Why the Newport City Council lacks authority over Rogers High School project
NEWPORT – How much control does the City Council currently have over the new Rogers High School building project? Not a lot, the council learned at their regular meeting on Wednesday.
“It sounds like we are very limited in terms of what we are actually capable of doing in terms of impacting the trajectory of the school project,” Mayor Xay Khamsyvoravong said.
Members of the City Council have expressed doubts about how the new Rogers High School building project is being handled by the Ad Hoc School Building Committee, a 20-person team that was appointed by the School Committee. During past joint workshops between the City Council and School Committee, councilors have brought up concerns with the inflating cost of the project, which is expected to go over budget, and the handling of soil onsite, which has been shown to have moderate-to-elevated levels of contaminants such as arsenic.
The four-page memo City Solicitor Christopher Behan gave the council detailing how much authority they have over the committee and the project as a whole showed the council was very limited in the actions they could take.
While the city technically owns the title of the property, the School Committee becomes responsible for the care, control and management of the property once a school is built there through Title 16 of the Rhode Island General Laws, Behan said. Barring illegal activity on part of the School Committee, the City Council has little control over what can be done on property, including how the school is constructed.
“In terms of coming in and saying that ‘we don’t like the way you’re managing that, we don’t like the way, what you’re doing, in terms of the school buildings, the facilities, we have different ideas on that,’ we’re not going to be able to do that,” Behan said.
Additionally, the School Committee is the legal entity that entered into the contracts required to construct the school, not the city of Newport. Behan’s memo states that, as a result, the municipality does not have the ability to manage or control the construction process.
Although he said his question was not indicative of actions the council wants to take, Khamsyvoravong also asked to what extent the council has the ability to appoint or replace the membership of the School Building Committee. While some communities outline the process to appoint a school building committee in their charters, Newport typically forms an ad hoc committee when it needs to complete a school building project, and therefore has no such provisions in its charter or ordinances. Behan said the School Committee probably has last say, legally, over who is on the ad hoc committee, but that does not bar the council from discussing or negotiating membership with the School Committee.
The Necessity of School Construction process through which the Rhode Island Department of Education approves and helps fund school building projects requires the School Building Committee to have at least eight members with specific backgrounds, however. These are outlined in the RI Code of Regulations Title 200 Chapter 20 Subchapter 5 Part 4, which describes regulations for school construction.
City Council has some authority over Rogers project
Does the City Council have any authority in the school construction process? Yes, Behan said, the City Council’s authority primarily lies in how it chooses to fund both the project and the schools. He pointed to the fact that the City Council had to approve the letter of intent for the initial Stage I application as well as the bond referendum and use of bond premiums to further fund the project.
If the cost of the project was to exceed the approved budget and the School Building Committee were to request additional funds from the city to complete it, the City Council would have a say over whether that could be done, Behan said. During a previous joint workshop between the council and School Building Committee, Downes Construction Director of Project Management told the two groups the company would not present a project that exceeds available funds and would work with the committee to retool the building until it is under budget.
However, the School Building Committee did vote at its most recent meeting to submit a new Stage I application to fund parts of the school the committee had to leave out for cost-saving purposes, including spaces for the Newport Area Career and Technical Center’s Automotive and Cosmetology programs, which could result in the committee returning to the council to seek extra funding or a new bond referendum in the future.
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At the end of Behan’s presentation, Councilor David Carlin warned the School Committee and the School Building Committee that their conduct might impact whether he and other councilors approve additional funding or not.
“Be careful what you do and how you disrespect the City Council,” Carlin said. “You may be permitted by state law to disrespect us, but damned if Dave Carlin is going to forget.”
Who is on the Newport School Building Committee
NSC Chair Rebecca Bolan
NSC Vice Chair Louisa Boatwright
Superintendent: Colleen Burns Jermain, Ed.D.
NSC Member: Kendra Muenter
Principal: Jared Vance
Principal: Traci Westman
Facilities Dir.: Robert Young
Student Svc. Dir: Candace Andrade
Teacher: Jessica Rosa
Teacher: William Kimes
City Councilor: Lynn Ceglie
City Manager: Joseph Nicholson Jr.
Buildings: Thomas Harrop
Finance: Richard “Jim” Nolan
Past NSC Chair: Raymond Gomes
Past NSC Chairs & Pell Co-Chairs: JoEva Gaines, Patrick Kelley
Architect: Daniel Herchenroether
Parents: Brian Rochelle, Brian Russell
Community Member: Jamie Bova
This article originally appeared on Newport Daily News: Rogers High School project authority held by School Building Committee
