The Rhode Island Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled that municipalities, including Newport, are not obligated to reimburse the Department of Children, Youth, and Families for the cost of general education for children placed by DCYF in residential treatment programs who are not receiving special education services.
The decision, written by Associate Justice Erin Lynch Prata, quashes a Superior Court judgment that had ordered Newport and Cumberland to pay the per-pupil general-education rate for the education of two children placed in DCYF custody.
The consolidated cases — Newport School Committee v. Rhode Island Department of Education et al. and Cumberland School Committee v. Rhode Island Council on Elementary and Secondary Education et al. — stem from 2018, when the Family Court placed two children, identified by pseudonyms A. Doe and M. Doe, in the temporary custody of DCYF. The Family Court designated Newport and Cumberland, respectively, as the residences of the children’s custodial parents for the purpose of determining financial responsibility for the children’s education.
DCYF subsequently placed A. Doe at Harmony Hill School and M. Doe at Meadowridge Academy. Neither student received special education services at their respective placements.
The dispute centered on how much the municipalities owed DCYF for the children’s education under R.I. Gen. Laws §§ 16-64-1.1 and 16-64-1.2.
The matter had previously come before the Supreme Court, which issued a June 28, 2024 opinion resolving the first of two issues. In that ruling, the court held that municipalities are not required to reimburse DCYF at the per-pupil special-education rate when no special education services were rendered.
The court then directed the parties to submit supplemental briefs on the remaining question: whether the municipalities were still required to pay the per-pupil general-education rate even though the General Assembly removed the reference to general education from the statute in a 2001 amendment.
In Tuesday’s opinion, the majority found that the answer is no.
The court pointed to the 2001 amendment to § 16-64-1.1, which removed language that had previously required municipalities to contribute “at least the amount of the average per pupil cost for general or special education.” The amended statute refers only to “per-pupil special-education cost,” with no mention of general-education costs.
Applying the legal maxim “expressio unius est exclusio alterius” — the expression of one thing is the exclusion of another — the court concluded that when the General Assembly removed the general-education language, it intended to eliminate the obligation for municipalities to reimburse DCYF for those costs.
“It is not our role to read words into a statute where they do not exist, particularly words that were removed from the prior version,” Lynch Prata wrote for the majority.
Chief Justice Paul Suttell dissented. In his view, the operative sentence of § 16-64-1.1(c) should be read in two parts: the first identifying which municipality must pay, and the second identifying what must be paid — namely, the municipality’s “share of the cost of educational services.”
Suttell argued that interpreting the statute to exclude children receiving general education who are placed by DCYF in residential treatment programs “leaves a hole in the statute, meaning that there is no guidance on who would pay in this particular situation.”
Suttell also noted that both Newport and Cumberland had, in their initial briefs to the Supreme Court, argued a position closer to DCYF’s current stance — that the statute required them to pay their share of actual education costs, rather than nothing at all for general education.
Justice Long did not participate in the decision.
The cases originated in Providence County Superior Court, where Associate Justice Netti C. Vogel had ruled in favor of Newport and Cumberland, ordering the municipalities to reimburse DCYF at the general-education rate. DCYF petitioned the Supreme Court for review.
William J. Conley Jr. and Stephen Adams represented the plaintiffs. Lauren E. Jones represented the defendants.
The full opinion is available here.
