The Barrington School Committee took its first look at the proposed school budget at a meeting on Thursday night, Feb. 16. 

After an hour-long discussion, members of the School Committee asked the district administrators to reduce the budget increase by $623,244. 

The initial offering called for a $3.364 million increase to the existing $59.7 million budget — that is a 5.6 percent increase. State law only allows a 4 percent increase to the tax levy. 

The proposed budget calls for the addition of new teaching and support staff positions, including an additional Social Studies teacher at Barrington High School, another English teacher at the high school, and an additional seventh-grade teacher at the middle school.

In total, the budget request calls for the equivalent of 8.2 new full-time positions. 

Barrington School Committee member TJ Peck drilled down on a number of items requested in the budget, including a new administrative assistant for Paula Dillon, who works as the assistant superintendent of curriculum. 

During Thursday night’s meeting, Peck asked administrators if they had created an organizational chart which would identify the tasks each employee was responsible for. Peck said the budget was calling for the addition of administrative positions, but School Committee members wanted to see what the current work structure looked like. Peck said he did not want it to appear that the committee was not supportive of the administrators, but they needed a clear picture of work duties.

“That’s a request I’ve made a couple times,” Peck said. 

Barrington Superintendent of Schools Michael Messore said they were nearly finished with the chart. He said they would also provide a job description for the position requested. 

Capital reserve: Basically $6.5 million

Peck spent time discussing the district’s capital reserve — an account that was comprised of surplus funds from previous budgets. 

Initially, he asked if the money in the capital reserve account could be used to pay for capital improvements, which are one-time expenditures. Officials seemed hesitant to approve that request, but later agreed that it was allowed. 

Doug Fiore, the district’s director of finance and administration, also shared a clear picture of how much money was in the capital reserve account. He said the district started the previous school year with $3.9 million in the reserve, then added $1.5 million at the end of June 2022. Fiore said the district will have a $1 million surplus at the end of the current fiscal year.

“So we’re basically at $6.5 million,” Fiore said. 

Peck called that “awesome news” and later said he was like to dedicate some of that money — around $100,000 or $120,000 — to purchasing a van for the Life Skills program at Barrington High School. Students in that program would use the van to visit worksites away from the school. Right now, there is no van for Life Skills. 

Messore said the district might be able to use grant money to purchase a van, but Peck did not want the school department to drag its feet on the purchase. He said school officials have been discussing a van for Life Skills for years. Peck said the district was welcome to search for grant money for the van, but in the meantime, money from the capital reserve account could be dedicated to the purchase. 

“If by this time next year we can’t figure out a better solution, there’s going to be a van…” Peck said.

Officials later discussed handling the van purchase separate from the budget process.

PreK at Primrose?

Peck led the charge on discussing the district’s pre-kindergarten program and whether officials should discuss increasing funding and spreading out PreK classrooms across the other elementary schools. 

Peck asked what the total cost was for the district’s PreK program currently. Fiore estimated it was about $450,000. 

Peck then asked how much it would cost to run the program at multiple schools instead of just at Primrose Hill. That school has experienced some student crowding issues, due in part to hosting all the PreK students in the district. 

Officials said it was hard to figure how much it would cost to run PreK at multiple schools, but eventually they indicated that it would be a 50 percent increase (not including capital expenditures such as PreK playgrounds and transportation). 

School Committee member Frazier Bell asked about keeping the entire PreK program at Primrose Hill School but adding more modular classrooms to accommodate the additional student enrollment. 

Messore and Fiore said they would need a lot of lead time to secure more modular classrooms. 

If you’re going to start that process, you need to start it now, Messore said. 

Bell said the district needs to consider more modular classrooms if officials plan to keep the entire PreK program at Primrose Hill. 

Dillon suggested that officials could try to swap out the current two-classroom unit for a larger, four-classroom unit. 

Meeting notes

• Lunch: Peck asked about creating a line item in the budget that would allow the School Committee to buy lunch for a school on occasion, possibly to celebrate an achievement. He referenced the Town Council’s contingency fund. Fiore said a line item already existed for similar purposes. 

• The School Committee will meet again on March 2 to discuss the budget. After that meeting, the committee is expected to forward the proposed budget to the Committee on Appropriations for review. 

• Barrington currently sends 17 high school-age students to other schools’ programs as part of the RI Department of Education’s Career and Technical Education program. CTE programs consist of three or more courses which will help students earn an industry credential and prepare them to enter the workforce.