$5.4M bailout aimed at school deficit

A $5.4-million transfer from Johnston’s municipal reserve fund will erase the School Committee’s budget deficit, says Mayor Joseph Polisena Jr.

Polisena first revealed the bailout in an interview with WJAR last Friday, where he stated he was “not very happy” about having to dip into funds the town had worked to save in case of an emergency. 

The transfer will resolve a budget shortfall accumulating since 2019, allowing the School Committee to begin the new fiscal year on July 1 with a clean slate. But remedying the committee’s funding challenges won’t end there.

David Bergantino, Rhode Island’s auditor general, told the SunRise that the next step is for the town and the School Committee to draft a corrective action plan to ensure the schools’ financial health moving forward, which his office will then review.

Bergantino, who first learned of Polisena’s bailout plan through television news coverage last Friday, said that discussions between his office and the town about the deficit had been ongoing.

“Johnston, by all accounts, at 43 million [dollars] has a very good reserve built over several years,” Bergantino said. He said that he believed a reduction in state aid to Johnston Public Schools in 2021 was a significant factor in worsening the deficit.

In an interview with the SunRise on Tuesday, Polisena explained that Johnston must keep enough money in the reserve to cover three months worth of the town’s operating expenses, which means that only $10 million of the $43 million in the reserve is currently available. Therefore, the $5.4 million bailout will amount to just over half of the available funds.

Polisena said he feels confident that the bailout will be a one-time occurrence.

“I’m comfortable feeling that it’s a one-time thing because they have a new chairman who I think is working really hard to remedy some of the problems in the district,” Polisena said. He said he had faith in the district’s business manager and human resources director, “plus the fact that there are now four appointed members on the School Committee who I think are really bright in their own right.”

Polisena said that he hopes the School Committee will adjust its approach to budgeting as it begins a new fiscal year.

According to Polisena, the money will be disbursed to the School Committee in installments throughout the fiscal year. In exchange for the continued disbursement of funding, Polisena said that the committee is expected to obey certain directives by the town. The town council and the School Committee will be asked to ratify a memorandum of agreement in the coming weeks that will stipulate the terms.

Bernard DiLullo, the outgoing superintendent of Johnston Public Schools, attributed the steady climb of budget expenses in recent years to “unpredictable” developments during a phone interview. He mentioned that more resources have been necessary in order to support special education and multi-language learning students; both populations have recently seen substantial growth in the district, he said.

Additionally, DiLullo said that out-of-district placements for special education or career and technical programs were another significant driver of budget increases. He said that the opening of the district’s new elementary school in 2026 will hopefully help to make up the budget, as the consolidated building will result in lower operating costs.

In last Friday’s interview, Polisena told WJAR that he believed “the Johnston School Department, unfortunately through the outgoing superintendent and the former chairman, absolutely destroyed the School Department.”

In response to this, DiLullo said that “I think it’s unfair to characterize either myself or the former chair as responsible for the deficit.”

“I’ve been superintendent for 15 years, and over many of those years we have sustained a zero increase from the town,” he said. “As far as being wasteful in terms of spending, that’s not what’s happening here.”

“My goal as superintendent is obviously, try to get what the kids need,” DiLullo said. “Public education is not the enemy of municipalities.”

Due to the ongoing nature of the situation, the School Committee didn’t discuss the budget transfer during its regularly scheduled meeting on June 10 – though committee member and former chairman Robert LaFazia briefly referenced Polisena’s comments.

“If anybody out there has any financial issues that you want to blame, Dr. D and I, we’d be more than happy to put it on our shoulders,” he said.

When asked after the meeting about the committee’s ongoing work with the town to resolve the deficit, Chairman Joseph Rotella said, “We’re working through it for the benefit of the students and the town.”