Council Hears Schools Proposal

By Cynthia Drummond for BRVCA
January 17th 2024

RICHMOND – Town Council members heard a presentation on options for Chariho schools at the Tuesday meeting. At an executive session that took place earlier, councilors considered the applicants for the Town Solicitor position.

Chariho

Several council members were skeptical of, and at times, hostile to a proposed plan presented by Chariho Superintendent of Schools Gina Picard and Mario Carreno, Director of the Rhode Island Department of Education’s School Building Authority, involving the construction of three new elementary schools to replace the district’s four elementary schools.

The issue is whether the town should go out to bond for up to $150 million for new schools and improvements to the main Chariho campus, or go out for a $30 million bond to repair and renovate the existing schools in what has been called the “warm, dry, safe” option. The third option is for capital “pay as you go” improvements and repairs, which would cost approximately $7 million.

Picard explained that RIDE requires all school districts to draft five-year capital improvement plans and as part of that process, consider the new construction option. The state, which must approve the capital improvement plans, favors “newer and fewer” schools, and will reimburse 76% to 81% of the cost. Districts that choose the warm, safe and dry or pay as you go options will receive 61% reimbursements.

“All districts must review the option of new construction when they draft their capital improvement plan,” Picard told the council. “During that review, we determined that maintaining our facilities would cost approximately $30 million over the next five years for our four elementary schools and the main campus, with the focus on ensuring our schools remain warm, safe and dry.”

Chariho administrators have been mulling capital improvement plans for decades.

“The district has been developing plans based on the needs of our aging elementary facilities [since] back in the ‘90s,” Picard said.

The question Richmond, Charlestown and Hopkinton residents must decide is whether to approve the bond for new schools, approve a smaller bond for improvements to existing schools, so simply continue to repair the existing buildings as necessary, two of which are nearly 90 years old.

“What I’m sharing with you,” Picard said, “is an opportunity for the three towns, and if that’s not what the voters want, that’s not what we’ll do. Often, we are asked, especially during budget season, to ensure that we provide cost effective approaches. I cannot, in good conscience, sit here and tell you that the best approach is to continue to maintain aging facilities when I know that we’ll be able to get a 76% reimbursement, minimum, up to 81 cents on the dollar, for just about the same, if less money to get three brand new schools out of that.”

There are other issues muddying the waters of the schools proposals. Hopkinton, which has two of the elementary schools, Hope Valley and Ashaway, has resisted giving up its second elementary school. In addition, Richmond residents, who have complained incessantly about the town’s tax rate, would likely balk at even a modest tax increase.

Councilor Helen Sheehan said,

“When I did the math, it looks as if we are 2,900 families in Richmond, and Richmond pays 37.5% of the [Chariho] bill. So that means the taxes per house will go up $297 per year for the next 20 years.”

Picard replied,

“Based on the taxes, you also have to take into account what the towns are going to do, so while I can’t predict the taxes, what I can tell you is, the dollars that you spend on each school is based on the residencies of where your students live, no different than when we get a CTC {career and technical] student from Westerly. They pay tuition coming into the high school. That’s how that works.”

Sheehan stated that if Chariho were a “truly regional” district, taxpayers in all three Chariho towns would pay the same.

“You are regional,” Picard said. “And when you think about it, you would also not just have to look at your local taxpayer dollars but you’d have to look at your state aid. Richmond gets more state aid than Charlestown, and Hopkinton, sometimes, gets more state aid than Richmond.”

Councilor Michael Colasante said he had met with North Providence Mayor Charles Lombardi, who had confronted rising costs with school bonds there.

“I had a sit-down with Charles Lombardi, the North Providence Mayor,” Colasante said. “He’s a great businessman, I’m telling you. $75 million, then it went to $100 million, and then it went to $125 million, and that’s when Charlie, the Mayor, said ‘no, that’s it.’ Because the $125 million, these are his words, not mine, would have ballooned to a loan of $150 million, so what they ended up doing is paring it down to three schools, like what we’re trying to sell the district, he went and he pared it down to two schools and he went up to a second story, which is cheaper than going out.”

Picard, who is also a member of the North Providence School Committee, said Colasante was making incorrect statements about what had occurred there.

“Miss Picard, even in North Providence, they had to scale back,” he said. “Their tax base is much greater.”

Picard interjected,

“You’re saying it because of the elementary schools, which is not accurate,” she said. “To be clear, they added projects – the administration building. So, I can have this conversation, I’m going to say to you I know what’s happening in North Providence, and you’re twisting information, which is unfair.”

Council President Mark Trimmer listed some of the town’s pressing needs, which, he suggested, should be addressed before the town borrowed money for schools.

“We have a police department that is in an old credit union,” he said. “We have a volunteer fire department. And yet, we’re going to platinum - plate our school system. It just doesn’t make any sense to me.”

Several people spoke during the public forum, including some who said the schools were a critical investment, especially for a community where people chose to buy homes specifically because of the quality of the public schools.

“It’s an opportunity that we need to take advantage of, and to not take advantage of it would be fiscally irresponsible,” Mark Reynolds said.

School Committee member Jessica Purcell, who represents Richmond, said she was disappointed that there had been so much rhetoric and so few questions.

“Instead of questions, what I heard was a lot of commentary by two very talkative town councilors sharing their own experiences,” she said. “I’m a little bit disappointed in that sort of behavior. Too many of these meetings have just run off the rails because of stuff like that and it bothers me.”

Purcell said being part of a regional school district made it possible for the three small towns to offer more than one town could on its own.

“But, we’re not as regional as we should be, right?” she said. “Hopkinton has two elementary schools. That is an issue that comes up year after year and that is part of why we are having a discussion about how to move forward.”

Stephen Moffitt, a member of the Hopkinton Town Council, said he was also disappointed by the tone of the meeting.

“We get a say by electing School Committee members, who hire our superintendent to do her job,” he said. “So, I would think it would be best practice to allow her to communicate her job. Do I think due diligence needs to be done? We need to know what it costs? Absolutely. We’d be stupid not to. …I applaud Gina for doing her job, coming up here. It’s part of the process. She has to present it.”

Trimmer asked Moffitt if he had a family member who works for the Chariho School District, and Moffitt replied,

“I do, but I also have five children in the school district, and I’ve lived here almost all my life. I’ve been here since – I heard Mr. Colasante say 36 years, or 1992 - I  remember when Mr. Colasante was on the Town Council then. You were a Democrat, then, right?” he said to Colasante, who confirmed that he had been.

Councilor Samantha Wilcox asked Picard about the timeline for the process.

“At the February meeting, I think it’s the 14th, we have the final application for Stage II and again, State I is a facilities review, Stage II is based on the opportunity of what we would qualify for and the right funding formula,” Picard said. “The architect presents what we can do to maximize the funding available.”

Details of the plan and the application process can be found here.

In other business, the council approved the appointment of retiring Department of Public Works Director Scott Barber to the Economic Development Commission.

Town Solicitor

At the executive session before the regular council meeting, council members discussed the applicants for Town Solicitor.

Karen Ellsworth, who was not reappointed to the solicitor position, departs at the end of January. The town has received only two responses to a request for proposals to fill the position and the RFP closes on Friday.  The names of the applicants and the discussions themselves are not public information.