Budget board backtracks, LC schools prevail

Little Compton Budget Committee rescinds level funding recommendation, school budget passes Town Meeting as requested

By Paige Shapiro
Posted 5/25/23

The Little Compton School Department will be fully funded after all, following Wednesday night's annual Financial Town Meeting at the Wilbur McMahon auditorium.

Earlier this month, the town's …

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Budget board backtracks, LC schools prevail

Little Compton Budget Committee rescinds level funding recommendation, school budget passes Town Meeting as requested

Posted

The Little Compton School Department will be fully funded after all, following Wednesday night's annual Financial Town Meeting at the Wilbur McMahon auditorium.

Earlier this month, the town's budget committee recommended level-funding the district at this year's amount, a move that if approved by voters would have cost the district about $175,000 from the district's requested $7.815 million and, administrators said, threatened sports, arts education, extra-curricular activities and capital projects. But on Monday, committee members voted to rescind that level-funding recommendation, setting up a Town Meeting few school supporters expected.

The hotly-contested issue drew more than enough for a quorum, as about 400 voters — whose line easily spanned the length of the school to which they were headed — showed up. When they arrived, they were given a letter stating the budget committee members' reasoning for rescinding their earlier recommendation to cut that $175,000.

“We now understand that employees on behalf of Little Compton were not responsible for triggering the dissolution of the Newport County Special Education agreement,” members wrote in the letter, correcting information initially published in the Town Meeting’s informational packet which assumed that the school department had instigated the dissolution. The assumption, among other things, was used to justify the level-funding.

“The Budget Committee was also made aware of a recent change to the information provided by the Rhode Island Department of Education (RIDE) website pertaining to the costs associated with the education of pupils in Little Compton,” the letter continued. “Given the amendment to the published RIDE data; it is apparent that the school department was functioning in a more fiscally-responsible fashion than initially indicated.”
Since the initial distribution of the packet, the Little Compton school committee — in conjunction with its finance director, John McNamee, and Superintendent Dr. Laurie Dias-Mitchell — responded to the level-fund recommendation with ardent disfavor.

“It’s absolutely asinine,” said school committee chairman Travis Auty. “We did our due diligence ... in the economic times we are living in right now, I feel like the budget we submitted unanimously was very fiscally responsible for the students, the outcomes, and the community.”

In an ad hoc meeting last week, Auty and McNamee worked to further dispute nearly half of the committee’s earlier assertions, as well as urge the public to support the district at the town meeting.

And support, they did.

The impromptu letter, passed out to all in attendance moments before the meeting was called to order, alleviated the concerns of many who showed up to vote — the school budget article, which was separately pulled and amended according to the budget committee’s new recommendation, was passed with cheers from the audience.

Other votes
• Other items within the budget that went up for debate included an article that proposed to fund the creation of agreements and contracts that will clarify the boundaries of South Shore Beach and maintain the dimensions of its parking lot. The article was amended to include the Nature Conservancy in its implementation.

• A second amendment was made to an article regarding capital expenditures, in which an additional $185,00 was allocated to Little Compton’s general fund for the intended purpose of investing in the ongoing solar energy project that has been in the works since last year. The project, which has been approved in numerous stages by the town council, would see the installation of solar panels atop Wilbur McMahon School, a move estimated to save the town around $48,000 in energy costs per year in its first 25 years.

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