Though a winter storm closed Wareham Public Schools Wednesday, there was no snow day for the School Committee, which met for its regularly scheduled meeting so Superintendent Dr. Barry Rabinovitch could present his proposed fiscal year 2012 budget.

The meeting was necessary, School Committee Chair Cliff Sylvia said, as Wednesday was the first time the budget would be presented to the committee before a January 19 public hearing, scheduled for 7 p.m. in the Wareham Middle School auditorium. School Committee members encouraged all to attend and ask questions.

"Under normal circumstances, we would have canceled the meeting," Sylvia said. Even so, the committee was down two members. Members Ken Fontes and Rachel Gillette could not make the meeting.

Rabinovitch presented the $28 million budget on January 5 during an all-day meeting with school administrators, individual School Committee members, and town officials. He stressed the need for funding to fill an "achievement gap" between Wareham student averages and state averages. Click here to read WarehamVillageSoup coverage of the presentation. Rabinovitch made the same presentation Wednesday.

The superintendent cited the need for new supplies and programs to help close the achievement gap, as well as the lack of federal and state "stimulus" funding for fiscal year 2012, as reasons that his proposed budget is more than $2 million over this fiscal year's budget

School Committee member Geoff Swett indicated that the funding situation may not be as grim as thought in recent months. It appears that the state may be able to provide the same amount of aid to schools as last year, or even slightly more, he said. It was previously thought that the budget would suffer from large cuts in state funding.

"If [the state] just level-funded us, it would be a major improvement over the assumptions that we were forced to make as a town only a short time ago," Swett said.

Wareham Community Television recorded the meeting and will broadcast the budget presentation on its public and education channels. The presentation will also be available for viewing on the Wareham Public Schools website. We will update this story with television scheduling information and a link to the online video when that information becomes available.