Can Regionalization Be Mandated?

That’s the question that was asked on the front page of the Newport Daily News yesterday in an article that did not answer the question. Maybe yes or maybe no. The real problem is that someone is now seriously considering it.

Now, when school regionalization is finally getting off the ground with the commitment of the Middletown Town Council to formally consider the concept, the RI Commission on Regionalization of Aquidneck Island Schools has decided it’s time to raise the specter of the unholy mandate.

It’s not enough that the state has crippled the cities and towns by imposing mandates that siphon away precious dollars and then has refused to lift them even a little during these hard economic times.

Instead the state is going to help us solve our problems again.

Now, don’t misunderstand me. I do support school regionalization, but I support it under the auspices of local control, not under the threat of Big Brother.

Starting with the recent action of the Middletown Town Council to form a committee of the whole to explore the concept for Middletown, the island is moving in the right direction and, if the other towns will jump on board with their own committees, we can begin to make it happen in a way that is acceptable and even beneficial for the students in all the towns on the island.

However, I don’t see that happening if the state gets involved. Aquidneck Islanders are independent. The quickest way to raise opposition is to tell us what we have to do.

Hopefully, cooler heads will prevail, the island communities will choose to be proactive, and Providence will let us do it our way.

The City and Town Councils Are the Responsible Parties

Today’s e-mail brought a concern from a reader about a potential conflict among committees that are exploring municipal consolidation and school regionalization. There can be no conflict.

Municipal consolidation is purely a function of the City and Town Administrators with the approval of the City and Town Councils.

As for school regionalization, legislation guides the process. Until the City and Town Councils agree to explore the concept of regionalization, there can be no forward movement, regardless of the good intentions of the groups that advocate for it.

The important premise is that the City and Town Councils are the responsible parties and can avoid state intervention only by acting affirmatively to explore the concept themselves.

We all know that the state budget is a mess. The Governor and the legislature are flailing about, looking for a way to cut expenses. State aid to the cities and towns has been cut dramatically, including aid to education.

Why do you think the state is promoting school regionalization? The answer is that, if the schools can be supported more economically by the cities and towns themselves, less state aid will be required and the state can reduce its budget.

In the last year we have seen some pretty draconian measures aimed at reducing the state budget – most of them directed at the cities and towns – as though we are wasteful spenders. While I can state unequivocally that Middletown has a well-managed budget, how long will it be before the state loses patience with our 3 communities – a vulnerable geographic unit – and mandates regionalization on its own terms?

Middletown for one will not sit back and let it happen because of political inaction. The Middletown Town Council has initiated its own exploration. I call upon Newport and Portsmouth to do the same.

Action Takes Time

Yesterday brought an e-mail from a Middletown businessman who told me, “We need rapid and effective collaboration between the three [island communities] now. Most of all, how do we keep this from being politicized? Attack this problem from a business perspective and it gets solved very quickly. Politicize it, and we are doomed to talk and gridlock.”

I certainly hope he is wrong. The one thing that I would not like to see is a bunch of people making consolidation a political football. The keywords in one of my earlier posts were “honestly and honorably.”

He was absolutely right about one thing though. Government doesn’t work as fast as the business world. A business develops an idea, designs it, produces it, and markets it pretty quickly. If it works, great. If not, there is readjustment or redirection. Pretty simple.

Government is not that easy. Major decisions are made by a group of divergent thinkers. It takes time to reach consensus or even a majority willing to take action. Then there is the need for public input and due reconsideration. Often it takes time to weigh the interests of a few in light of the potential result for the whole. More time passes before there is decisive action.

How does this time problem relate to sharing municipal services and school regionalization? As much as it would be nice for those who have long advocated for such consolidation, the process of reaching consensus for school regionalization by voter approval will take time.

It can’t be rushed. It can’t be arbitrarily decreed. It must be explored in each community by all concerned to determine the advantages and disadvantages for each. Then, if each community decides to proceed and, if a regional board is authorized by each individual town, the concept will have to be discussed and negotiated until a clear delineation of a common goal is agreed to by all the parties.

All this has to happen before it can even begin to be marketed to the voters. How can you market something that isn’t clearly identified so that everyone visualizes exactly the same thing? The voters are the ones who will have to support it – after they know what they are voting for.

Unfortunately, government action can’t be rushed – even when fiscal issues and the future of our children are on the line.

However, with a serious commitment by all the island government bodies, it can move forward deliberately and expeditiously to provide relief for taxpayers and a better education for their children.

Awakening the Sleeping Giants?

A motion to form a committee of the whole for the purpose of exploring municipal combinations and school regionalization was approved unanimously by the Middletown Town Council at its February 16, 2010 regular meeting.

The Middletown Town Council was the first political body on Aquidneck Island to take official steps to legitimize efforts to promote the collaboration of the three island communities.

Now the question is: How long will the governing bodies of the other two communities be willing to sit on their hands and give lip service to municipal combination and school regionalization? Do they really think that it is going to go away? Are they so insulated from the realities of the state budget deficits and dramatically decreasing state aid that they are not willing to at least make a good faith effort to substantially reduce expenses by consolidation of services?

