The Portsmouth School Committee (SC) suit against the Town Council (TC) kicked off at 11:35 this morning in courtroom 8 of Superior Court in Providence, Judge Gilbert Indeglia presiding. There were no motions or opening statements, so Superintendent Dr. Susan Lusi took the stand for the School Committee, and was still testifying when court broke for lunch.

In addition to Kevin Gavin, attorney Denise Lombardo Myers was present to represent the TC. The trial opened as SC Attorney Stephen Robinson led Lusi through her credentials and experience, then began laying the foundations of the case.

Lusi testified that she began work on July 5, 2005, as the books for the 2004 school year were being closed, and that it was at that time a deficit of 514K was discovered. She alerted the Town Council in August 2005 that she had reason to believe that the already approved budget for 05/06 would result in a deficit as well, due to underfunding in the Special Ed and substitute areas. With major cuts and help from the TC, the schools were able to end the year with an $18K surplus.

As Lusi told the town then, it was as if they had a house, which looked good on the outside, for whom they had just hired a new caretaker. The caretaker takes one look in the basement and realizes that there's an enormous, expensive leak. The SC and TC had, for several years, been underfunding the schools, and it was now time to decide whether to fund what they really cost, or to make a decision to downsize.

At the TC's encouragement, the SC brought forth this year's initial budget of $33,483,163, which was an increase of 11.84%. After discussions, the TC reduced the budget to 32 million, an increase of 8.4%, for which they successfully applied to the state for a tax cap exception.

In order to make that 1M reduction, the SC cut 8.3 full time employees (on top of the 4.5 who had been cut in the initial budget), and cut transportation by busing elementary students across schools to maximize class sizes.

Then came the Special Financial Town Meeting on August 19th, which cut the adopted budget to $31,359,015. Robinson asked: "Can you meet the requirements of law, regulation, and contract with the budget you've been given?" "I can't," Lusi replied.

The remainder of the morning testimony was getting exhibits in which documented Portsmouth relative wealth (6th highest in state) per-pupil spending (4th from bottom) and documentation of the budgets and actions by the school committee over the summer and fall.

A half-dozen PCC supporters and a handful of pro-school folks were there, as well as reporters from all three papers. Interestingly, although the Town Council sat with their attorneys, Huck Little was still nowhere to be seen, a week after he failed to show up for the Council meeting at which the Caruolo vote was taken.

Update, courtesy of a regular reader:
After lunch, education expert Thomas Sweeney answered questions under direct examination by Robinson. Part of the examination was talking to the facts and part of it, like with Lusi, was to get exhibits in. Like with Lusi, the judge asked several questions throughout, including the "if you had to cut 1% from the budget where would you look" question. Like Lusi, Sweeney said all the places to look have already been examined and cuts have been in fact made.

That took until about 4:00 at which time attorney Denise Myers began her cross examination. She asked several interesting questions, all answered with solid responses. She had not finished when at 4:20 the Judge called it a wrap for the day.

Thanks! (I had to leave early to meet Jack's bus.)