Apparently, I’ve been incorrect about the cap laws that the different elected bodies in town have to follow. As I’ve been saying, the municipal government is capped with regard to the amount that it can increase its tax levy. However, the School Committee is restricted by a parallel spending cap, of sorts. Here’s the language from the Rhode Island General Laws:
(d) Notwithstanding any provision of the general or public laws to the contrary: …
(iv) the budget adopted and presented by any school committee for the fiscal year 2011 shall not propose the appropriation of municipal funds (exclusive of state and federal aid) in excess of one hundred four and one-half percent (104.5%) of the total of municipal funds appropriated by the city or town council for school purposes for fiscal year 2010
On Tuesday night, the School Committee voted to propose that the town give it $21,285,285, which is 106.17% of the $20,047,960 that the financial town meeting appropriated out of municipal funds during the current fiscal year. To skirt the plain language of the law — “municipal funds (exclusive of state and federal aid)” — the committee is arguing that the town “appropriated” both the local and state numbers, thus implicitly promising to make up for shortfalls in state money.
As it happens, the school district did get the aid it was expecting, but the state used $293,067 of federal money as part of its total, and the people we elected to oversee the education of Tiverton’s children are claiming that such money must be kept out of this calculation. In other words, they’re insisting that students’ parents and neighbors are responsible for paying that $300,000 once again because it ultimately came from a different source.
The law is what you can get away with, I suppose, and legalese can spin just about any argument, but taking basic English as our guide, there’s simply no way to describe the School Committee’s maneuver other than: dishonest. Of course, to offer some bit of sympathy, I understand why the district might be panicking. After all, according to the federal government’s stimulus Web site Tiverton schools received an additional $1,276,521 in one-time grants, during this school year, and if the committee and administration built that into the budget, they’ve got quite a bit of money to make up.
From what I can tell from this state document, by the way, that’s apart from $296,081 that filtered from the feds through the state for Title I and special education and another $739,833 from the state for other “restricted” purposes. While those of us who labor in the private sector have been struggling, it’s been very flush times for those in the public school business, it would appear.
Still, once they’ve crossed the line from fair and reasonable discussion to tugging on any thin thread of hope that the lawyers can concoct, we’re into a very serious matter, with grave political implications at the least.
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