School Board Chair Seeking Re-Election

School Board Chairman Tsonos Runs for Re-Election:

“Yes, I will seek re-election,” said Charlie Tsonos. Tsonos was answering our first question as he engaged this reporter in a lengthy interview in his Taunton Avenue business, CLC Menswear. “There is a lot of work to do, we’ve had to focus on finances and are trying to make improvements to buildings as well as support curriculums and academics,” Tsonos said. Tsonos will seek re-election to the East Providence School Committee from Ward One. “It is so difficult because a lot of good things are going on in our schools. But we do have to focus on the financial challenges facing us. With the help of the state budget commission and some of the actions we have implemented, our finances are much better. However, a lot more needs to be done and I will try to stay the course and help get us back on solid ground,” said Tsonos. “Although some in the city are against the budget commission being here, I do think they are helping. In fact we (the school department) are getting a fairer shake from the commission than we did from the city council,” Tsonos insisted.

Tsonos defeated former school board chairman Anthony Carcieri in 2010 with 2578 to 1607 votes or 62% to 32%. Tsonos has decided to run again to “be positive and not hostile as we seek to get our debt down which auditors and commissions have mostly attributed to underfunding of schools,” said Tsonos. “Because school committees and city councils haven’t always worked well together, we have an oversight commission here now. I accept that fact and will work with the commission to correct our finances.”

Tsonos also repeated his call for city consolidation of efforts if possible. The Tsonos led committee agreed to not fill a vacant maintenance director’s job and have put those duties mostly under the city building director, Edward Catelli. “This seems to be working smoothly from all reports and I’m glad we pushed for that,” said Tsonos. “We are also looking to combine the jobs of Human Resources for both the city and schools, and I have called for the possibility of merging other administrative duties on a city and town regional basis.” Tsonos said that he still would like to see relief from state and federal unfunded mandates. He also talked about the large special needs budget in the city. “Programs we must utilize at Bradley Hospital, Meeting Street School and other ‘no child left behind’ mandates, are expensive and must be funded from taxpayers. We are catching up with our outstanding bills and have been climbing from behind ever since former school officials included budget revenues they knew the city hadn’t received,” said Tsonos. “State officials warned local communities that government stimulus money was not coming. This was over $1 million to East Providence. All in all our budget showed about $1.5 million in revenue that wasn’t there,” he said. “The past can’t be changed and I just want our city to get back to respectability and fiscal sanity. We will work together and lean a bit more on volunteers like “Friends of Townies Athletics” for sports and various PTA/PTO and othe volunteer efforts showing Townie Pride.”

Asked about his stance in dismissing former Superintendent Mario Cirillo, Tsonos said that “we needed a better direction and handle on our future. We needed to set a new course to constructively address the difficult and unresolved issues that lie ahead for our schools,” read a portion of Tsonos’ statement when Cirillo was removed. “That top position hasn’t been filled yet and our interim Superintendent is doing a good job.