By LINDSAY OLIVIER

NORTH KINGSTOWN – More reductions were made to the school budget Tuesday night during a school committee worksession. To date $1.1 million has been made in cuts, which is half of the nearly $2.1 million projected budget deficit.

Last week the Committee voted to reduce one speech teacher with a cost savings of $62,500 but many of the committee members were concerned with whether the remaining students who needed speech therapy would get the care they required with the reduction of that position.  

Special Education Director Rachel Santa gave the committee an overview of the speech program Tuesday night and to ensure the members that students would still get the appropriate teaching with the reduction.

Using numbers from December, just to give the committee a sense of the program, 756 students are identified as needing speech therapy, 316 receive speech and language therapy, 120 students receive speech and language only IEP’s and 196 students receive speech and language as a related service.

“The numbers have changed just a bit, but I wanted to give you a foundation of how many students use this program. At this time, I’m OK with the elimination of one speech teacher. We will have enough staff support for the students,” Santa said.

An agenda item that made for a lengthy discussion was the administrators’ and principals’ contracts. Committee member Lynda Avanzato asked the administration to review the base salaries to see how other districts compare.

She also requested to eliminate the index factor from the contracts, only apply one-year contracts and remove the reference to the GBC policy. The policy discusses personnel benefits for non-unit administrative and supervisory personnel.

No contracts were voted on Tuesday night. Superintendent Dr. Philip Thornton will come back to the School Committee with these changes to the contracts and then the committee will review and take action.  

Committee member Doug Roth felt that if administrators’ and principals’ would be given a one-year contract, then one-year contracts should be given to all employees across the board.

Committee member Kimberly Page agreed that the length of contracts should be uniform, but said one-year agreements for every bargaining unit in the district would be fiscally unsound.

To negotiate every contract every year would take hundreds of hours and dollars, she said.

“A two-year contract is a better model for treating all employees equally while not requiring constant negotiations,” Page said.

Last week the committee also voted to eliminate one librarian at the elementary level with a savings of $62,500.

One elementary guidance position was eliminated and a conversion of one elementary guidance position to that of a school psychologist was made for an estimated savings of $62,500.

A literacy teacher at Davisville Middle School was also eliminated with a savings of $62,500.

The remaining technology educator position was eliminated last week with a savings of $79,700 and one paraprofessional position at Davisville Middle School was eliminated with a savings of $35,000.

There’ll be a special budget work session tonight from 7 to 9 p.m. at the central administration building where more proposed cuts and reductions will be discussed.

The committee did approve a $175 per month tuition charge for community peer models attending the District Pre-School Program, which would equal out to a $30,000 increase in revenues for the district.