With a looming deadline of Sept. 16 to present a balanced budget to the city, the East Providence School Committee on Monday night voted 4-1 to approve a $106,866,061 FY27 budget that includes roughly $3.8 million more in anticipated expenditures than it can hope to receive even in a best-case-scenario of funding from the city and state.

“We have presented to you a budget that looks different than many of the budgets of the past that’s actualizing, or proposing, a potential deficit,” said Superintendent Dr. Robert Perry during the committee’s fourth budget workshop. “We know this is something that is not the norm in East Providence.”

Although the budget amounts to $106.8 million in total revenue (including an assumed, maximum 4% increase in local aid from the City of East Providence), the budget projects $110,698,003 in anticipated expenditures.

That deficit figure is the result of weeks of financial assessment that began shortly after Dr. Perry took over at the beginning in July and assembled a new financial team consisting of interim finance director, Mark Piccerelli, and financial consultants, Joseph Crowley and Joseph Balducci. In the two months since, they have been pinpointing the exact extent of the deficit and its drivers, which include rising utility costs, transportation, and special education costs (specifically out of district placements) that have significantly outpaced budgeted revenues for two consecutive years.

On Monday night, as he has in prior budget workshops, Perry stated his primary goal has been to be transparent about the fiscal situation and realistic about how to tackle it.

“The realities of the budget that we are presenting to you are stark,” he said. “But with the transparency that we have provided over the past three budget workshops, we are hoping you will entrust us to be the stewards of this budget and make the best decisions going forward.”

Hypothetical reductions discussed

Although Dr. Perry was insistent that nothing has been decided at this point in terms of implementing actual measures to reduce the deficit, he found it prudent to alert the committee of six potential areas the district was examining when it comes time to make the decisions needed to do so.

“These do not represent all the places where savings or reductions can be found. They are presented for the purpose of providing context to the idea of closing budget deficits,” Perry cautioned. “Every dollar amount in this synopsis is an illustrated planning estimate based on stated assumptions, not a validated figure from the district’s financial system.”

Perry first discussed looking at operational and non-teacher-related personnel moves, such as optimizing the district’s energy use, maximizing its medicaid reimbursements, looking into controlling overtime, and instituting a hiring freeze on non-classroom positions.

“We will whittle down those things that are going to make the most impact on our budget,” Perry said.

Perry then brought up reductions to the number of teachers in the district — something that cannot be done for the fiscal year starting Nov. 1 because the deadline to make staff reductions was June 1, 2026.

Perry said that eliminating 5-20 teaching positions valued at $150,000 each (combining salary and benefits packages), could save between $750,000 to $3 million in a future budget. However he made it clear this was a last resort kind of measure.

“It is one of the last things that we want to do, is reduce the number of fantastic teachers that we have in the City of East Providence,” Perry said.

Next, Perry discussed potentially closing or consolidating schools. While this could potentially bring some savings, he said there were also costs associated with owning and maintaining an empty building as well, and so that would need to be specifically examined further.

Fourth, Perry brought up instituting a temporary, 0% first-year wage increase policy for teachers, or looking into freezing raises across the board for a year. This is something that will likely come up in contract negotiations, as the teachers union and non-teaching staff union are both due for a new contract as of Oct. 31, 2026. While Perry said this could potentially save between $500,000 and $2 million, it was another high-impact measure on education.

“We don’t want to be impacted recruiting teachers, retaining teachers, and we don’t want morale to be impacted as well,” he said.

Also related to personnel, Perry said the district could look into providing early retirement incentives to veteran teachers and staff members, such as offering health insurance until they reach the age of 65 and can join Medicare. He said this could save $475,000 to $1 million, and this would have less of an impact than firing teachers or freezing raises.

“The impact on students, this is among the least harmful, although we certainly would not want to lose our veteran teachers that provide so much to our school district,” he said. “Because the separation is voluntary, it has the lowest harm, you might say.”

