64,130,420. You may recall in FY21 the state cut us our state aid by 1.9 million dollars which required us to find that funding by preparing a deficit reduction plan and that plan included several many staff layoffs cuts to overtime and professional development elimination of our building improvement line and the general fund as well as a restructuring of the summer school and extended school year staffing requirements. We were able to present the amended budget and was able to make that work. He said that the state has reinstated those cuts for this fiscal year and with those funds we have been able to cover the reinstatement of the laid off staff which was necessary due to enrollment and coverage needs under the hybrid distance learning plan we have in place right now. Taking into consideration the return of that funding, the FY22 budget estimates an additional 900,000 in state aid and I think that’s conservative in nature. As usual, the budget uses the average local appropriation increases from our original 5 year plan which is just under 650,000 but I am also pleased to inform again that we were happily told that our portion of the debt service of the wind turbines has dropped over 50% which I believe is mostly a result of the conservation work being done in our district over the years to reduce the school’s electrical use. This resulted in savings of $150,000 for us so in order to continue our efforts to support the town’s ongoing fiscal needs, we moved those savings to the local appropriate line reducing the increase that we are requesting to just under $496,936. We are pretty confident with these increases we will be able to continue that quality educational services we provide to our students. At the same time, we are trying to give back some of the savings we are seeing to the Town. If anybody has any questions, I will try to answer them to the best of my ability.

Council President Gosselin asked to state last number.

Looking for increase of $496,936.00. the $150,000 cut to what we originally budget as an increase.

Council President Gosselin asked Finance Director, Kristen it went down on your side so Kristen where did that $150,000 go. Kristen Benoit, Finance Director said it was going up on our side. By them reducing their ask its almost like a wash on our side.

Joseph: Our hope is that when they reallocate the debt service based on usage, it’s got to go to other departments, if we cut our use, other departments are picking up the slack so this is a way for us to help support the increase that you are seeing on the other side.

Kristen Benoit, Finance Director, said yes that worked out well.

Councilwoman Williamson asked does this include any money you might get from the federal govt. the next stimulus, money for schools.

Joseph stated Not at this time. We don’t know what any kind of new stimulus funding will bring. The difficulty we have with the stimulus funding is that it’s so narrow and focused on what we can use it for. If they cut us again in state funding and replace it with some kind of stimulus funding, would we be able to put the staff back into place I don’t know. If they give us money what can we use that for?

Karen: Stated we are hoping that we see a quick show of support from the new federal administration and we are hearing that any future stimulus may have less restrictions but we don’t know.

Joseph stated with reinstatement of 1.9 million we should be in good shape for this year’s budget. We are projecting a slight deficit because we did have to bring staff in. This return has gone a long way to help us to ensure that we don’t end in a deficit this year.

Karen stated stimulus funds this year helped support the additional 7-8 teachers, service providers. We don’t know what September will bring, dependent on vaccine rollout and how many people by September are vaccinated or not. Huge relief if we go back in September but will be prepared

if not. Everyone working really hard. Everyone doing their best. Making best decisions and choices we can. Planning for next year and regain some of the gaps created this year.

Had a meeting regarding Graduation. Not sure what is going to be allowed. They do know they have plan that worked very well last year. If the state allows it hoping to have some kind of in person graduation this year. Committee’s planning meetings and the state’s conversation has already started.

Council President Gosselin stated adopting kids in high school, signs, etc. Recommend they get approval through Karen. Delivering signs to high school students this week. Senator Burke involved with donations. They are looking for other donations also.

Karen stated Best route is to keep lines of communication open and coordinate together.

Councilman Messier: 2 options for graduation.

Karen stated just starting to coordinate and depends on what state will allow.

Council President Gosselin asked the Finance Director, Kristen Benoit is she has any other questions.

Kristen Benoit, Finance Director replied no concerns at all with school side.

Sent you projected revenue estimate. The revenues projecting worst case scenario for with 4 percent levy increase of about 2.8 million but you have to factor our the pass through to the schools so it’s really like 2,236,275.00 that we have available for all the different sources of increased expenditures that were going to face in 2022. Its not looking terrible but I do believe it is going to be tight.

Motion to close made by Councilman Messier, seconded by Councilwoman Williamson and approved by a voice vote.

Adjourned at 6:29