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Council questions school surplus, maintenance‑of‑effort calculations during budget workshop
Summary
Westerly councilors pressed for detail on the school district’s fund balance and the maintenance‑of‑effort calculation that, on paper, could reduce the town appropriation by about $1.78 million; councilors asked for six years of actual expenditures from the district.
Westerly — Council members at the April 9 workshop pressed school officials’ budget in multiple exchanges, focusing on how the district’s unspent balances (surplus/fund balance) affect the town’s requests for local appropriations.
Town staff presented the school maintenance‑of‑effort worksheet used to compute state aid and local appropriation impacts. That calculation produced a line the manager described as the theoretical amount the town could reduce from the district’s appropriation: about $1,775,003.99, based on declining enrollment and cost‑per‑pupil calculations used by the state education agency. The manager stressed this is a formulaic result and that any change to the school appropriation requires a legislative action by the council.
Council discussion centered on two linked concerns: first, the size and composition of the district’s fund balance (items classified as “committed” versus unassigned cash) and, second, whether the council should treat the maintenance‑of‑effort figure as a cue to cut appropriation. Multiple councilors said they wanted more transparent transaction detail — not only the list of items the district says it may spend money on, but what was actually spent out of surplus in recent years.
Councilor Dylan requested a breakdown of amounts actually withdrawn from the district’s fund balance over the last six years, and asked for documentation of transfers from fund balance into operating accounts and the subsequent expenditures supported by those transfers. Several council members argued the district has accumulated a multi‑million dollar surplus while the town has been asked to maintain funding levels, and they asked staff to provide the transactions and receipts that show what the school committee actually spent from its reserves.
The manager also presented comparative cost‑per‑pupil figures produced for council review, noting Westerly’s cost per pupil at about $28,318 and the range of costs across districts. He and other council members discussed how a higher local per‑pupil cost can increase out‑of‑district tuition charges and other downstream costs for neighboring districts.
What’s next: Councilors asked the manager and finance staff to provide the requested six‑year detail on school surplus usage and to bring that information to the next meeting for review; any change to the school appropriation would have to go through local legislative action and the state’s approval process.
