Changes to RI School Aid Creating "Firestorm," Says School Committees Director

Changes to RI School Aid Creating "Firestorm," Says School Committees Director

The recently announced changes to state aid for K-12 public and public charter schools in Rhode Island have resulted in a "firestorm" due to the information coming after some school district budgets have already been submitted, according to Tim Duffy with the Rhode Island Association of School Committees. 

"Sixteen districts are gaining $6.4 million, and 21 are losing $3.4 million," said Duffy, of the changes, based on a new "poverty weight" formula.  

See Who's Gaining - and Who's Losing - BELOW

GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLAST

Duffy sent the following message to members over the weekend, explaining the situation:

Twenty-one school districts will have their State Aid reduced due to a new way that RIDE is calculating the Student Success Factor or the Poverty Rate. $3,465,353 million will be reallocated under this new Poverty Weight formula.

Last year the Administration changed the calculation from Free and Reduced Price Lunch to 185% of the federal definition of poverty. Below is the new language that allows RIDE to recalculate the Poverty Weight. RIDE did not let Districts know about this change until early this week.

It is too late in the game to be changing the appropriation numbers. Many districts have already submitted their budgets to their councils or financial town meetings.

Addressing Changes

"Maybe the whole process needs to be addressed, in terms of how late [schools found out]. It's creating a firestorm," said Duffy. "Maybe there have been shifts in the student count, but I can't see how Providence -- and I want to see them get what they can -- but how they're getting an increase of $4 million (from $10.2 million to $14.2 million in state aid.)

According to data provided by Duffy, the districts slated to lose the most in state aid include Cranston ($861,024); East Providence ($646,694) Coventry ($532,333).

Those gaining the most?  Central Falls ($527,063), Woonsocket ($663,861) and Providence ($3,986,678).

"And the [public] charters are losing $1.4 million on total," noted Duffy. "I think people were totally blindsided."

Duffy noted that the changes are not yet final.

"The [Fiscal Year] 2018 budget has to be approved," said Duffy.

The following data was provided by Duffy. The first column marks the newest amount, after the changes, for FY18; the second column was what had been contained in the Governor's budget; the last column is the difference.