Residents Voice Concerns, but Still Approve Building Committee at Chariho Budget Hearing

By Cynthia Drummond for BRVCA
March 6th 2024

WOOD RIVER JUNCTION – The annual public hearing Tuesday evening on the Chariho School District budget was so sparsely attended that it took an additional half hour to round up the quorum of 75 voters required for the hearing to begin.

“We didn’t have a quorum until it was, probably, 8 o’clock,” School Committee Chair Catherine Giusti said.

The committee heard comments about the proposed Fiscal Year 2024-25 schools budget, and also received residents’ approvals of the formation of a Building Committee and the allocation of $15,000 to that committee. The hearing lasted about 52 minutes.

“The public budget meeting is something mandated by the Chariho Act, that we have to hold every year,” Giusti said. “Complicating the meeting last night, we then had to vote on forming a Building Committee that would start working on the building project, should the bond pass, and we also had to vote on giving a stipend to the Building Committee should they have expenses before the bond is finalized.”

The proposed bond would authorize the district to borrow up to $150 million to build three new elementary schools to replace the four aging buildings currently in use. At the Feb. 6 Richmond Town Council meeting, council members, with Council Vice President Richard Nassaney and councilor Samantha Wilcox opposed, approved a resolution opposing the bond proposal.

Several residents at the hearing expressed their opposition to the bond, but there were no outbursts. The next day, however, Giusti called out Richmond Republicans for what she described as their apparent resistance to the bond referendum.

“The Richmond Republicans and the Forgotten Taxpayers [political action committee] who seem to be the same group, don’t seem to want the bond to go before the voters,” she said. “And that signals to me that they don’t trust the voters. We saw this when they illegally appointed the head of the Forgotten Taxpayers, Clay Johnson, to the vacant School Committee seat. If they had listened to the will of the voters then, they could have saved Richmond taxpayers over $20,000 in legal fees and unnecessary angst.”

The Residents Speak

Several people told the committee at the hearing that they supported the budget.

Former School Committee member Ronald Areglado, of Charlestown, suggested that towns whose share of the Chariho budget is larger, namely Hopkinton and Richmond, should acknowledge that enrollment increases in those towns are due to continued development. The towns’ shares of the Chariho budget are determined by their school enrollment figures.

“There are variables that really drive this budget and it’s called students,” he said. “If you look at the population trends of the three towns, you’ll discover there’s a disproportionate number of people moving to certain towns as opposed to others. That is a cost consideration that cannot be underestimated or overlooked.”

Some residents said the district didn’t need new schools.

“Children don’t learn from a building, they learn from dedicated teachers,” one Hopkinton man told the committee. “We’ve got a lot of great leaders in this country who grew up in a one-room school house and got a great education. Our taxes are going through the roof. Time’s up.”

Residents approved the formation of the Building Committee. They also approved the transfer of $15,000 from the fund balance in the district’s current budget to cover the committee’s initial expenses.

During the discussion of the Building Committee, Richmond Town Council member Michael Colasante attempted to describe capital project budget overruns in other cities and towns.

“The Building Committee, that’s going to be their scope. What concerns me is that the building committees, what I see in other towns, it’s really outside the scope and the expertise of a lot of these folks,” he said, before moderator Charles Beck stopped him.

“I don’t think that’s pertaining to the formation of the committee,” Beck said.

Colasante persisted.

“What I want to say about the Building Committee is, I’ve seen in the other towns, they’ve tried and they’ve been $30 million over budget, $40 million over budget. You’re going to develop a Building Committee, and my concern is what is the expertise of these folks?” he said.

Superintendent of Schools Gina Picard explained that the Building Committee, comprising representatives from the School Committee and the three towns, would be required by the state to work under the guidance of a state-appointed architect and project manager.

More Hope Valley School Drama

Residents intent on preserving Hope Valley Elementary School are still fighting to keep Hopkinton’s second elementary school open. The School Committee has voted to add $437,000 back into the Chariho budget for the maintenance of the school.  In a new development, about a week ago, Hopkinton residents found cards in their mailboxes asking them to contribute to a legal defense fund which would pay Westerly attorney Kelly Fracassa to sue the school district for cancelling two kindergarten classes at Hope Valley School. The text on the card claims that the cancellations constitute a violation of the Chariho Act. It is not known who composed or sent the post cards.

Chariho administrators have stated that the classes were cancelled because of declining enrollment, which the message on the card disputes.

“Declining enrollment? Not in kindergarten,” the text reads. “36 parents with preschoolers were shocked to learn at one recent meeting, their preschoolers would not be attending kindergarten. No plan was presented. The parents still do not know what school their young children will attend.”

Asked about the postcards, Guisti, a Hope Valley resident, said she had received one and was disturbed that no one had claimed responsibility for the initiative.

“I’m fascinated that they expect people to send money to this lawyer without ever saying ‘this is who’s asking you to send money,’” she said.

Fracassa did not respond to a request for comment.

Hope Valley School Will Close Anyway

On March 12, the School Committee will make the final changes to the budget and vote on adopting it. The budget referendum is on April 9.

Guisti said she was expecting that the $437,000 that was added back into the budget for Hope Valley School, (raising the property tax rate in Richmond) would end up being cut from the final spending plan. Hope Valley School, she said, would be closing, regardless of whether the bond passes in the May 7 referendum.

“It’s sad for me, my little hometown place, but there’s no way we can afford it. There’s just no way,” she said.