Good News and Bad News

Congratulations to the Portsmouth Town Council for finally joining the other island communities in supporting an educational study for the purpose of identifying the potential benefits (and disadvantages as well) of school regionalization on Aquidneck Island.

Studies of this nature are always helpful, but they take time which, unfortunately, we do not have. The RIPEC study already told us that money could be saved by regionalizing, but no one seems to be listening.

As we get further into the budget season, be prepared for some hard decisions that are not likely to make anyone happy – not the taxpayers, not the municipalities, and not the schools.

Try as you might to ignore it, we are in crisis mode. The state has been squeezing the cities and towns until they are almost dry, yet the governor and the legislators tell us to keep tightening our belts and be more efficient – all the while continuing with their own self-indulgence – but that’s a subject for another time.

The fact is that there is no place for the cities and towns to go but to cut services to both the taxpayers and to the schools or to request that the state let us exceed the tax cap.

Cutting municipal services could mean reducing the fire, police, and/or maintenance, and cutting back services to the schools could mean that your children would not get the quality education that you did. On the other hand, exceeding the tax cap would mean that your taxes would be higher.

Neither of the two options is attractive but it is likely that it will be necessary to choose between them. This is not a time when little tweaks can fill the hole dug for us by the state. Only our own substantive action will get us over the next few years.

However, it appears that, until we actually feel the pain, no one will believe how really bad it is. These are not scare tactics. This is reality. It’s time to think creatively, to look for viable solutions, and to take action now.