Why does it cost so much more to educate students in Little Compton, especially when other similar towns are excelling in academic and state testing scores? ... This is a result of lack of oversight, fiscal leadership and responsibility.”

LITTLE COMPTON BUDGET COMMITTEE

I thought a 2.3 percent increase on the school was very modest, very reasonable, very financially responsible to not only the school, the outcomes, but also the stakeholders of the community.”

TRAVIS AUTY, SCHOOL COMMITTEE

When voters head to Little Compton's annual Financial Town Meeting next Wednesday, they'll have a budget plan that includes a slight tax rate increase, and a fiscal showdown between supporters of the school department and the town's budget committee, to contend with.

The annual meeting is set to begin at 7 p.m. Wednesday, May 24, in the Wilbur McMahon School gymnasium.

If the school and municipal budgets pass as proposed, the tax rate would jump 10 cents per $1,000 of home valuation, increasing taxes for the owner of a $600,000 home by $60. With schools and the municipal side combined, town spending would increase from $16.227 million to $17.1 million.

School troubles

The meeting will likely be the catharsis of a back-and-forth feud between the budget committee, which sets the town and schools' yearly budget recommendation, and school officials who believe the plan as proposed will hurt Little Compton students and could lead to widespread cuts in sports, drama, the arts and in other areas.

This year, the Little Compton School Department asked for a 2.32 percent increase, which would have increased the budget from the current $7.64 million to $7.816 million. But the budget committee's recent decision to recommend level-funding the district at this year's number blind-sided school officials, who said they never had an inkling that the committee was going to cut what they said was a needed, deserved increase.

“We met with them at the end of March and there was no indication that they were going to level-fund us at that point,” said the school’s finance director, John McNamee. “It was disappointing that they didn’t even ask us to proofread some of the numbers they were using.”

In a report included in the Financial Town Meeting packet released last week, the town’s five-member budget committee urged voters to consider denying the school department’s request and instead vote to level-fund the district, for the sake of “significant savings” to the Little Compton taxpayer.

In citing the justification for the cut, the report compared per pupil costs across several districts, took a hard look at student assessments and testing, questioned the actual cost of educating students from other towns, and touched among other things on the town's changing face and long-term decline in enrollment, as major factors.

Budget committee members wrote:

"As a committee, we asked ourselves, why does it cost so much more to educate students in Little Compton, especially when other similar towns are excelling in academic and state testing scores?"

"It is the budget committee’s belief that school spending has gone unchecked for too long and the budget is increasing at an alarming rate. These increases aren’t due solely to contractual obligations, new mandates put in place by the RI Department of Education or the Federal Government. In the opinion of the Committee, this is a result of lack of oversight, fiscal leadership and responsibility."

School brass counters

But school officials quickly countered and at a meeting last Wednesday, argued that the committee used, as committee vice chairwoman Hannah Ayotte said, "blatant misinformation" to justify their cut.

On the contrary, school administrators said, the budget is bare bones and without the increase, several predicted tough cuts in the year ahead. 

"There is very little discretionary spending in the school budget,” the district’s finance director, John McNamee, said.

According to McNamee, a level-funded budget could force the elimination of extracurricular programs including sports, band and some of the arts and robotics programs, would force Little Compton to request a waiver to the state requirement that necessitates bus monitors on all K-5 bus runs, and would defer the five-year Capital Plan for now, postponing improvements to the gym, new classroom spaces, and the installation of solar panels atop the school.

“We (unanimously) requested less than half of what inflation is,” said Travis Auty, the chairman of the school committee. “My taxes have gone up 35 percent in the last five years so I thought a 2.3 percent increase on the school was very modest, very reasonable, very financially responsible to not only the school, the outcomes, but also the stakeholders of the community.”

Auty and others predicted a contentious town meeting — "I’ll be there with bells on,” he said. “As I’m sure a good handful of us will.”

The municipal side

The school department’s requested increase is the only item the budget committee did not recommend as requested. On the municipal side, proposed increases to various town departments include:

• A 6.1 percent increase to the police department, with a 7.2 percent increase to the fire department;

• A 35.7 percent increase in payments for the town’s capital improvement bond debt;

• A 16.2 percent increase in funding for the town beach;

• A 6.7 percent increase in appropriations for the transfer station;

• An 8.4 percent increase in funding for Brownell Library;

• And a $19,000 increase in funding for the Little Compton Housing Trust.

Elections

Two local elections will also take place at the tail-end of the meeting.

Mikel Folcarelli, Donald J. Mederios and William Ryan are up for re-election on the beach commission, with hopefuls Herbert Case Jr., Jennifer McHugh, and Jeffrey Raposo seeking a seat.

Andrew L. Rhyne is seeking a seat on the budget committee, along with incumbent candidates Peter Alexander Bermudez, George Crowell and D. Craig Curtis Jr.