Budget deficit, merger are talking points at Middletown School Committee candidate forum

MIDDLETOWN — Innovate Newport hosted the final candidate forum for the 2022 Election season on Thursday, Oct. 20, with moderator Amy Kempe posing a series of questions to Middletown School Committee hopefuls Liana Fenton, Gregory Huet and Theresa Silveira Spengler.

Candidate Wendy M. Heaney was not in attendance. There are three open seats to be decided by voters.

A full recording of the forum is available on YouTube on the Involve Newport page.

Each candidate offered an opening statement, then took two-minute turns answering policy questions prepared in advance by the forum’s host organizations — Newport This Week, Involve Newport, the League of Women Voters of Newport County and the Greater Newport Chamber of Commerce.

These questions were followed by a “lightning round” of yes/no questions on specific topics related to the impending referendum question on school district regionalization with Newport, and then a series of six questions submitted by the public watching in person and via livestream.

Opening Statements: meet the candidates

Incumbent School Committee Chair Theresa Silveira Spengler introduced herself as a lifelong Middletown resident, a graduate of Middletown high school and a mother of two children who went through the Middletown public school system. She runs Silveira Kindergarten & Preschool on Peckham Lane, and she has served on the school committee for 20 years.

Incumbent school committee member Liana Ferreira-Fenton explained that in addition to serving on the School Committee since 1998, she has served as the president of the Rhode Island Association of School Committees and has done education policy work at the state level. As an example, she cited her work with the Rhode Island Department of Education to develop a career pathways program for high school students across the state.

Gregory Huet, a retired navy officer and first-time candidate, stated he is in favor of regionalization and was involved in past efforts by Middletown citizens to put school unification on the ballot. He stressed the need to provide students with an education that makes them competitive at the state, national and global levels.

More: Middletown Town Council hopefuls talk regionalization, development and more at forum

He pointed to Electric Boat as a specific example of a local company in need of skilled workers, saying, “We have Electric Boat right across the bay there that is dying for people in the trades, and we aren’t doing a very good job of educating those kids right now.”

Policy questions on regionalization, budget deficit, test scores

Regardless of your support of regionalization, what steps should be taken to ensure an amicable and productive relationship with Newport and improve the quality of education while balancing cost efficiencies? 

Huet stated the first order of business is for Middletown to get its school budget in order.

“We have some unresolved budget issues which are significant, and in order to gain the confidence of the Newporters, we need to make sure we have our stuff taken care of first," he said.

He also called for dialogue with all stakeholders, including the teachers’ unions.

Spengler said she believes the Middletown and Newport councils need to make sure educators are involved.

“They have not been brought to the table at this time … without the educator input, it is very difficult to be able to plan and have a successful academic plan for our students in the future," she said.

More: Is the state pushing for regionalizing Newport, Middletown schools? RIDE officials weigh in.

Spengler also said the city and the town need to support education as a priority, even if that impacts taxes. “Just as our generations did before us, we as adults need to support our students in the future with the appropriate taxes as necessary," she said.

Fenton said Middletown has been working for many years on regionalization, and she thinks the $235 million bond from the state for school renovations, which would be reimbursed at 80.5 cents on the dollar, is good for the town.

The current Middletown school committee and school administration was about $2 million over budget and did not inform the Middletown Town Council or the public until recently. How can there be a better accounting of the Middletown school budget?

“I think you have to have transparency," Huet said. "When you’re a public servant … you need to be honest with the people who voted you in, and I don’t think that was the case with the $2 million deficit.

“I came from a world in the military, where you knew from quarter to quarter where your budget and where your expenses were, and $2 (million) is a significant shortfall.”

Spengler directly rebutted the premise as framed in the question.

“That is not a true statement. The Town Council did know about this years ago," she said. "When the funding formula was implemented from the state of Rhode Island … we explained to the Town Council that we were going to have a funding cliff — we were going to have a structural deficit in ten years when the funding formula came to fruition.”

She took full responsibility on behalf of the sitting School Committee for the accounting errors that took place over the past year, but also called for the town to allocate more funding to the school system.

More: Meet the candidates running for Newport School Committee

Fenton reiterated the budget problem is a structural deficit at both the state and local levels, and called for Rhode Island to change its constitution to make education a right, which would require cities and towns to provide more public school funding than they do currently.

“Right now the state General Assembly can give you X amount of dollars and that’s it, and the town has to make up the rest," she said. "We write grants, we do partnerships, we do everything we can, but there is still that structural deficit.”

What do you believe are the primary causes of low-test scores? What should be done to address them? And how will you work to ensure academics and curriculum are the highest priority for the district?

Huet cited demographics as a significant contributing factor to low test scores, saying both Middletown and Newport have a large population of ESL (English as a Second Language) students. He stated his belief that the curriculum is not robust, pointing out Middletown High School does not currently offer a civics class, and also said the district’s ESL students need more support.

Fenton said test scores are improving, but emphasized the impact of insufficient funding on student performance. She gently pushed back on Huet’s criticism of the curriculum, saying the district is doing fine in that regard, but agreed ESL education is a problem. She posited a post-regionalization language academy for ESL students and their families as a possible solution.

Spengler stated Middletown has invested “a tremendous amount of time and money” into its new English language arts program and is now working on the math curriculum, but pointed out purchasing a new curriculum, vetting it and providing professional development to teachers to implement it effectively all takes time and funding.

She said when the state imposes new curriculum requirements, it doesn’t provide funding to support the necessary changes.

Do you feel that Middletown Public Schools provide an attractive, competitive employment opportunity? Why or why not? 

