BY VINAYA SAKSENA

EAST PROVIDENCE — The East Providence School Committee has finalized a decision to notify more than fifty teachers of their impending layoffs, while an official credited with improving the School Department’s financial outlook has announced his resignation.

Both decisions were announced at the School Committee’s meeting on Tuesday night, and come as the committee and the East Providence Education Association, the union representing local public school teachers, await a hearing before the state Labor Relations Board on a complaint the board filed against the committee for allegedly making a unilateral decision earlier this year to cut teacher pay and benefits. School Committee Chairman Anthony Carcieri said that 55
teachers would be receiving layoff notices, but pointed out that the decision to send them out did not necessarily mean that the teachers who received them would be without a job at the beginning of the new school year in the fall. Under state law, school departments are required to issue notices of layoffs to teachers by March 1. As Carcieri noted, however, teachers are often reinstated after the fact, depending on the funding levels approved in the coming year’s school budget.
For example, Carcieri said, the fact that six high school English teachers were among the list of teachers receiving layoff notices did not necessarily mean that all of them would be gone from the school come the new school year. The committee chairman said that while he was keen to address budgetary concerns, he did not wish to do so at the expense of a school’s basic functionality.
“We’re not going to start cutting (so much) that we can’t effectively teach in any department,” Carcieri said.
The decision to send out notification of the impending layoffs was approved by a 4-1 vote, with committee member Luisa Abatecola casting the dissenting vote. The layoffs would go into effect at the end of the current school year if the affected positions are not restored.
The committee also voted unanimously to accept the resignation of its finance director, Jerome Baron, effective immediately. Baron, who was hired in September of 2008 to address the department’s finances, had served his purpose and served it well in Carcieri’s estimation.
“He did a very fine job for us,” Carcieri said. “The work is done, and that’s why we parted ways.”
Carcieri said that Baron’s position would not be filled at this time, as the School Department was looking to avoid incurring expenses that were not absolutely necessary at this time. He said that Baron’s duties would be handled by existing department staff in the interim.
When Baron was hired last year, he had a reputation for “turning around” financially troubled municipalities, including Cranston. After being terminated from employment there by Mayor Michael Napolitano following the discovery of an alleged $2 million accounting error, Baron filed suit against the city, alleging wrongful termination. Cranston City Solicitor Anthony A. Cipriano told the Times on Wednesday that the city had reached a “compromise” settlement with Baron, though he said he could not yet disclose the amount of the settlement as of press time.