Since the election, external (State of RI) and internal (School Committee) decisions have added at least $43mm in local tax burden to South Kingstown.  The bulk of that has come from reactionary votes made by the School Committee.  With another emergency building committee requested Tuesday, advertised on the Friday of a long weekend, we are... Continue Reading →

Included below is analysis from a community member on another forum looking ahead to this year’s school budget.  A number of discussions at the microphone, along with analyses on these pages have repeatedly demonstrated how important it is to think long-term for sustained fiscal health within South Kingstown schools.  When a minor hiccup could cause... Continue Reading →

Last week I wrote about the constraints that Massachusetts placed on its school districts nearly 40 years ago.  Under the same constraints, South Kingstown spending (since the year 2000) would have trended very differently. Each year, SKSD is spending $10mm to $12mm more than if normal inflation been applied over the last 20 years.  For... Continue Reading →

In 1980, the State of Massachusetts recognized the limitations and threats of relying too heavily on expanding property taxes to fund our public education systems.  Proposition 2 ½ was passed to limit the increases a town could levy through its property taxes each year. Named for the enacted cap of 2.5%, any town that needed to... Continue Reading →