It’s quite a thing, I have to think, for an out-of-town employee of Tiverton to publicly declare certain residents “disingenuous,” especially when that employee, Tax Assessor David Robert, appears unaware of the relevant points of debate.
In a letter to the Sakonnet Times, Mr. Robert asserted that “state aid monies… cannot be factored in to the tax levy. … It would be illegal for me to do so.” I happen to agree. What’s more, Town Solicitor Andrew Teitz agrees, as well.
The problem is, Deborah Pallasch and School Committee Chairman Jan Bergandy, the people who insisted on including a state aid number in their appropriation amendments, don’t agree. Electors who somehow managed to pay close attention amidst all the rancor at Saturday’s financial town meeting might have heard Bergandy refer to a legal opinion (he called it “a ruling”) from the Rhode Island Department of Education. In that letter, Deputy Commissioner and General Counsel David Abbot advised the Tiverton School Committee as follows:
“… a town’s appropriation must take the form of a total appropriation sufficient in and of itself to operate the public schools of the town. It does not suffice to simply appropriate a locally raised sum in the expectation or hope that state or federal aid will subsequently materialize to fill any resulting budgetary gap. … The upshot of this is that if state aid is reduced a town must still fully fund the appropriation it has made.”
In other words, if we include a number for aid when we choose from among the available amendments, at this coming Saturday’s FTM, the town will be liable for every penny that the state or federal government decreases its contribution to the town, in the coming year. With the General Assembly’s budgetary track record, reductions are not at all difficult to imagine. Were aid to decrease to zero, which admittedly is pretty unlikely, that would mean a 22.3% tax increase would be necessary.
In fact, Bergandy’s amendment proves the point. By Rhode Island law, School Committees cannot request more than a 4.5% increase in local funds. In the current year, Bergandy’s amendment should have been capped at $20,950,118; he actually asked for local funds in the amount of $20,979,030. The extra results from a slight decrease in state and federal aid, last year, that the school department claims the town owes it.
If Assessor Robert is right, and I’m right, and Solicitor Teitz is right, Mr. Bergandy’s FTM amendment is illegal. If Bergandy is right, then Tiverton faces a tax liability of a 22.3% increase, assuming the Budget Committee’s numbers for everything else in the docket are accepted. (And let’s not forget that a 7.39% tax increase will be virtually guaranteed.) A lawsuit will probably be necessary to determine who wins the legal day, but in the meantime, it is not at all disingenuous to phrase the possibilities as TCC has. Mr. Robert should publish a public apology.
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