Woonsocket school officials are asking Rhode Islandto take over the district immediately.
The school system’s $10 million shortfall triggered a financial crisis in the 44,000-population city. The state legislature adjourned this week without passing a 13% supplemental property-tax levy city leaders said was necessary to close a budget gap for the fiscal year, which ends June 30.
Mayor Leo Fontaine and the City Council had signed off on the levy, but state approval was needed.
Woonsocket’s finances are under the purview of a budget commission, the second step in three stages of state intervention under a law that was passed two years ago.
In a 4-to-1 vote Wednesday night, the Board of Education voted to make the takeover request to education commissioner Deborah Gist. She and local school officials were to discuss the matter Thursday.
“Our fiduciary responsibility is to both educate Woonsocket’s approximately 6,000 school-age youth, while also operating with a balanced budget. This simply cannot be done,” the board wrote.
“We pass this with a heavy heart,” said school committee chairwoman Anita McGuire Forcier.
Fontaine acknowledged the city’s dire situation.
“I don’t want to say slim to none, but I think the reality of looking at a receivership becomes more real as each day goes by, and unless we get some movement, the time is going to run out on us,” the mayor said.
According to budget commission chairman William Sequino, more severe budget cuts are on the table.
“It’s not pretty, it really isn’t,” he said. “But does it beat having a receiver come in and take more draconian actions? Absolutely.”
Moody’s Investors Service, which downgraded the city’s general obligation bonds twice this year and now rates them B2, cited in a report “a continued deterioration of the city’s school operating financial position.”
Woonsocket’s long-term debt stands at $225 million.
