Many locals party blame the State of Rhode Island for shortfalls in public school funding. It’s true — state aid to education has been decreasing in Bristol Warren for years, even as it has been increasing in other districts. The state’s public education funding formula, adopted a decade ago, made it so.

The funding formula is very complex, but at the highest levels, it incorporates both a district’s student enrollment and a its socio-economic profile to determine how much funding it receives. Distressed districts and large districts receive the most money.

The Bristol Phoenix analysis below focuses on how much funding each district is receiving per-pupil.

Shown are the total state education aid and October enrollments for this school year. Districts are ranked highest to lowest by the level of state funding per-student.

While the distressed communities of Central Falls, Providence and Woonsocket are receiving three or four times the funding per-student, Bristol Warren still ranks 13th out of 34 districts in the state. The local district is receiving more state aid per-student than nearly all comparable suburban communities — nearly three times more than Portsmouth and Barrington.

The districts with asterisks (*) are the state’s four regional school districts. Bristol Warren is getting more money, and more money per-student, than all of them.