CRANSTON –– For the second time in five months, the School Committee has spared a popular program for gifted students.

The panel voted unanimously last night to preserve the Enrichment Project in Cranston, better known by its acronym, EPIC.

The move brought applause from parents who showed up last night to lobby for the program.

“We’re thrilled,” said Suzanne O’Shea, who has a son enrolled in the EPIC program at Orchard Farms Elementary School. “We’re totally thrilled.”

The School Committee elected to save the program even as it stared down a roughly $3-million shortfall for the fiscal year that begins July 1.

The panel also approved a number of accounting changes that filled a portion of the budget hole.

The school district, for instance, has 11 more teachers retiring than expected, for a savings of roughly $310,000.

And the committee hopes to save about $823,000 more through additional, last-minute retirements and unpaid leaves of absence ocassioned, for instance, by extended illnesses.

But as the committee’s meeting stretched into the night, the panel still had to make $1.4 million more in cuts by June 30.

Cutting, it seems, is all the panel does these days.

With the school district facing its worst financial crisis in memory, the committee voted in February to chop some $8 million from a spending plan proposed by schools Supt. M. Richard Scherza earlier this year.

The panel voted, at that time, to forgo parking lot paving work next year, eliminate three middle school assistant principal positions and chop 17 supervisors of programs ranging from art to nursing.

Committee members warned that they might have to make more cuts.

But they held out hope that the mayor and City Council would raise property taxes and give the schools’ budget a boost.

With elections approaching in the fall, though, the council declined to increase taxes.

The city did increase its support for schools by about $1 million. But with the district projecting a $1-million dip in other revenues, it was a wash.

And with health care, utility and pension costs skyrocketing –– as revenues held steady –– more cuts would be necessary.

With that backdrop, several parents turned out for last night’s School Committee meeting, sporting red-and-white EPIC stickers, to push for the preservation of the program.

At the heart of the initiative: five teachers who roam the district’s 17 elementary schools.

The instructors provide advanced lessons in small, pull-out groups to about 400 gifted students.

They also oversee special projects for full classrooms, with students of mixed abilities.

Committee members made it clear, early in the meeting, that they were hesitant to chop the program.

And later in the night, they memorialized that sentiment with a resolution preserving EPIC –– and passing up some $520,000 in potential savings in the process.

The panel, at that point, was still weighing other painful proposals –– the elimination of middle school sports, for instance, and a plan to increase the number of students walking to school in a bid to save on transportation costs.

Currently, students who live within three-quarters of a mile of their elementary schools must walk. The proposal before the School Committee would extend the walking radius to one mile.

The middle school radius would expand from 1½ miles to 1¾ miles. And the high school radius would move from 2 miles to 2½ miles.

If the panel signs off on the proposal, designed to save $327,000, about 2,200 students would lose transportation to school.

But sports and transportation cuts may not be the last of the reductions.

The $3-million shortfall the district is projecting could grow dramatically.

The School Committee is assuming, for now, that it will win a $4.9-million lawsuit against City Hall for more local education aid.

The lawsuit, known as a Caruolo action, would apply to the current fiscal year, which ends June 30.

But school officials argue that, if they prevail in court, state law would require the city to pony up another $4.9 million next year.

Education funding, after all, is not supposed to dip from year-to-year.

It is not clear, though, that this provision of state law would apply. The statute governing Caruolo lawsuits appears to limit any award to the current fiscal year.

If that is the case, a Caruolo victory would only mean $4.9 million for the current fiscal year –– and nothing for next year.

And if the district loses the court action, of course, there would be no doubt about the budget hole next year.

dscharfe@projo.com