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.