Three things happened at the joint meeting of the Portsmouth Town Council and School Committee this evening: Prudence Islanders and the school department came up with a new approach to keep the school open, the Town Council passed the budget by a 6-1 vote (with Tailgunner Gleason the lone no), and two members of the school committee once again recanted their votes, this time accusing the majority of "misleading the public."

Good news first. Bob Marshall of Prudence Island, describing a series of meetings that "came together over the last 48 hours," delivered to the Council a way out of funding the $27K needed to keep the school open. In a tentative agreement with Supt. Susan Lusi, the newly formed Prudence Island Foundation would receive funds equivalent to what the department would have expended on tuition and transportation to Bristol, which they would use to support parents who would decide to home school the two Island elementary students, using the existing school building, which they would rent from the district.

Marshall was careful to make a very clear distinction between running a school (which they are not doing) and home schooling as a group. "This wouldn't be a public school," he said, suggestiong this approach could be a sustainable medium-term solution. "It would give us time to go forward to apply to become a charter, fully preserve $44K the school is trying to save, allow kids to stay on island, and end the cycle of coming over here every year. We would do this until we could get a charter in place or until town and School Committee decided they wanted to reopen the school."

While the Council — and the other School Committee members hearing this for the first time — had some questions (liability, limits on donations to nonprofits should money need to be routed from the School Committee through the Town, whether this would preserve the grandfathering of the building under fire codes) everyone seemed mostly relieved to have another way out.

But before they could vote, PI resident Pat Rossi brought up the elephant in the room. "Come September, if this is not in place, where are [the students] going to go?" And that brought things back to the $27K gap. And guess who had a point of view on that? Two School Committee members who were unable to attend this evening, but who sent Council Chair Peter McIntyre an e-mail. He asked School Committee Chair Dick Carpender if he wanted to read it.

"I'm not going to read it," said Carpender. "Those two members are not here, and the subject matter is not germane."

"It wasn't germane until we started talking about money," replied McIntyre. "We got back to the same thing, who's going to pay." He described the letter as saying "Money was found during the School Committee meeting."

"No money was found," said Carpender. "We have contacted our solicitor to see whether contents of letter may be violation of open meetings law."

That prompted McIntyre to get a legal opinion from the Town Solicitor, Andre D'Andrea who described the Open Meetings law restriction. "It prohibits any public body from meeting without posting. Attorneys General of both parties have stretched meaning to point where a majority of any public body can not sit down," he said. But, "A minority is free to discuss and plan and plot. I can't imagine how it could be a violation."

And so the letter from Angela Volpicelli and Marilyn King was read into the public record. After some throat-clearing, the letter got down to brass tacks.

"As you are aware, the School Committee met Monday, June 1st, to once again discuss the Prudence Island budget issue. After giving the issue more thought we thought we would like it to be known that we no longer support asking the Town Council to 'loan' the School Department monies needed to fund the Prudence Island School. We feel that it is the School Committee's responsibility to find the appropriate monies in our own budget to fund the Prudence Island School. We want to make it clear that we did undertand the motion and most importantly we do understand the English Language. But after a careful review of the budget again, we looked again at the information that fellow committee member, Ms. Perrotti, presented to the School Committee the four line items where monies could be used to fund the Prudence Island School."

The four were $8,100 for honoring retiring personnel and advisory committees. $5,616 in overages in the Prudence Island ferry budget. $4,839 in reduced payments into the retirement plan due to pay freezes for administrators. $3,000 for a truant officer whose duties get assigned to a vice-principal.

"When these budget changes were suggesed, Chairmen Carpender responded without any hesitations, "we are not going to re write the budget", leading me to realize that the School Committee majority are closed minded, not receptive to change, refuse to take responsibility, and are misleading the public (funding is available as stated above in items 1-4)."

Signed Marilyn King and Angela Volpicelli.

Carpender rebutted immediately. "First, I advise you that information is inaccurate. Second, the letter states that I said we were not going to rewrite the budget, in fact we allowed 2 members to put motions on the floor. They were voted down. And third, they did not call me to talk about this, so I'm not going to discuss."

Even Cynthia Perrotti seemed to want some distance. "That's the first I heard of it. My attributed savings was $18K and only included the first 3 items. Just to be correct, it was not my scheme for the attendance officer."

Jim Sevney noted it was all pretty much academic. "I thought there was a $300K shortfall? We're discussing money that is at the bottom of a $300K hole."

Always practical, Dennis Canario got them back on task. "Okay, the letter was read. Let's move beyond."

Plumb moved to provisionally approve the school budget for $35.7M and it passed 6-1, with Gleason opposed.

Concerned Citizen Terry Lorenz got up to say "I do not have the knowledge Mr. Fitzmorris has. I have become a junkie when it comes to television and what's going on in America..."

"Do you have something germane?" Asked McIntyre.

"You need to listen to me," she shot back. "I am a taxpayer. We're going to see things happening in this world that we have never seen before. It's only going to get worse."

Keith Hamilton moved to provisionally approve the town budget.

PCC, Inc. President Larry Fitzmorris got up to remind everyone that although there was a tax cap and the budget only increased 1.38% "which would be positive if we didn't have other problems," he noted that this absorbed the whole tax levy, and that the tax increase would be 4.7%"

"You may not have the most current numbers," said Town Finance Director Faucher. "Tax rate increase is 4.06%, $11.28/1000." (And it would have been even lower, Faucher and Town Admin Dirscoll told me later, if not for the loss of automobile tax revenue this year.)

Fitzmorris continued harping on the fund balance, which everyone generally acknowledges we did a good job putting money in last year, and is now back up to $2.6M.

"You are required by town ordinance to do something, you're supposed to be putting in 10% of the shortfall every year."

In a straight up reply, McIntyre said, "We should be using the money to provide the services to the town."

Budget passed 6-1, with Gleason the lone no.

Next steps: Council convenes a budget meeting on June 22, which it continues to the 24th for a vote; in the middle, on June 23, will be the public hearing at the Middle School.