EAST PROVIDENCE — Superintendent Kathryn Crowley formally notified the school committee at its May 9 meeting East Providence was included in a group of districts projected to receive a reduction in state aid in the next fiscal year.

Mrs. Crowley said as recently as late January she was under the assumption East Providence would be getting over $3 million in state aid from the Department of Education through Gov. Gina Raimondo’s proposed FY17-18 budget.

However, only a few weeks ago in April, the superintendent was informed the district would likely be getting up to $650,000 less than expected after RIDE calculated the amount of city students eligible to receive free and reduced-price lunch benefits, one of the components used in the school aid formula.

According to Mrs. Crowley there is “confusion in the numbers” the district has for its low-income student population and the ones RIDE has, which is about 300 less. The superintendent said she and District Finance Director Lucy Maddock are in the process of reviewing both sets of figures. Mrs. Crowley added she and Mrs. Maddock will be joined by the district’s legal counsel, Ben Scunzio, at an upcoming meeting with RIDE officials to clarify the matter.

Reached for further comment after the meeting, the superintendent explained the variation in the figures between the district and RIDE could be driven by the direct certification of eligible students through the state departments of Children Youth and Families (DCYF) along with Human Services (DHS).

Families do not need to register with the district to be eligible for the lunch benefits. They do so with the state and those numbers are given to the school department and RIDE by the other agencies.

“We have more on the school district roll than does RIDE,” Mrs. Crowley said.

“There may also be a UHIP (Unified Health Infrastructure Project) component at play here as well,” she added, referring to the troubled rollout of the state’s benefit program system.

The superintendent continued, saying this is one of the times where the district is actually helped by the city’s fiscal year not being in sync with that of the state. She noted several of her colleagues, including in her home municipality of Cranston, have already presented and had their budgets approved for FY17-18, which starts for the state and all other cities and towns except East Providence and Scituate on July 1. The city’s next fiscal year begins on November 1.

“I’m fortunate in that I haven’t already committed to a budget for next year,” Mrs. Crowley said. “What’s most upsetting to me is the timing coming so late in the process.”

Though possibly receiving significantly less money from the state for FY17-18 the superintendent added, “I don’t anticipate any major cuts” to the district’s budget for next year.