Finally there appears to be some political will - at least in Middletown. Now let’s see if their companion communities also have the political will.

What can be expected from Middletown’s committee of the whole and from the others, if Newport and Portsmouth can make the good faith leap? Well, not too much is really necessary at this point.

There just needs to be a discussion of the sticky issues, such as fiscal benefits and regional governance, because that’s where the real future of consolidation lies. What can each of the three communities live with?

Each committee – assuming that there will eventually be three – should identify, for example, the areas of government where consolidation would bring greater efficiency and financial benefit. They need to determine the acceptable distribution of a regional school committee and propose a facilities plan for a regional school district if one should be proposed. They need to look at the potential for savings and balance it against the changes that would be required.

Then, after they have each found the place that their communities can live with, they can decide if and how they want to move forward. Middletown has shown that it is willing to take the first step. Now let’s see if the other communities have as much political courage.

The Thousand Pound Gorilla Upstate

Recently I wrote about the threat to local control by those in state government who think they can browbeat the cities and towns into submission. Chalk up one for the little guys, who sued the Governor and gained the release of the 3rd quarter motor vehicle tax receipts. But don’t kid yourself. It’s not over.

The Governor lost this one because he didn’t take steps in advance to make his actions legal. He won’t make the same mistake again. Don’t count on the 4th quarter payments coming so easily.

Now we hear that the Superintendent of Schools in Central Falls has sent layoff notices to all the high school teachers. That’s right – all the teachers at the high school. It seems that she wants concessions related to school reform, and she figures that she can get the union to the table by threatening teacher jobs.

Now I’m not here to argue whether or not reforms are needed. I am going to argue, however, about the method being used to try to achieve them - which leads back to my point about the threat to local control.

Did you know that the schools in Central Falls are not administered by the city of Central Falls at all but were taken over by the state of Rhode Island several years ago? So, when the Central Falls superintendent sends layoff notices to all the high school teachers, who do you think is pulling the strings?

If you still don’t get the point, think about this. The state wants the cities and towns to regionalize their schools, especially those within a natural geographic unit like Middletown, Newport, and Portsmouth. What do you think will happen if the cities and towns don’t at least explore the possibilities of regionalization as a way to reduce their budgets and, by extension, the need for state aid?

I am not suggesting that the state will take over the schools on the island the way it did in Central Falls, but I don’t think it’s beyond possibility that, if the state continues to have fiscal problems, it might move from a strong suggestion to a legislated mandate with onerous requirements that might be less attractive to our island towns than a form of regionalization that we could all live with if we did it on our own.

The Wheels of Government Turn Too Slowly - for Kids

Did you ever notice how the wheels of government turn slowly? If anyone in business took as long to make a decision as our public officials do, the business would fail miserably.

At least in education, which is notoriously slow to make improvements, there is an awareness that the clients – the children – need to be served expeditiously. After all, a child is only in Kindergarten, for example, for one year, and a high school senior will be leaving the system shortly so, if there is going to be a change in program or instructional method at any grade level, it better happen sooner rather than later so the client doesn’t miss the boat.

Yet here we are, diddling around, while Rome burns.

What does it take to wake up the communities to the fact that regionalization could improve the education of our children by reducing fixed expenses and improving programs?

Take the high schools as a case in point. Three separate buildings? All in need of very expensive upgrading and renovations? And what about energy efficiency? Do we really need three separate buildings?

Consider this: In my last year as a teacher at Middletown High School, the enrollment was 1250 students; now it hovers around 650. Rogers High School had a similar enrollment at the time; now the enrollment is lower than Middletown’s. Does it still make sense to maintain two separate complex facilities?

Consider this: Advanced Placement courses often do not run (or, if they do, it is at the extravagant cost of 20% of a teacher’s time) because of the low enrollment. ( It’s hard to justify a class of two or four students.) What if there were twice as many because of a combined enrollment? Or three times as many? How many additional AP courses could be available for students?

What if the enrollment were 2,000? Could a single school provide more opportunities? Of course, it could!

I have been an administrator in 2 districts with very large high school enrollments. They offered 4 foreign languages. They had agreements with community colleges that enabled students to take high level technical courses at their high schools and transfer them as advanced credits to the community colleges. The variety of academic programs was amazing, not to mention the abundance of extracurricular and athletic opportunities. Why? Because of the critical mass. There were enough students to support the programs in a centralized location.

But those with the ability to take action are sitting on their hands while our children’s Kindergarten or senior years go by forever.

Regionalization would not be easy. There would be lots of issues to resolve. However, the communities need to honorably and honestly explore the possibilities now. They need to take a stand publicly and make a decision about what is best for the upcoming Kindergartners or the incoming high schoolers on the island, bearing in mind that doing nothing is still a decision for which there are consequences. What if it were your child?

Ensuring Local Control

So what does maintaining local control of the process of the combination of services and/or regionalization actually mean specifically to Middletown, Newport, and Portsmouth?

Well, it means that our communities should act in an official capacity that says we are willing to explore what the combination of services and/or regionalization would mean to us.

