Consensus among members of the Bristol Warren Regional School District Joint Finance Committee was resoundingly positive last Thursday evening as Superintendent Ana Riley and Chief Financial Officer Tony Ferrucci presented the FY23 school budget at the Mt. Hope High cafeteria.

“That could be the quickest presentation we’ve had since I’ve sat on this joint finance committee,” said JFC chairman and Warren Town Council Vice President Steve Calenda, following the approximately 15-minute summary presented by Riley, which broke down the big changes in revenue and expenses facing the district. The meeting in whole took about 45 minutes from start to finish.

The $56.9 million budget includes a request of about $510,000 in additional revenue from Bristol and $510,000 from Warren, which would represent an approximately 1.8 percent increase and 3.8 percent increase in allocation from the two communities over last year’s budget respectively.

Although the meeting was purely informational and no votes will be taken until the JFC meets again on March 16, the members of the JFC were effusive in their praise of the process thus far.

“I don’t think refreshing is strong enough a word,” said JFC member and Bristol Town Council President Nathan Calouro. “It used to be something that we would not look forward to, coming here.”

“It’s been a very smooth several months and the transparency is excellent,” said Bristol Town Administrator Steven Contente. “Whatever is happening here needs to continue.”