WEST WARWICK — In a vote that was largely symbolic, West Warwick residents Thursday night overwhelmingly rejected the same $49.2-million School Committee budget it rebuffed in a Financial Town Meeting five weeks ago.

But unlike the previous meeting, where a $30.5-million municipal budget was also rejected by angry taxpayers, the 647 voters who filled the high school auditorium Thursday overwhelmingly approved an identical proposal, mostly because town officials said a “no” vote would produce layoffs in the Police, Fire and Public Works Departments.

The $49.2-million school budget is the same amount voters approved at last year’s town meeting, and state law says the old budget remains in effect unless a new one is approved.

Only two of the five Town Council members voted to approve the school appropriation.

A motion to cut the School Department budget by an additional $2.5 million by Vincent Marzullo, cofounder of the citizens group We the People of West Warwick, was ruled out of order after Town Solicitor Gregory E. Inman explained that the Town Charter and state law did not permit the amount to be reduced.

The appropriation could be approved or rejected, Inman said. It could not be amended.

That sparked a long diatribe by Marzullo, who said he didn’t believe it.

Inman said Marzullo or the council could try to do it, but he was adamant that “it’s an exercise in futility.”

The School Committee didn’t go into the meeting riding a wave of goodwill from the public.

It has overspent its appropriation in the current fiscal year, so that the School Department cannot pay teachers for work they have already done. That’s because, one year ago, it put $3 million in expenses in its budget but didn’t have the projected revenue to cover it.

The committee then went to court to try to force the town to pay those funds, but that case is still pending.

The committee’s budget for the next fiscal year, which begins July 1, also calls for spending money it may not get — $528,975.

But Chairwoman Lindagay Palazzo vowed that the department will live within this budget and would not go to court seeking more.

She said the School Department will be able to make do with the same amount because the unions have since made significant concessions.

School Supt. Kenneth M. Sheehan said, “We have cut over $4.1 million” in the past year.

But most voters were not impressed, with one woman insisting that a reduction of $4.1 million “obviously is not enough.”

One of the more surreal moments came after the most vocal council critic of the School Department, Angelo A. Padula Jr., was told that 86 percent of the School Department budget goes to salaries and benefits.

That, Padula concluded, means that only “14 percent goes to our children.”

After one resident learned that it costs about $15,000 to educate each child in West Warwick, she suggested that the town simply send its students to private Catholic schools. Padula quickly agreed, saying, “If we sent 200 children to a private school, Prout is $9,500. La Salle is $9,800. We would save $6,000 per child.”

Residents also looked for savings on the proposed municipal budget, with its increase of $268,744 over the current appropriation. It will raise the tax rate by 90 cents per $1,000 of property valuation.

“We can’t give you any more because there is no more to give,” one frustrated resident complained.

Town Manager James Thomas noted that during the May Town Meeting, some voters had sought a drastic $2.5-million cut.

If the proposed budget were rejected again and the Town Council tried to make such cuts, “it will touch your life,” he said.

Eight workers in the Police Department and eight in the Fire Department would be laid off, nine in Public Works would go, half the streetlights in town would be turned off, and the senior center and library would probably have to be closed.

“Yard waste will not be picked up; it will not be a priority,” Thomas said. “That’s a lot to lose for less than a dollar a day” that it would cost the typical taxpayer.

gemery@projo.com