Members of the Providence City Council addressed recent funding conflicts with the Providence Public School District during a Tuesday afternoon press conference.
On Oct. 22, the City Council proposed an additional $2.5 million in funding to PPSD. The next day, PPSD requested an additional $10.9 million in funding, according to an email sent to city hall by Superintendent Javier Montañez and reviewed by The Herald.
For Montañez, the $2.5 million offer “is completely insufficient to meet the growing needs of PPSD” and falls “way short of the PPSD budget gap of $10.9 million,” he wrote in the email.
Tensions have been brewing between the PPSD superintendent and the City Council.
At an Oct. 10 press conference, Mayor Brett Smiley announced that PPSD would not receive additional funding until the school district agrees to an independent audit of its budget.
Montañez had previously given Smiley a 24-hour “ultimatum” to provide $10.9 million in additional PPSD funding to address the budget gap. If the funding was not provided, the superintendent threatened to take “mitigation steps,” which could include spending freezes, layoffs or cutting sports programs.
Montañez agreed to the budget audit on two conditions. In his Oct. 23 email, Montañez asked the City to outline how the proposed audit would differ from the annual audit of PPSD’s budget and that an audit is also conducted on the City’s finances.
Despite agreeing to Smiley’s condition, Montañez wrote that the PPSD will “move forward with implementing the difficult decisions we have communicated to the City for months.”
On Oct. 25, Council President Rachel Miller declined PPSD’s ultimatum in an email addressed to Montañez and reviewed by The Herald.
“That offer doesn’t mean that we won’t continue to work together to find additional funding,” Miller wrote. “It means, this is the funding that we have identified right now to meet this moment.”
Miller requested that PPSD make a decision on whether to accept the $2.5 million funding by Monday. PPSD has not yet responded to Miller’s request, according to the City Council press release.
“The City Council is extremely concerned with the presented mitigation costs,” Majority Whip Miguel Sanchez said at Tuesday’s press conference. “We want PPSD and the Rhode Island Department of Education to agree to the audit with these financial dollars.”
Miller added that PPSD needs to collaborate with the City Council to gain “full insight into the PPSD budget” and “solve structural budget problems,” including the school district’s $20 million deficit from last fiscal year.
This fiscal year, the City allocated an extra $5.5 million to the PPSD budget — the district’s largest in the past 15 years. Another $2.5 million was granted in June.
“We did everything we could to look at the budget at that point and to pull up the additional increase,” Anthony added. “I think it’s very hard for the city to respond to (PPSD’s demands) in the middle of the year.”
Amid these tensions, Miller reiterated a need for partnership. “I genuinely think that at the core, all of us are working in the interest of our students,” she said.
Avani Ghosh contributed reporting.
Megan is a Senior Staff Writer covering community and activism in Providence. Born and raised in Hong Kong, she spends her free time drinking coffee and wishing she was Meg Ryan in a Nora Ephron movie.
