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‘Gansett Council, Committee, plan for no state aid |
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Friday, 13 February 2009 |
NARRAGANSETT - School and town officials met on Tuesday night l to discuss the creation of a school capital reserve fund and other budget issues before several key town meetings are to take place in the coming weeks.
Superintendent of Schools Katherine Sipala, and Terry Ashworth and Tammy McNeiece of the Narragansett School Committee met with Town Council President David Crook, Sr. and town manager Jeff Ceasrine at the impromptu work session.
The conversation of creating the capital reserve fund (CRF) began last year as an effort to continue the oversight of schools for continued upkeep and maintenance of school buildings. Sipala proposed the setup of the CRF and a structured process to put it in place.
The town Bond Council took money from last year's reserve to begin the CRF upon discovering unused funds. The plan is to create a three-fold fund for capital improvements, to offset future budget shortfalls, and possibly to create a general-purpose “rainy day” fund.
As of June 2008 there was an $859,000 undesignated balance in the fund. In past years the balance went toward the school's budget. According to Ceasrine, the town itself has $1.6 million in its reserve fund but had to extract $900,000 from the fund last fiscal year to deal with its losses and balance the town's budget.
Sipala said taking the entire undesignated balance and applying it to next year's budget would not be wise, and would like to find a more productive way to use the funds. Ceasrine agreed with the proposal but relayed the importance of drafting a resolution to establish a committee to oversee the management and disbursal of the funds with the approval of the school committee and the town council.
The proposed nine-member committee would include two non-school affiliated taxpayers with voting privileges, preferably with a financial background, according to Council President Crook.
The proposal will be put on the agenda for the March 18 meeting of the School Committee for approval, in the hopes of being approved by the Town Council by mid-summer.
the midst of such trying economic times.
Ceasrine said the adjustments to the state budget will not be finalized anytime soon. The most critical new piece of data that has arisen for the town, according to Ceasrine, is that there is a $600,000 shortfall in new revenue. Ceasrine is already anticipating a loss of about $750,000 from the proposed removal of state revenue sharing. Likewise Sipala has been advised to “rip up” a proposed distribution plan for $227,000 in school aid.
The town is planning as if all general revenue sharing will be gone both for the rest of the 2008-09 fiscal year and certainly for the 2009-10 year, according to Ceasrine.
The Town Manager also stated he has received operating budgets from all departments in the town, and expects health insurance programs to be revamped after an extensive audit last year, where over $56,000 in changes were identified just in the coding of employees. A first look at an operating town budget for the rest of the fiscal year is expected to come out early next week.
Superintendent Sipala said she is working closely with the school business office to produce their budget, but there have been difficulties in taking the current budget and making running adjustments while working on next year's simultaneously.
Sipala said she knows that staffing and other cuts are to come, and that the committee will have a “working document” budget available for the Feb. 25 budget meeting.
The School Committee voted to appoint a new finance director at their last meeting, who is expected to start in early to mid-March.
Sipala said it is important to look at a budget outside of its funding to see the big picture. With a lot of new members on both the Town Council and the School Committee, it will be important for them to quickly learn the process of budgeting under stressful circumstances, according to McNeiece.
Even with a municipal budget restructure, the federal stimulus package presents a wash situation for the town, according to Ceasrine. If the town were to receive federal stimulus monies, state aid would almost certainly be cut. This would negate the idea of a “stimulus” as the federal funds would be used to merely plug holes in state and town budgets. School committee member Tammy McNeiece said she feared the “trickle” effect of the portioning of federal stimulus money, where the state has proposed $58 million to go to Providence programs but only $850,000 to Narragansett over a two year period.
Furthermore, Ceasrine said there was talk that Newport, Jamestown, Little Compton and Narragansett would lose out in other aid as part of the “redistribution of wealth” based on the tax base and median household income of the aforementioned towns. This would amount to a loss of one quarter of state aid if the formula is approved by the General Assembly, according to Ceasrine.
He also relayed his frustration that the Assembly is about to take its first vacation of the year next week and not a single bill has passed yet this calendar year.
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Last Updated ( Friday, 03 April 2009 )
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