Ordinance committee backs resolutions asking state to help school-transportation costs and ease driver rules

The ordinance committee voted May 15 to approve resolutions asking the state to take steps to reduce local school-transportation costs and to restore or improve elements of the state funding formula for public schools.

Resolution 2502, sponsored by council members including Trafficante and Council President Marino, asks the state to share in the cost of transporting out-of-district, homeless and private school students. The sponsor said the change would provide relief to municipal budgets and urged passage. The committee approved the resolution by roll call.

The committee also approved a resolution supporting three bills at the statehouse (identified in the meeting as H5420, S636 and S397). Committee members said the measures would ease driver shortages by allowing greater reciprocity for out-of-state school-bus endorsements and by increasing the number of students permitted in certain vehicles from eight to ten. The committee approved the resolution supporting those bills by roll call.

Committee members also approved a resolution urging the state to revert elements of the state “fair funding” formula; staff and a Cranston Schools representative said that if the formula were adjusted back to earlier calculations Cranston’s state share ratio would increase and that, in the committee’s estimate, Cranston could realize additional state aid (the meeting cited a figure that appears anomalous in the transcript and requires verification; the committee requested state action to revisit the formula). The committee approved the fair-funding resolution by roll call.

All three resolutions were reported as sponsored by council members and the city’s school committee had recommended similar language for the transportation measures. The committee recorded affirmative roll-call votes on the measures and asked staff to forward the resolutions to the city’s state delegation and the General Assembly.