01:00 AM EST on Tuesday, March 14, 2006

BY BENJAMIN N. GEDAN
Journal Staff Writer

WEST WARWICK -- There is no money in the School Department budget for Valentine's Day cards, motivational stickers or classroom decorations. So every year, local teachers spend hundreds of dollars of their own money on art projects and sundry supplies.

Supt. David P. Raiche's budget request for the next fiscal year is equally tight, so the out-of-pocket tradition appears likely to continue.

But the school board is lobbying its counterparts throughout Rhode Island to join it in endorsing federal legislation, cosponsored by Rep. James R. Langevin, that would allow teachers to claim a tax deduction of as much as $400 a year specifically for such spending.

Currently, the Internal Revenue Service allows a maximum deduction of $250, and that allowance is set to expire at the end of this year. The bill introduced last fall would set the higher deduction and make it permanent.

The legislation is before the House Ways and Means Committee, Joy Fox, spokeswoman for Langevin, said yesterday.

Last year, Laurent E. Lamothe, the West Warwick School Department's director of personnel and human resources, surveyed teachers about their spending. At the Dec. 13 board meeting, member Thomas V. Iannitti Jr. reported the results: the average teacher shells out $700 a year on school supplies.

Nationally, educators spend an average of $1,180 on non-reimbursed expenses such as books, according to Langevin's office.

"Teachers do spend a good amount of money on those types of things and should get some benefit," Raiche said yesterday.

At the December meeting, the school board voted unanimously to support the bill. And last month, Chairman Daniel T. Burns Jr. wrote to every school committee chairman in Rhode Island urging a lobbying effort.

There has been little response, but the issue is on the agenda for a meeting of all school committee heads on Saturday, March 25, Duffy said yesterday. The Warwick School Committee plans to discuss the issue at its meeting tonight, at Winman Junior High School.

In West Warwick, teachers at the bottom of the 10-step salary scale make $36,749 a year. The schools' budget for classroom supplies is typically limited to items such as paper, pencils and notebooks; it does not cover decorations for bulletin boards or holiday art projects at the elementary schools, Raiche said.

Iannitti was the only school board member to oppose the new teachers contract, which he described as overly generous. Yesterday, he said his support of so-called teacher tax relief is not an attempt to mend relations with the union.

"It's a lot of money," Iannitti said yesterday of out-of-pocket teacher expenditures, which he said exceed $1,000 a year for some. "They're supplementing our budget."