Budget Board Delays Vote on All-Day K

A discussion about bringing back all-day kindergarten led the Woonsocket Budget Commission to delay any decision at their meeting at City Hall on Monday afternoon.

Commission members said they were concerned that school officials didn't show how proposed changes to the special education program would make up the difference between a $500,000 state grant and the expected costs of the all-day K program.

In fact, Mayor Leo Fontaine and Council President John Ward argued that the costs of sending students to out-of-district placements would actually be higher — leading to even higher education costs.

Ward, chairman of the school committee when all-day kindergarten was first put in place, said he "fully supported [the program] then, and I fully support it now," but noted that moving students out of the district's Fate and Focus program "has the potential to make things significantly worse financially."

During an interview after the session, Fontaine said he, too, supports bringing back all-day kindergarten — but questioned why the school officials would propose cutting the special education program to pay for it.

"The consultant that was hired never suggested that or even mentioned that, the school committee voted unanimously not to eliminate it, and we have teachers her who said 'don't eliminate that,' so I think it's important to be able to get to the bottom of all that," Fontaine explained. "Unfortunately, it's all being done in a compressed timeframe, so it makes it all that much more difficult for everybody."

Special Education Director Carol Lerner explained that Medicaid typically pays social workers employed by the district a lower rate than out-of-district programs, and that this extra money would provide revenue that could then fund the all-day K program.

But Ward countered that the proposal is "basically a reallocation of funds and not new revenue."

Ward also called the General Assembly's promise of the $500,000 a "gimmick" that would still leave the city underfunded.

"If the General Assembly had done its job right and we had conventional public housing aid, which we always had to compensate the city for money we don't collect in property taxes from public housing — which contributes 11 percent of our students and pays us less than $40,000 for those two-family developments instead of taxes — it would represent about $800,000 a year that we don't get because they didn't do their job right," Ward said.

Since Ward left the meeting just before 6 p.m., leaving only two members of the commission in attendance, acting Chairwoman Dina DuTremble called the meeting adjourned without a vote taken on the all-day kindergarten question.