South Kingstown school committee forwards FY26 budget to town council, requests $500,000 municipal increase

The South Kingstown School Committee voted to forward its fiscal year 2026 budget proposal to the Town Council, asking the town to shift shared-service costs to municipal responsibility and to increase the property-tax transfer by $500,000.

The committee adopted “Option 2” after a presentation from Superintendent Pedraza and district finance staff that laid out a projected net increase of about $2.4 million driven by lower federal and state aid, contractual salary and benefit increases, and anticipated transportation costs. Ryan Kilpatrick summarized the option’s two core elements as “requesting to shift approximately $314,000 in shared services to the town” and “utilizing $500,000 in our fund balance,” and said the recommended package would allow the district to end FY26 “just hovering right above that 2% ceiling” the district uses for reserves.

The budget presentation framed the request as a tradeoff: either (1) shift shared services and use $500,000 of fund balance while asking no additional municipal appropriation, (2) shift shared services and ask the town for an…