Carcieri’s plan for education money draws union fire

Robert A. Walsh, executive director of National Education Association of Rhode Island (NEARI), relishes the comparison between the governors of Rhode Island and Massachusetts regarding the latest round of federal education funding in what Walsh calls “a tale of two states.”
Amid much hoopla, Massachusetts Gov. Deval L. Patrick held a news conference in New Bedford in late August to announce that the commonwealth would receive $204 million from the federal Education Jobs Fund Act to fund school jobs, a development he lauded because “great schools are the key to our future, and great teachers are the key to great schools.”
In Rhode Island, as Walsh tells the tale, Gov. Donald L. Carcieri was a guest on a Providence-based radio talk show and Carcieri casually mentioned near the end of the interview that he would like to use this state’s $32.9 million share for school jobs to cover a projected Medicaid shortfall in the 2011 budget.
That simple statement, Walsh maintained, “muddied the waters enough” that no one is sure now how Rhode Island will spend the extra education dollars.
Walsh and his counterpart at the state’s other major labor organization for education professionals – Marcia B. Reback, president of the Rhode Island Federation of Teachers and Health Professionals (RIFTHP) – insist, of course, that the $32.9 million should be used for educational purposes alone.
“I do not know of one school district that did not cut back [on programs and/or personnel],” Walsh said. “I am hard-pressed to think of any that could not use the money and make good use of it for additional resources. Part of the concept [behind the law] is to help public education under the broader umbrella of the stimulus money putting people to work who are not working now.”
Walsh estimated “in very round numbers” that the funds would pay for 400 to 450 school jobs.
He suggested that putting 400 to 450 unemployed people to work, even for one year, would have a measurable impact on the economy of a state as small as Rhode Island.
If Carcieri had welcomed the education funding a month ago instead of suggesting other uses for it, Walsh said, teachers and support staff laid off earlier this year could have been recalled before the start of the new school year.
Amy Kempe, the governor’s spokeswoman, maintained that it is not Carcieri who “muddied the waters,” but Congress.
The Democrat-controlled Congress did this by labeling some of what were supposed to be Medicaid dollars as funding for education jobs, she maintained. The federal law allows the state to use the money to plug a Medicaid budget hole because that is exactly what the funds were intended to do in the first place, Kempe said. She said the governor believes school districts need to live within the budgets already set as part of the fiscal 2011 spending plan.
The state faces a $320 million deficit in fiscal 2012 largely due to the end of the federal stimulus program, Kempe noted, and Carcieri’s intent is to warn the schools not to “spend foolishly now. They should not be spending that money ($32.9 million),” she said of the school districts. Although the General Assembly will have ultimate say, and the term-limited Carcieri will no longer be governor when the new legislature convenes in January, Kempe said Carcieri is making this recommendation because “he wants to leave the state in the best possible position for the next administration.”
At the R.I. Department of Education, spokesman Elliot Krieger would not even consider the possibility that the state might use the $32.9 million for any purpose other than education, particularly the restoration or retention of school jobs.
Krieger said the federal government is scheduled by the end of the month to issue guidelines governing the procedure the state should use to distribute funds to local school districts.
Rhode Island is slated to receive more than $100 million in federal Education Jobs Fund dollars with, according to published reports, the federal government designating $70 million for Medicaid and $32.9 million to protect school jobs. Of the $32.9 million, Providence is scheduled to receive $8.7 million; Pawtucket, $2.9 million; Central Falls, $2 million; Cranston and Warwick, about $1.5 million each. Smaller districts would receive smaller amounts.
Walsh has heard that each school district will prepare a plan on how to spend the federal education dollars and, once a plan is approved, the funding will be released by the state education department. The funds can be used not only to recall laid-off employees, but for other critical school needs, Walsh said.
Reback would like to see the money used to re-employ laid-off personnel and restore programs cut due to budget constraints, such as gifted-and-talented programs, arts education and music classes.
“What’s been eliminated is not just about jobs, it’s about programs for kids,” she said. •