GLOCESTER – Voters from Foster and Glocester approved a budget for the Regional School District Tuesday night, reducing a proposal presented by school officials by nearly $900,000 to put spending on par with the previous fiscal year.
The decision came at a continuance of the district’s financial meeting where 235 voters weighed in, with 177 agreeing with the plan.
At a previous meeting in March, Supt. Renee Pallazzo presented an original budget that anticipated an increase in state aid and revenues for the district in the coming year and kept the local appropriation flat, while shifting more of the burden for schools to taxpayers from Glocester due to changes in enrollment. That proposal was rejected in a vote of 133 to 103.
In the weeks since, Solicitor Gregory Piccirilli advised school officials that according to the legislation that first created the regional district in 1958, the budget could not be changed despite the rejection.
And so, on Tuesday, April 14, district officials came before voters with the same budget hoping for a different outcome. Before the proceedings, Piccirilli explained that the voters could not make decisions about line items, and could only reduce the district’s total planned spending.
It was under the advisement that Committee member Shelly Pezza moved to “reduce the total proposed district General Fund expenditure budget from $33,091,080 to $32,208,227,” – a decrease of $882,852 to match the enacted FY 2026 level – and to reduce the local appropriation from both towns from $18,058,039 to $17,903,188.
The move passed by 125 votes, and the outcome was celebrated by residents who had united against the original proposal.
Laurie Gaddis Barrett said that her opposition to the initial plan was based on three factors: the proposed use of a $400,000 fund balance to offset operational costs rather than non-recurring expenses, an inflated line item for professional and technical services and underestimation of projected revenue from tuition for the district’s CTE programs.
“The estimated revenue should have been over $5 million,” Gaddis Barrett said. “It was way off. It’s been consistently underestimated by more than $500,000 for years.”
She said that many hoped the district would make the needed changes on its own, and notes officials said they would adjust the budget to reflect the will of voters before they were advised not to.
“We believe they could have done that,” Gaddis Barrett said. “They wouldn’t do it and we can’t force them.”
Asked how the reduction in the local appropriation could stand considering the state’s maintenance of effort law – which require towns to fund schools at a level at least as high as the previous year – Gaddis Barrett pointed to an exception in the legislation for when a district retires debt service. The regional district overseeing Ponaganset High School and Middle School retired a debt in 2026 from a $610,000 bond taken out years ago to finance drinking water improvements.
Not so, says Palazzo, who told NRI NOW she has since researched the issue. An ad taken out when the district addressed the water issue in 2021 explains that project will not raise taxes, will not be included in local appropriations and that it will be paid for using the school department’s fund balance.
Palazzo said the towns are not exempt for the maintenance of effort law, which supersedes the local ordinance. She said she is not yet certain how the district will move forward.
No matter how the question of local appropriations is handled, district officials will likely have go back to the drawing board to create a fiscal plan more in keeping with the funding approved by voters.
Those who worked to reduce the spending contend the room is there for improvement – without cuts to either staff or programming.
“There’s plenty of room in that budget,” Gaddis Barrett said.
Editor’s note: The above article was edited to include information regarding the water bond.
