NEWS

Committee Ok’s $180.5m school budget

Rainy day fund would help cover 4% increase in spending

By EMMA BARTLETT
Posted 2/14/23

School Committee members unanimously passed Superintendent Jeannine Nota-Masse’s proposed operating budget for Cranston Public Schools’ (CPS) FY 2023-2024. The document will now go to the …

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NEWS

Committee Ok’s $180.5m school budget

Rainy day fund would help cover 4% increase in spending

Posted

School Committee members unanimously passed Superintendent Jeannine Nota-Masse’s proposed operating budget for Cranston Public Schools’ (CPS) FY 2023-2024. The document will now go to the Mayor followed by the City Council come April.

The district proposed a $180.5 million operating budget for the next year, which is a 4.13 percent increase from FY 2022-2023. After Nota-Masse made her budget presentation on Jan. 23, School Committee members held three meetings to ask questions about line items before voting to send the document to Mayor Ken Hopkins. The committee is now strategizing how they will defend the proposed budget before the city.

“We’ve been told several months earlier that we are going to get level funded by the city. Hopefully that’s not the case but, when you’re told that by the administration, you’ve got to take it seriously,” said School Committee Chair Michael Traficante at the Feb. 6 budget adoption meeting.

On Tuesday, Chief of Staff Anthony Moretti said the district is welcome to speculate, though the city has not evaluated the budget at this time. The city’s Finance Director, Thomas Zidelis, is currently working with department heads on the budget, and Moretti added that Hopkins cares to see the schools properly funded. Once the city’s budget is compiled, the Mayor will determine priorities as he sees fit.

Over the last several weeks, School Committee members asked questions on specific line items and potential areas for future cuts if the district does not receive all the funding it asks for. Members thanked the school administration for creating a good budget, though the proposed use of $2.9 million surplus dollars from the district’s “rainy day” fund to balance next year’s budget has raised some concern.

“This budget worries me a great deal,” Traficante said Monday night. “I don’t recall … us ever using $2.9 million to balance our budget with surplus dollars.”

CPS Chief Financial Officer Joseph Balducci, who has worked for the district for more than 22 said the rainy day fund balance has never grown to where it is now. While the district is using a significant amount of surplus money to balance the budget, the district will have to keep an eye on it. The fund currently has $3.1 million, so potentially using $2.9 million would leave the fund at roughly $400,000. The amount of surplus dollars used is subject to change based on local and state aid given to the district.

This is Nota-Masse’s eighth budget as superintendent. She noted that while the district controls a lot of costs, there are certain aspects – such as state mandates, pensions and healthcare – that are thrust upon CPS which cause increases in the budget.

The support for charter schools across the state has also affected district funding.

“When I look at the past two budgets from the Governor and proportionally a significant amount more of money is going toward charter schools that do not have the level of costs that we do for high needs special education students, pension costs,” said Nota-Masse Monday night.

She said the charter schools are getting tuition from local dollars and the state, which is starting to throw off the balance of how the state supports education in Rhode Island.

“It’s becoming a problem economically that the market has become now flooded with schools and the state can’t support them,” Nota-Masse said.

She reflected on state and city funding.

“The city dollars are going up and the state dollars are going down,” Nota-Masse said, since the Rhode Island sees Cranston as gaining in wealth.

Ward 4 School Committee member Frank Ritz suggested the district go into  the council budget meeting showing what  students would lose,  based in increments of $500,000, if the budget is not fully funded. Ward 3 School Committee member Domenic Fusco suggested the group wait until Hopkins releases his budget so the committee can see the funding they would potentially be given.

Ward 2 School Committee member Kristen Haroian added that while Cranston has the second largest school district in the state, salaries are not in the top five of Rhode Island. With CPS wanting to attract the best teachers, if more is taken away from the district, how will they be able to attract these individuals?

Room for savings?

At the Feb. 6 meeting, Ritz asked if the district offers medical incentives if employees complete a yearly physical or preventative care; these efforts could potentially decrease urgent care and emergency room visits and realted costs. Balducci said this was one of the ideas the district brought up with their health collaborative.

Nota-Masse added that the district implemented Teladoc (which allows for virtual appointments) several years ago which has helped decrease the number of Urgent Care visits.

Ward 6 School Committee member Anthony Melillo suggested bus savings by increasing student walking distances from 1.5 miles to two miles.

Nota-Masse said there have been conversations about bus routes. The current policy has buses used for elementary students who are more than a mile away from their school, middle schoolers who are more than one and a half miles away and high schoolers who are more than two miles away.

“Even if we were to move the mile to mile and a half in elementary, just about every kid at Woodridge, Stadium, Peters and Eden Park [would have] no buses,” Nota-Masse said.

Additionally, the middle school cost savings would be negligible and the increased mileage for the high school level could create hazards if the students have to cross certain streets and there are no cross guards.

The district also received questions on the $85,000 decrease at the vocational school when, in past years, that school has gained money. This year, the district received 904 applications for the career and tech CTE programs. Of that number, 224 applications were for Cranston East and the rest were for Cranston West. Of that number, 120 applications were out of district students. Therefore when a lottery takes place, there is a greater possibility that the district will get more Cranston students than out of district students. CPS would not gain any additional revenue since outside districts pay for their students to attend schools outside their city/town.

Looking Ahead

At Monday night’s meeting, President of the Cranston Teachers Alliance Lizbeth Larkin offered public comment – stating she was perplexed at some of the conversations during the last several meetings.

“Some School Committee members were already making cut proposals without even knowing the final financial numbers,” said Larkin.

To Larkin, it seems that the insinuation of premature cuts to budget would justify the action of level funding.

“This seems very odd to me and my colleagues,” said Larkin. “It seems as though Cranston Schools will once again become a target to help balance a city budget.”

She spoke of all the cuts that have occurred over the years and how the district has suffered in the past.

Traficante added that the main work starts after May 10 when the City Council approves a city budget. At that point, the district has roughly a month and a half to balance its budget. He said right now, it’s a big guesstimate.

“We’re dealing with a very delicate product – that’s the kids of the city,” Traficante said.

schools, budget

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