News of a settlement between the city of Providence and the Rhode Island Department of Education over public school funding suggests the capital city may have avoided a worst case scenario. But how much the city and its taxpayers could owe is still up in the air for a few more days. Pictured is Providence City Hall. (Alexander Castro/Rhode Island Current)
The Rhode Island Department of Education (RIDE) and the city of Providence reached an agreement Wednesday in their ongoing battle over funding for Providence’s public schools — but the compromise may have consequences for Providence taxpayers.
“This sort of fighting that we’ve been having over budget and finance has not been good for Providence families, and it’s not been good for all of our employees,” Providence Mayor Brett Smiley said at a press conference after a judge announced the settlement in Rhode Island Superior Court. “And so I’m happy to say that moment has now passed.”
But the agreement’s fine print — including how much money the city will owe its schools — won’t be disclosed until Friday afternoon, both city and state officials said.
Whatever that amount is, Smiley said the city will likely have to raise its property taxes — just not the mid-year increase he floated last week.
“The taxpayers of Providence, in order to properly fund our schools, are going to have to help contribute to that,” Smiley said. “But my plan is not to put all of the burden on the taxpayers, and there will still be costs and sacrifices in city government.”
The details are still being worked out in the aftermath of an anticlimactic hearing Wednesday morning in Providence County Superior Court. An audience gathered to hear Judge Jeffrey Lanphear deliver his verdict on how much money the city would owe the Providence Public School Department (PPSD), which has been under state control since 2019. The city is legally obligated to pay a certain amount to its schools under the Crowley Act, the same statute that authorized the takeover.
The legal battle derived from the city and state’s differing interpretations of that law. Lanphear sided with the state on Nov. 8, but left open the question of how much the city could owe.
The followup hearing Wednesday was meant to determine that amount, and was set to start at 10 a.m. Lanhphear did not appear until after noon. In those two-plus hours, representatives for both city and state went in and out of the courtroom multiple times to meet in a separate conference room.
“The parties have asked me to announce to the room that they have come to an agreement on all of this dispute,” Lanphear said when he finally appeared. “They’re going to be putting it in writing in the next few days…The work here is complete.”
Speaking to reporters outside the courtroom, RIDE spokesperson Victor Morente dodged questions about the specifics. What happened in those two hours?
“Just conversations,” Morente said.
That leaves several questions unanswered until Friday. The school department asked the city for nearly $11 million in October, threatening to cut bus passes and athletics if its funding gap wasn’t filled. Then, when Lanphear ruled that the city was indeed on the hook for more funding, Smiley said that the unknown sum could topple the city’s carefully planned spending.
At a press conference last week, Smiley fumed that the city could be forced to pay up to $55 million to plug the budget shortfalls for its public schools. “The decision the court handed down put the city’s finances at risk,” Smiley said then.
But Smiley appeared more relaxed Wednesday afternoon, and promised that a glut of city programs — like grants for community libraries and funds for PVDFest and other festivities — would go unscathed for now.
“The libraries and our rec centers, any of those services that support our families, they should be able to sleep easy tonight, knowing that their funding will continue as budgeted throughout the rest of the fiscal year,” Smiley said.
Smiley also said he wanted to return the schools to local control, which would remove the funding mandate. That, however, can’t be accomplished without approval from the state’s board of education. The Council on Elementary and Secondary Education voted to extend the takeover for up to three years in August.
Providence City Council spokesperson Roxie Richner declined to comment Wednesday. Gov. Dan McKee’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
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