Spengler said she absolutely feels Middletown is competitive and the district employs high-quality teachers.

“When a position is opened, we are very careful with our interview process, checking references. We do our due diligence to ensure we are hiring high quality people," she said.

She pointed out 80% of the school district’s budget is for staff, explaining that many of the teachers are long-tenured professionals who have stayed in Middletown for a long time because they love the community.

Fenton reflected on the pandemic revealing some of the district’s weak spots, but stated the School Committee is now addressing those. She also stated Middletown has good teachers.

“Teaching is hard. I’ve been there and done it," she said. "I think our teachers in the long run have been excellent and I cannot complain about them at all, and compared to other cities and towns we are very lucky.”

Huet said hiring and keeping teachers is a challenge throughout the state right now, and pointed to Middletown’s lack of affordable housing as a challenge in the future. He said it is difficult to find housing in Middletown on a teacher’s salary.

Regionalization Lightning Round

Do you support the current referendum/vote for school regionalization?  

Yes — Huet, Fenton.

Undecided — Spengler.

Do you envision one high school for Middletown and Newport down the road?

Yes — Huet

No — Fenton, due to both Newport and Middletown already having plans to update their own respective high schools. She posited the possibility of a unified middle school.

Maybe — Spengler.

Please simply cite two pros and two cons/risks you see with regionalization of Newport and Middletown schools.

All three candidates cited new infrastructure as the biggest benefit of regionalization as it is currently proposed, and all three cited the large number of unknowns, particularly regarding academics, curricula, and programs including special education, as the biggest negative.

Huet called regionalization is a “no-brainer” from a financial perspective, and Fenton said her biggest concern is that Middletown “has no plan B” if regionalization doesn’t pass.

Public Questions

Assuming regionalization passes, what would your input be to the district advisory committee which will be setting a blueprint for the district school committee?

Fenton said she would start out with the educational piece and ask the two school systems to figure out what they can share in order to produce better outcomes for students.

Huet said the first thing he would do is get all the stakeholders together, including parents, teachers, and union representatives.

Spengler said if regionalization passes, a “strong committee with a majority of educators” should be formed immediately to develop a curriculum for the regional board which would be elected in 2023.

She expressed concern that no planning was put into educational goals and objectives before regionalization was brought to the public, praising the plan for the administrative component of regionalization, but finding fault with the lack of attention paid to the educational component.

Once the $2 million deficit is resolved, and moving forward, would you support the town taking over the financials for the school department including oversight, accounts payable, payroll, etc.?

None of the candidates supported this idea, with Huet pointing out the town elects the School Committee to manage that budget separately for a reason, and that there should be separation.

Spengler acknowledged the School Committee made some serious accounting mistakes this year and said the town is still looking to hire a consultant to perform a forensic audit, but said she did not support the town controlling the school department budget for a variety of reasons.

Fenton said state law does not allow a municipality to take over a school district budget.

How did the school finances in Middletown get into such a bad situation?

Fenton and Spengler, the long-time incumbents, focused on the structural deficit at play, with both stating the Middletown school department has been underfunded for years.

Both advocated for changing the state constitution to make Rhode Island a “right to education” state, pointing to Massachusetts as an example of a state that has established a “foundation” funding formula dictating a minimum cost per student that must be paid by every municipality.

Huet focused on the more recent $2 million deficit and said it was his understanding the deficit was caused by a “personnel issue” — a bookkeeper who wasn’t doing their job.

He said a lack of oversight is to blame for the deficit. “It had nothing to do with the town not funding the school department appropriately over four, five, six years — that $2 million (deficit occurred in one year),” he said.

The current relationship with the Town Council appears acrimonious. The superintendent has received a vote of no confidence from both the teachers’ union and the Town Council. What will you do to improve the relationship with the Town Council and will you keep the superintendent?

Spengler said the School Committee has always been transparent with the Town Council, and while at times there has been controversy and differences of opinion, she has seen an improvement in the professional relationship between the two civic bodies as electoral turnover has eased some issues rooted in personality conflict.

Huet said he saw a trust issue between the School Committee and the Town Council. He stated he knows the Town Council and has relationships with many of its members, and he can help rebuild that trust.

Fenton said the town should keep superintendent Rosemarie Kraeger on board, praising her skillset, her personality and her job performance.

Huet and Spengler each said they felt it was not appropriate to discuss Kraeger’s contract publicly, with Spengler going further and stating it would be both unethical and illegal for her to do so.

Huet called Kraeger a “very pleasant person” who “tries her best to do a great job,” and Spengler said she was a “stellar superintendent” who “brings a tremendous amount of expertise” to the job, not least through her efforts to bring Impact Aid money to support children of military personnel in the district.

The nonprofit research organization Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council (RIPEC) just released Rhode Island’s K-12 plan and reported the K-12 education system in Rhode Island is in crisis. If elected, how would you propose to address the issues outlined in the RIPEC report?

Fenton said she interfaces regularly with RIPEC through her work with the state school boards, and while she believes a lot of things have to change, the changes need to be approached systematically and one step at a time, starting with regionalization.

More: 'Rhode Island's public education system is in crisis,' says local policy nonprofit

Spengler said she would advocate for increasing funding to ensure updated resources including technology and curriculum are available for students and to ensure the teachers are appropriately trained to meet the news of students whether they are in a special needs class or an AP class.

Huet advocated for getting more stakeholders involved, including parents, and getting everybody working together.

This article originally appeared on Newport Daily News: Middletown RI School Committee candidates talk budget deficit at forum