Warwick city council to vote on restoring funding for sports

July 12, 2019 6:42 pm

By Brittany Comak

Email: bcomak@abc6.com

Twitter: @BComakABC6

WARWICK, R.I. (WLNE) – Before the clock runs out on school sports in Warwick for the upcoming school year, the city council will attempt a Hail Mary at their upcoming Monday night meeting.

“I’m asking them to accept $1.3 million for sports and other after school activities,” said City Council President Steve Merolla.

The city council has two resolutions listed on their agenda to fund the school sports programs and some clubs in Warwick.

The school committee and city have been in mediation for some time now regarding nearly $8 million in cuts made to their budget, which in addition to sports cut some text books, teaching assistants, and other academic items.

Merolla says it’s time to act on what they can.

“In the meantime, the kids can’t be held hostage,” said Merolla. “They have to move on. School moves on, sports moves on, band moves on.”

But it’s not that simple.

While Merolla says he believes the council is in favor of passing the resolution, the school committee would have to pass their own resolution to accept the money.

At their last school committee meeting, Chairwoman Karen Bachus had said if they were restored any funding they would have to allocate it to academic items first.

“If he gave us $1.3 million or $1.1 million and said i want this to go to sports – we can’t do that,” Bachus said at the last meeting in June. “It’s not that we don’t want to but we have a list of things that are most important.”

It’s unclear where Bachus and the committee stand on this now.

When reached for comment, she simply said they are still trying to work things out.

“If they disagree, and they want to hold everybody’s feet to the fire and ruin the experience for kids not having fall sports, that’s on them,” said Merolla.

The meeting is at 7 P.M. Monday night.