'Blindsided' | Coventry Schools Face $1.8M Cut In Funding

COVENTRY, RI — Coventry School Superintendent Craig Levis is dealing with a serious case of déjà vu. For the second year in a row, the school department is grappling with serious cuts due to a level-funded budget.

Coventry, like communities across Rhode Island and the country, is scrambling to adjust the budget for the upcoming fiscal year in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. Monday night, the town council took drastic action, voting four to one in favor of level-funding the town's schools.

Interim Town Manager Edward Warzycha made the final recommendation to level-fund schools. Levis said he and the school department had no warning from town management and that he found out at the same time as the public.

"I'm really disappointed in the town manager," Levis said.

Warzycha said the town had no other options but to level-fund both the school and town budgets, facing uncertainties from the state and federal governments and a call from residents not to raise property taxes.

"A zero increase budget is not what anyone wants — there are no winners," he said. "It's not the right time to increase taxes for our citizens."

The town currently has a 16 percent unemployment rate, Warzycha said, making it especially unfair to ask residents to shoulder the town's financial burden.

Cuts were made across the board, he said, including requests for new police cruisers, an empty position in the police department, plans for a new K9 unit, approximately $400,000 from the Department of Public Works and approximately $400,000 from Parks and Recreation.

"It's a lean year," Warzycha said. "We had no choice but to go with a fiscally conservative approach."

This time last year, residents voted down the proposed budget, reverting to level-funding until a new budget was approved. To balance the budget, drastic cuts were proposed: including laying off hundreds of teachers, slashing extracurricular activities and switching the high school to double sessions.

In the end, voters approved an amended, slightly lower budget, allowing school programs to continue largely unchanged.

This brings us back to fiscal year 2021. In the months before the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, Levis said the school department and town management had an excellent relationship, meeting weekly to craft a budget that would satisfy the needs of schools and fiscally conservative voters, thereby avoiding a repeat of the year before.

"I've bragged about our relationship," he said, adding that he hadn't known of any other communities that worked so collaboratively.

Once the coronavirus pandemic hit, all that changed, Levis said, and management began approaching the town's finances with "doom and gloom."

Although additional costs were inevitable, the school department decided to go forward with the original, pre-coronavirus budget, which was approved by the school committee. It included a four percent increase in funding from the year prior, approximately $1.8 million.

"We need that [$1.8 million] to get to the starting line," Levis said.

On top of that, the district stands to lose approximately $900,000 in state funding due to coronavirus-related cuts, as well as funding for career and technical programs. All these cuts combined would be catastrophic for the district as it prepares to meet the state's stringent guidelines for safely getting students back into classrooms in the fall.

"We know that going back into school is going to cost more money," Levis continued.

While plans are still being made, the district will have to bring on more custodians to meet cleaning requirements, figure out safe transportation solutions and determine other, unsure variables, such as the potential need for more school nurses or how to potentially provide masks to students. There was barely room for these expenses in the original budget, let alone a drastically reduced one, Levis said.

The town manager said the council is sympathetic to these student safety concerns, and is willing to use some of the town's rainy day fund to cover these one-time, coronavirus-related costs.

If the budget is approved, the situation would "be worse than last year," Levis continued.

"I don't know how we'd get to the $1.8 million," he said.

It's unclear at this time what would be sacrificed in that case. No more teachers will be laid off, since the union requires all layoffs to be finalized by June 1.

"I truly don't know," Levis said. "I hope there isn't a chopping block."

The school department is set to discuss the issue further on Thursday evening. Voters are set to decide during the all-day referendum July 16.

"The final decision lies with the voters," Warzycha said.