Cities and Towns Discuss Education Funding Issues

By Cynthia Drummond for BRVCA

December 30th 2024

WARWICK – Representatives from municipalities across Rhode Island came together in mid-November to share concerns regarding education funding.

Organized by the Rhode Island League of Cities and Towns, the Education Funding Forum, which took place at a Warwick hotel, attracted 150 participants.

Randy Rossi, the league’s Executive Director, said the forum was not prompted by the change in the federal administration but rather by ongoing state and local funding concerns.

“It wasn’t so much having to do with the change in the administration,” he said. “It’s been an issue that needs to really have a bigger conversation for some time now, and we wanted to bring it to a head.”

The league represents Rhode Island’s 39 cities and towns, including the three towns that comprise the Chariho Regional School District.

While certain issues are more pressing for some towns, the biggest concern shared by all municipalities is the lack of predictability of state funding. Most towns, and school districts including Chariho, begin preparing their budgets in January, but the state budget is not approved until June.

Richmond Town Administrator Karen Pinch, a league board member, explained.

“We are all frustrated that the state gives us a number for aid, and we set our budget based on it, but then the state budget can change, and we have to make up the difference,”

Rossi added,

“One of the biggest pieces is that from year to year, communities can see a large fluctuation in what education aid their community might see. Sometimes, it can change after the budget’s already approved, so it’s very difficult for our members to be able to be able to go into a new budget year, not knowing what the large revenue sources are.”

Chariho Superintendent of Schools Gina Picard and Gregory Zenion, the district’s Director of Finance and Administration, also attended the forum.

Picard said the results of a survey of municipalities revealed common concerns regarding transportation and other issues.

“There’s three patterns across all of those organizations that lend themselves to the conversation,” she said. “Obviously transportation, we’ve all hit that drum a lot, and not just for districts like Chariho that have to have the long miles, but we’re also talking about funding for special education transportation and for foster transportation, DCYF transportation. In Massachusetts and Connecticut, they’re funding that through the state budget.”

The other top issues are the state education funding formula, the costs borne by school districts which are required to pay transportation and tuition costs for students who choose to attend schools outside their school districts and also, transportation for students enrolled in private schools

“Rhode Island is one of the few states that actually provides the transportation to the private schools,” Rossi said.

Federal Funding

Complicating matters are anticipated changes in education funding priorities that might accompany the new federal administration. Budget cuts would be felt by the school districts, because federal funding impacts the states.

In addition, some programs are entirely funded by the federal government.

Picard and Zenion are preparing now for possible funding cuts. It appears that students with special needs might be the first to feel the impacts.

“Specifically, it would impact our students with disabilities that fall under the IDEA [Individuals with Disabilities] Act  and the Section 504 Rehabilitation Act as well as our middle school,” Picard said. “… So those would be the biggest hits to us, and it would be fiscally, and in areas where we have support around student needs.”

Picard noted that in the past, state and federal funding have eased some of the financial pain for the towns, but that may no longer be the case.

“Federal funding and state funding have kept us running,” she said. “With federal funding cuts, you’re talking about significant cuts to programs. You know, you’re basically moving to an area where you’re not providing any extras, if you will, no support.  You’re not going to have enough just to run the basic curriculum, is what they want to do, so students who need the majority of support will no longer have that, and that doesn’t mean that those needs go away.”

Chariho budget workshops will begin on Jan 9. Picard said that for now, the district will begin its annual budget planning assuming government funding will remain the same.

“We’re planning with the same funding, moving forward,” she said. “No changes, based on what we’ve seen, however, in the background, we’re all sort of thinking through how this would this impact us, these changes, and we’re having those conversations throughout the budget conversation, so we can be better prepared. And those are the things, like, for example, you may see, instead of a reading specialist at every school, it may just be based on specific cases.”

Zenion noted that the school district had already reduced staff to reflect declining enrollment, leaving little room for personnel cuts.

“When RIDE came and did their presentation to the School Committee in October, one of the very interesting slides shows the decline in enrollment, and with that, you should see a decline in staffing, although it doesn’t corelate evenly,” he said. “But Chariho does have a decline in enrollment and the graph shows that we do have a decline in employment, too. … So, at least we’re trying to meet the decline in enrollment, although, it doesn’t always work out, because you need declining enrollment in the same grade to lessen a teacher, for example.”

Pinch said the towns were also concerned with the cost of student transportation.

“Transportation is a very big cost.  With the increase in career and tech education and special education programs out of district, bussing has become very expensive,” she said.

State legislators are trying to find a solution to the issue of student transportation.

Richmond Rep. Megan Cotter said a committee led by Rep. Terri Cortvriend (Middletown, Portsmouth) was studying transportation costs.

“She has been the Chair for a solution to study transportation costs for schools and what we can do to lower the costs,” she said. “There’s a few ideas out there, I don’t want to say yet, but I think there are some ways we can reduce transportation costs for a school district like Chariho, that’s over 100 square miles.”

Cotter said she was optimistic that legislators would find ways to maintain the quality of education in Rhode Island, even if there are federal cuts.

“About 8% of our school budget comes from the federal level. That’s a big chunk,” she said. “But I feel very confident that this General Assembly has prioritized education in the past and I know that we will continue to do so.  Whatever that looks like, filling that gap, I feel confident that my colleagues and I will be able to figure out how we do that.”

Rossi said,

“We’re not sure what’s ahead and all we can do is deal with and work with what we know and what we have at the current time. So, plugging forward with the variables that we know now are crucial to work through those, while the outside changes, we can’t control.”