We can’t afford to just sit back and hope that the idea will pass us by as it has several times before. This time is different because of the devastating economy and the impact it is having and will continue to have on our municipal and school budgets. No more "This too shall pass."

Our councils need to be proactive by officially appointing subcommittees that can work with the municipal Administrators to gather pertinent information and make recommendations for the individual municipal governments.

Maybe some proposed combinations are not necessary because an individual community is already providing cost effective services, or maybe some combination of services would be more efficient for all. But we won’t find that out by burying our heads in the sand.

Maybe the regionalization of schools makes sense and can provide some direct benefit for each of us, or maybe it doesn’t. We need to look at the issues. I, myself, would not support anything but equalized governance.

An issue like this is an important topic for each municipality to explore, through a group that could define exactly what would be acceptable in combination or under regionalization and exactly what would not and then make recommendations to the councils. Only after official discussions in the individual councils took place would there be any point to further talk with the other councils about the possibilities for combining services or regionalizing.

What point is there in continuing to ignore the inevitable? What good is there in waiting until the inevitable is forced upon us by those upstate who continue to try to solve their problems on our backs? It’s time for our 3 communities to ensure that the decisions made on Aquidneck Island are made by those who live here.

Maintaining Local Control

If you have been reading the newspapers or watching the TV news, you are aware that the Governor wants to withhold the 3rd and 4th payments to the municipalities for the motor vehicle tax collections. Although the motor vehicle tax is collected by the cities and towns, not too many years ago an agreement was made that the funds would go to the state which would then return the funds to the cities and towns on a quarterly basis. (Doesn’t make much sense. Does anyone remember the reason this was done?)

Well, now the Governor proposes to keep the motor vehicle tax that we send upstate to help fill the hole in his state budget. The cities and towns don’t think that this makes much sense either, so they are preparing to sue the Governor to get the promised funds released. Good luck!

The point here is that there doesn’t seem to be much concern by our elected state officials about the way state action impacts the cities and towns, and this should be a real concern for those of us on the island who have been watching the machinations upstate. One of the biggest concerns down here is that the state will try to help us solve our problems by imposing resolutions against our collective will. (After all, they seem to have found a way to keep the money that they promised to return to us.)

In fact, our greatest vulnerability is the resistance to the combination of municipal services and school regionalization. Common sense tells us – and the powers that be upstate - that there is money to be saved by combining at least some of the municipal and school functions instead of conducting 3 individual and separate management systems. The threat of saving us from ourselves should not be minimized.

We are unique within the state because our 3 communities create a natural geographical unity.

Sooner or later, someone upstate is going to suggest that the way to force our island communities to be more fiscally efficient is to mandate that we combine our services. At that point, local control may in many ways become history.

Up to now, our 3 communities have been sitting back and refusing to openly engage in the discussion. Yes, there have been tentative efforts by some of our city, town, and school administrators to explore the possible combination of efforts. But now is the time for the elected officials to set a tone for future action.

Until the city and town councils demonstrate at least a modicum of official support for some combination and/or regionalization of services or functions, the state will regard us as recalcitrant and in need of a push.

If we wish to maintain local control of the process, we need to act now to at least explore the possibilities before us. Such an exploration would not necessarily result in a commitment to action, but it would demonstrate a sincere effort to provide the information to make educated decisions about our future – decisions that should be made by those of us who live here, on the island, not by those in the big city.

Talking About Change

I remember a time when Aquidneck Island was as much a social entity as a geographical one. I rode the bus daily from Middletown to Rogers High School (now Thompson Middle School) and, when the warmer weather arrived, my friends and I walked the 2 miles home across the town line. Portsmouth teenagers were also members of the island’s high school body and, though there were the typical differences - usually based on interests - those in the 3 communities got along pretty well.

Over the years, the 3 island communities gradually grew apart, proudly developing their own unique characters, often centered around the evolving separate school systems. Athletic competitions were entertaining – Rogers vs. Middletown, then Middletown vs. Portsmouth – but the friendly rivalry had the effect of promoting a sense of separateness that gradually permeated other aspects of island life and increased the divisions.

Although the island was traumatized by the exodus of the Navy ships in the early 1970’s, the communities recovered and developed in new directions that further emphasized the uniqueness of their characters. Newport grew into a tourist mecca. Middletown expanded its defense industries. Portsmouth evolved as a rural bedroom community.

The local schools were central to growing families, who watched Little League games and attended choral concerts in their respective locations. The island economy began to expand, the schools were models of educational success, and all was well with Aquidneck Island. Why worry about what was going on upstate? As long as the money flowed downstream, it was business as usual on Aquidneck Island.

Unfortunately, the page has turned on that story for a number of reasons, not the least of which are the economic recession and the budget deficits that will make it difficult, if not impossible, for the island communities to any longer ignore the rest of the state. The problems of the state government are now island problems as well.

If we want to maintain the lifestyle we like on Aquidneck Island, we will have to make some changes in the way we do business, and one place we can start that will make a big difference is in the way we provide services and support education.