Valley’s schools to benefit from aid

In updated projections for state aid to schools for the upcoming fiscal year, some districts across the state are taking a hit while others are benefiting. In the Blackstone Valley, more traditional public school districts are seeing increases than not.

When Gov. Gina Raimondo prepares her budget in November, the Rhode Island Department of Education looks at data from the previous March – per law – to project state aid. RIDE then gets figures from schools again in March and updates the estimates.

“The primary drivers of the funding are your overall enrollment and your poverty weight,” explained Ken Wagner, commissioner of elementary and secondary education for RIDE. “So we look at kid counts and we look and free- and reduced-price lunch.”

Overall, the change in state aid between what was included in Raimondo's budget and the updated figures is an increase of $1,489,477. This is the result of a $2,818,172 increase to district schools, a $103,948 increase for Urban Collaborative and a $1,432,643 decrease to charter schools.

“It's not a re-allotment,” Wagner emphasized. “The funding is all formula-driven, so they get whatever their numbers warrant.” He noted that if numbers go down, the money just goes back into the general fund.

Wagner also stressed that RIDE gives schools its November estimates and says that administrators can run their own numbers.

“They're good-faith projections based on their data,” Wagner said of the most recent estimates. “They can

“We’re certainly pleased with the way it worked. Last year we lost about $100,000.” —Lincoln School Committee Chair Kristine Donabedian

update the projections literally every day as their numbers change; we just get the numbers on a snapshot basis.”

While schools' data is due in March, Wagner said some districts are late, so RIDE was delayed a few weeks, hence why school departments were just finding out this week.

Pawtucket, Woonsocket, Central Falls, Cumberland and Lincoln are seeing additional projected increases on top of the original projected increases. North Smithfield went from a $97,348 projected decrease in state aid to a $117,567 decrease, while Burrillville went from a $398,957 projected increase down to a $58,383 increase.

But the Burrillville School Department was on top of its numbers and was prepared for a decrease when presenting its budget in January.

“It's not going to have any effect on us because we anticipated the cut,” Superintendent Frank Pallotta told the Burrillville School Committee at its most recent meeting. “We anticipated a decrease in enrollment, so the chart that was listed in the media was kind of misleading.”

Wagner said that projected state aid went down in Burrillville, East Providence and Cranston because of a projected decrease in free and reduced lunch numbers.

The Lincoln School District is seeing a projected increase in state aid, not due to increased free and reduced lunch but to increased enrollment. School business manager Lori Miller said her understanding is that the increase is due to reduced charter enrollments in Lincoln.

Wagner confirmed that RIDE's initial projection of kids going to charters turned out to be too high. That helps explain why Pawtucket, Central Falls, Cumberland and Lincoln are seeing higher projections but estimates for Blackstone Valley Prep and the Segue Institute for Learning are down.

BVP was first projected to gain $2,659,850 but the increase is now estimated at $1,829,532. Segue's estimated increase was $96,398 but state aid is now projected to decrease by $4,344.

Unlike the Burrillville School Department, the Lincoln School Department did not factor recalculations into its budget. Lincoln School Committee Chair Kristine Donabedian said the numbers in the current school budget, approved at the Lincoln Financial Town meeting on May 8, are based on a lower student enrollment.

“I think what happened was the December numbers for Lincoln in terms of just the general population, that was understated,” Donabedian said, “so at that point it was assumed that Lincoln's enrollment numbers were going to be lower than what they actually turned out to be in March.”

Last year's projected enrollment for the current year was 2,906 while the current projection for next year is 2,949, she said.

“We're certainly pleased with the way it worked,” Donabedian said. “Last year we lost about $100,000.”

The projected increase for Woonsocket rose from $2,669,954 to $3,333,815. It rose from $5,300,499 to $5,500,732 in Pawtucket. The increase in projections from November to March was $527,063 for Central Falls and $451,182 for Cumberland.