PROVIDENCE — Thanks to an unexpected infusion of $3.5 million in state aid, it looks like the Providence schools will not have to make draconian cuts to services and staff this year.

But the district will not be able to pay for the intervention programs and additional staff needed to improve student achievement, according to the district’s chief financial officer, Mark Dunham. Since 2004, he said that the school budget has grown less than 2 percent a year on average.

“That is outrageous,” Dunham said in an interview yesterday. “Our budget is not keeping pace with inflation. We’re running a system that’s between $15 [million] and $18 million short of what we need.”

The $319.9-million budget that was presented to the City Council’s finance committee last week eliminates 42 teaching positions, but it also includes nearly $1 million in new positions, about half of them required by state education commissioner Peter McWalters’ corrective action order.

The proposed budget sets aside money for four new vocational teachers, two math teachers, a music teacher and an art teacher. The state’s new graduation requirements mandate that higher-level math be offered at every high school, which means that Providence must add math teachers at Providence Academy of International Studies and Health, Science and Technology Academy.

The district is hiring more vocational instructors because it is in the middle of expanding the Hanley Career & Technical Center to include a new, larger career and technology high school. The additional art and music teachers are also in response to a state order, which found that the district was not in compliance with the state’s basic education plan.

The proposed budget also calls for the creation of a chief of staff whose salary would cost about $100,000.

In his corrective action order, McWalters also told the district to fill key positions in its central office, including a supervisor of career and technical education, a supervisor of secondary reform initiatives, a supervisor of K-8 schools, a director of family and community engagement, a director of federal programs and a director of research, planning and accountability.

Janet Pichardo is already serving as the facilitator of parent engagement; the director of planning and accountability was created by reorganizing two existing positions. Dunham said that the supervisory positions will be paid for using federal antipoverty money.

In January 2007, McWalters ordered Providence Superintendent of Schools Donnie Evans to come up with a corrective action plan for improving the city’s lowest-performing schools. When he issued the order, McWalters made it clear that this would be a multiyear process whose results would be reviewed annually. Last month, McWalters released a follow-up order that spells out what additional steps the district must take.

The $3.2 million in state aid will be used to pay for about $1 million in expenditures that were not anticipated when Dunham put together his original budget. They include:

•The new math and fine arts teachers and the new career and technical staff.

•Technology license renewals.

•An increase in RIPTA bus fares (high school students use mass transit).

•Monitoring air quality at Adelaide High School. The new school was built on a former Superfund site.

•Visits by the New England Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools. Almost all of the city’s high schools are in the process of getting accredited by NEASC, which conducts extensive visits of each school.

The $319.9-million budget represents an increase of $5.6 million, or 1.8 percent, over last year’s spending plan. According to Dunham, 77 percent of the budget goes toward salaries and benefits. Of the $5 million in discretionary spending, $1.3 million pays for supplies while nearly $1 million pays for maintenance and snow removal.

In his presentation to the council, Dunham argued that it costs 40 percent more to educate students in high-poverty districts and added that roughly 80 percent of the city’s students qualify for free or reduced lunch, a key indicator of poverty.

The City Council must act on the proposed budget by July 16, when a public meeting will be held.

lborg@projo.com