Lastly, Perry floated the idea of expanding the distance required for a student to live from a school in order to receive busing. While this measure could save an estimated $250,000 to $500,000, Perry said it would unfairly impact certain student groups.

“This is a high impact because it’s concentrated on low-income students who lose attendance and activity access,” he said.

Perry once again clarified he was not in favor of making any of these decisions, but such hypotheticals needed to be discussed in light of the district’s situation.

“These are not things we want to do,” he said. “I am simply stating them because they are moves that school districts have taken in order to close budget deficits.”

Perry and Piccerelli told the committee that, in the meantime, budgetary practices were going to become much stronger going forward, as they are utilizing better accounting software and providing more detailed, monthly reports to the committee members so they can be better informed about the district’s financial health.

“We are confident that going forward we will be able to present to you and monitor a budget that will look much better next year,” Perry said.

Committee unhappily approves

School committee members, throughout the meeting, oscillated between frustration at the situation, appreciation towards Perry and the new financial team for providing fiscal transparency and detailed explanations of where the district stands, and varying levels of dismay about the task ahead of them and the realities which led them to this moment.

At-large committee member, Anthony Ferreira, said that while he appreciated getting a list of potential action items, he was disappointed that there was no strict schedule or road map to actualize those savings, and said he was “baffled” as to why such a list hadn’t been given to the committee a month ago so they could start working on potential reductions to the budget.

“You ask why you didn’t get this 4-5 weeks ago? It’s because I started 8 weeks ago,” answered Perry. “This is the best I have for you today.”

“We’re putting out some pretty heady topics. The last thing a new superintendent wants to do is propose that people will not be getting raises, that schools will be closing, that staff will be cut, that transportation will be changed,” Perry continued. “I am hopeful that you will see we have the fortitude to at least recognize this and — as you have expressed throughout the last eight or so weeks that I’ve been here, the importance of transparency to you — I hope you will see that everything we have put out here is for that purpose. And my being explicit today in saying that I am not putting projections out is also being transparent. I don’t want to put something out there that is false.”

Committee chair David Luiz asked financial consultant, Joseph Crowley, if anything from Perry’s list could have reasonably been enacted even if it was given to them a month ago. Crowley said it wouldn’t have made a difference a month ago, and that essentially all of the items on that list would only be able to actualize significant savings in a future budget, not the FY27 budget, as staffing reductions needed to be finalized prior to June 1, 2026.

“In terms of making any significant cuts, we do not have the tools to do anything significantly during this coming year,” Crowley said.

Perry made a point in his presentation to say that the state should be playing a role in assisting districts like East Providence that are experiencing similar financial dilemmas associated with rising costs and untenable revenue streams.

“We don’t want to have to win the lottery,” Perry said. “We want to be able to count on our legislators to push the State of Rhode Island to provide adequate funding; whether it be transportation, whether it be for special education, whether it just be an increase in the funding formula. If we can depend on the state to step up and do their part and increase the aid to us, it could be an enormous amount of impact.”

Ferreira said that neither federal or state dollars could be counted on.

“We need more money. There’s no shot in the dark we’re going to the feds to get a penny. There’s no shot in the dark we’re going to the big State House and getting a penny,” Ferreira said. “The only people we can try to put pressure on is our local elected officials, and the mayor. And we’re not even doing that.”

Ward 4 committee member Jessica Beauchaine asked what would happen if the district refused to pass the budget before them. Crowley answered that it would violate state law, and the state and city could then rightfully deny to provide them any further funding for the year.

“We’re not happy with this, nobody in this room is,” she said. “But again, if we do not approve this, we break the law, which we try not to do here, and also the fact that they could just deny us any more money at all.”

A motion to approve the budget was made by Tony deSimas, seconded by Beauchaine, and voted 4-1 by the full committee, with Ferreira voting nay.

The East Providence City Council will begin its own budget deliberations next week.