By DONNA KENNY KIRWAN

PAWTUCKET — Despite some wrangling over an all-day kindergarten plan, the School Committee voted 5 to 2 on Tuesday night to approve a $103.7 million budget proposal for the coming fiscal year.

At a budget work session held at the School Administration Building, school officials discussed the budget that was drafted earlier this month by Schools Business Manager Thomas Conlon for fiscal year 2009. The budget that was approved was essentially unchanged from the one that Conlon presented at the last School Committee meeting.
The proposed budget of $103,752,143 represents a 6.05 percent or $5,918,087 increase over the current year’s final budget figure of $97,834,056.
However, Conlon said that based on teacher retirements, plus other unspecified cuts, he expects the more realistic budget figure to be closer to $99.8 million. This would amount to roughly a 2.06 percent increase over the current year’s budget, he said.
Conlon categorized the 6.05 percent increase as the “gross increase” and the 2.06 percent increase as the “net” figure.
Conlon said he based his predictions about the savings from unspecified cuts on an average based on the past five years within the school department. Teacher leaves of absence (replaced by less costly substitute teachers), changes in health coverage to lower-priced plans, and numerous other factors can help the department realize a savings, he said.
The most controversial piece concerned the addition of an all-day kindergarten program for all of the city’s elementary schools. Currently, federal grant money is paying for the cost of all-day kindergarten at the Baldwin and Curtis schools, but a majority of the School Committee supports its expansion district-wide.
Only School Committee members David Coughlin and John Baxter voted against the plan. Earlier in the discussion, a proposal to remove the kindergarten proposal from the budget that was made by Baxter and seconded by Coughlin failed 4-to-3.Conlon said that the cost of hiring teachers for the expansion of the all-day kindergarten will be $613,000. However, he said he expects the proposal to end up costing the district only about another $11,000, based on a proposed lay-off of eight teachers due to reduced enrollment in other grades.
He said that while four new teachers will have to be hired to make a complement of 12 for the additional kindergarten classes, savings will be incurred  by hiring teachers at lower steps and single health plans (versus family plans).
The School Committee now has until April 30 to present its budget request to Mayor James Doyle, Conlon said.