By Dino Autiello, president, North Providence Town Council
This may be that rainy day.
I said those words recently, and I meant them. After 16 years on the North Providence Town Council, I’ve seen tight budgets before, but this one is different. We are looking at a $3.9 million gap to get under the levy cap. We are weighing whether to dip into our $17 million rainy day fund, the reserve we have spent years building. The strain on our budget is not a result of reckless spending. In part, it is the result of a statewide school funding system that is broken and in need of repair.
That rainy day fund didn’t appear by accident. Fifteen years ago, North Providence’s finances were in serious trouble; our bonds rated as junk, our fiscal footing uncertain. Through years of responsible budgeting and hard choices, we rebuilt our financial standing from the ground up. Today we hold an “A” credit rating. We established the rainy day fund as a safeguard against genuine emergencies. Using it to cover costs that the state should be sharing with us is not what it was built for. It would be wrong to let that hard-won fiscal discipline be eroded by a broken school funding formula.
Here’s what I mean:
Rhode Island’s current school funding formula only accounts for roughly 68 percent of what it truly costs to run our schools. The rest, more than $500 million statewide, lands directly on municipalities like North Providence. Transportation. Building maintenance. Early childhood special education. In most states these costs are shared between state and local government, but here in Rhode Island they show up as entirely local obligations, with little warning when they grow. We absorb them. And every dollar we absorb is a dollar not available for roads, public safety, or the services our residents depend on.
I’m a proud product of North Providence public schools, and have worked hard to protect classroom spending even when it has meant difficult tradeoffs everywhere else. And, at times I have defended level-funding our schools. But let’s be honest about what level-funding really means in this environment: it means we are asking our teachers and students to do more with a number that doesn’t keep up with inflation or growing student needs. Our schools deserve better. And with a reformed funding system, we can do better.
That is why I am pushing the state to act on the recommendations of the Blue Ribbon Commission on education funding, convened by the Rhode Island Foundation.
The commission, co-chaired by Rhode Island Foundation President David Cicilline and Georgetown University professor Nora Gordon and supported by research from the Annenberg Institute at Brown University, spent the better part of a year taking a comprehensive, honest look at how Rhode Island funds its schools, and has recommended a better way. Its members included teachers, superintendents, municipal officials, and community advocates. They don’t all agree on everything. But they agree on this reform. That consensus matters.
What they recommend is straightforward. Expand the formula to include the full cost of education, including all those costs that currently fall invisibly on cities and towns. Fund students based on their actual needs. Require municipalities and the state to share costs fairly, based on community wealth. And create real accountability for how every education dollar is spent. Legislation has been introduced to reflect the commission’s recommendations (Senate Bill 3015 and House Bill 8351), and if passed would enact those recommendations into law.
For North Providence, and for communities like ours across this state, this isn’t abstract policy. It is the difference between draining our rainy day fund to cover costs we shouldn’t be bearing alone, and having a stable, predictable revenue picture that lets us invest in our residents. It is the difference between level-funding our schools indefinitely and giving our kids and teachers what they actually need.
The commission’s recommendations won’t be enacted in time to help us for the upcoming fiscal year, but we need them to become a reality, and soon. I am asking the governor and members of the General Assembly to act: pass this legislation, make the state a true partner in funding public education, and give municipalities the stable foundation we need to serve our communities well. And I am asking my fellow council members, our neighbors, and community leaders across Rhode Island to join that call, to learn about this legislation, talk to their state representatives and senators, and make clear that the current system just isn’t cutting it.
Sixteen years ago, I ran for council because I believed North Providence deserved good government, a government that is honest with people about hard choices and fights for its community when the system isn’t working. As someone who benefited from North Providence’s public schools, I know what’s at stake. The school funding system is not working. And, our rainy day fund shouldn’t be the only answer. A modern education funding system that finally makes the state a full partner in educating our children: that is the answer. And it is long overdue.
