EAST PROVIDENCE — The school district has been running with a deficit for the last six years. The highest amount was over $2.7 million in 2004, but since then it has been reduced to as little as $1.3 million in 2006.

It’s back up again and school and city officials said this week that it will take multiple measures to rid the nearly $3.3-million deficit that will be a reality at the end of this fiscal year.

At a joint meeting Monday, the City Council and School Committee brainstormed a slew of cost-saving possibilities. They included reducing the state’s 36 school districts to five regional operations; privatization of some schools; selling or leasing the school administration building on Burnside Avenue; and pushing the General Assembly for relief and a statewide teacher contract.

The Caruolo Act was discussed at the joint meeting and Tuesday’s School Committee meeting. Caruolo allows school districts to turn to the courts when they believe they have been underfinanced by municipalities. In addition, the governing bodies and city lawyers talked about what the state auditor general can do, such as stripping both boards of its powers, if no steps are taken to fix the financial crisis.

What they did agree to was to cease the blame game. The members said the deficit is a citywide problem and it’s everyone’s responsibility to fix it.

“We have to correct this problem,” City Councilman Bruce DiTraglia said. “We have to get that money somehow. We have enough talent on these boards to make it work.”

The two boards also agreed that even if the teachers union had changed its contract early, which it didn’t, the move would not have cured the district’s entire financial problem. The teachers’ lack of sharing the burden of their health insurance and salary increases has been one of the most contentious debates — Forbes described them as “lightning rod issues” over the past few years in East Providence. Aspects of their contract, which doesn’t expire until the end of this year, are being litigated in Superior Court.

In addition, the two groups decided Schools Supt. Jacqueline Forbes and City Manager Richard Brown should sit together to find some immediate and long-term solutions to jointly present to the boards at a later date, which has not been set.

Forbes has said that eight education bills introduced last week should be monitored or fully supported. One, H-7043, calls for the state to reimburse municipalities 90 percent of any special education tuition in excess of $50,000.

Special education tuition in East Providence is one of four reasons the district’s budget is in trouble, Forbes said. The average annual increase has been 29.9 percent and $1.3 million of the deficit comes from this area, school financial documents report. The other major driving forces of the financial woes — most of which Forbes says she has no power over — are salaries, pensions and health insurance increases.

“I can’t control that, it’s just impossible,” Forbes said. “… How in the world can you, can I, expect to keep within a 3.5 percent [over what was given to the department last year by the city] increase with [these average annual increases]?”

The council approved a $73.2 million budget for the district in October for the 2008 fiscal year, which began Nov. 1. Despite a health-care change, one school union (the custodians bargaining team) agreeing to a new contract and 19 fewer positions, Forbes said the district will need to spend about $76.5 million to meet all legal, contractual and regulatory mandates and obligations.

Forbes says the department’s expenditures simply far surpass the revenues coming in.

“There’s upset in the community and we’re aware of it,” she said. “… But it’s a huge gap [between expenditures and revenues]. I didn’t create it. The city manager didn’t create it. The School Committee didn’t create it and the City Council didn’t create it, but it’s there and we have to be able to work together.”

The city officials acknowledge they have to follow the law and deficit spending is not.

“If nothing happens, then what?” Councilman Robert Cusack asked. “Do we give a supplemental tax bill to the taxpayers for the difference? Do we tack it on to the next year? Do we kick the can down the road?”

Forbes and other school officials said they met with Auditor General Ernest Almonte last month. They said he listened more than spoke and wants to be apprised of any progress the city comes up with, such as a deficit reduction plan.

School lawyer Robert Silva and City Solicitor William Conley Jr. explained Almonte could, at worse, take the authority away from the city, but he has “several tools he can use” and rarely chooses the most extreme. They said he tends to lean toward working with city officials and monitoring right from the onset.

In addition, Silva also discussed the steps leading up to the Caruolo Act, which is the “only solution on the books” for a School Department if relief doesn’t come and it can’t make ends meet, he said. Yet he and Conley said bringing it to another forum, in this case the Superior Court, doesn’t eliminate the deficit. Solutions are still needed.

“Let’s look at reality now,” DiTraglia said while stating the state “reneged” on its responsibilities by repeatedly level funding the city and now East Providence has to “foot the bill.” “There’s a $3.2-million deficit and that’s a lot …”

Said Mayor Isadore Ramos Jr., “We just have to do it together. What’s the answer? I just don’t know, but we’ll use our heads.”

apina@projo.com