Newport Public Schools are facing a roughly $2 million budget shortfall heading into the 2026-2027 school year, Superintendent Colleen Burns Jermain said in her weekly update to families Wednesday evening — a gap she said the district is trying to close without cutting staff, but that will likely require restructuring.
The figure marks a shift from earlier Wednesday, when Jermain told What’sUpNewp during a monthly conversation that the district was carrying a roughly $3 million deficit that had come down somewhat through weeks of conversations with the Newport City Council and school committee. By the time she sent her weekly update hours later, that number was at $2 million.
“We are doing everything we can to reduce this budget deficit without cutting staffing, but a restructuring will likely be required for the 2026-27 school year,” Jermain wrote.
Jermain pointed parents and staff to two upcoming meetings. The next school committee budget workshop is set for 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, May 5 at Pell Elementary School, where members will discuss options to close next year’s gap. The full school committee meets at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, May 12 at Pell, where Jermain said recommendations and layoffs will be on the table. The Newport City Council is also scheduled to meet on the budget at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, May 6 at City Hall.
Jermain attributed the broader pressure to “structural issues with how public schools are funded in Rhode Island” and to inflation.
She said the district had used a strategy in last year’s budget that bet on savings from a volatile out-of-district special education placement line, but that unexpected costs — including a snowstorm and an issue with the district’s NACTC building — kept the gap open.
The state’s auditor general has sent the city and school district a letter, Jermain said, expected to be released publicly this week, calling on the City Council and the School Committee to come together and address the shortfall collaboratively.
Jermain said the district needs the city to commit to a 4% maintenance-of-effort funding level — up from the 2% in place previously — to “jump-kick the budget back into place,” because the schools cannot generate their own revenue and have been using fund balance to carry a structural deficit.
She said 25% of the district’s operating budget goes to special education and about 8% to multilingual learner services, and that some elementary class sizes could move to 24 or 25 students under next year’s budget.
Thompson and grade reconfiguration
Jermain said declining enrollment will force the district to think differently about how it uses its buildings.
In her weekly update, she confirmed that the school committee has voted to keep fifth grade at Thompson Middle School for at least one more year, after weighing a possible move to Pell Elementary School.
“Thank you to everyone who provided feedback about the pros and cons of possibly moving Grade 5 to Pell,” Jermain wrote.
That decision leaves grades five through eight at Thompson, with Jermain saying grades six through eight alone would put the building under 200 students. She said one option on the table is to close Thompson and reconfigure the district’s grade structure, potentially saving $200,000 to $400,000 a year in operating costs at that building.
“You have a city government right now that’s renting out spaces in other places in the city. You have Thompson Middle School right next door, and we may have some capacity in our buildings with declining enrollment to readjust the student configuration,” Jermain said.
Regionalization on the November ballot
The interim superintendent search currently underway is structured as a one-year hire, Jermain said, specifically because the district wants to keep its options open on regionalization with Middletown. She said the city should know by July 1 whether the question will appear on the November ballot. Enabling language must move through the General Assembly in the coming weeks.
“Personally, I hope it does at least get on the ballot for once and for all,” she said.
Jermain said the two communities have not yet agreed on what a merger would look like, though draft plans from past efforts exist. If voters approve the question in November, she said, a joint school committee would need to be formed, with elections in 2027 to seat its members. The first two years, she said, would largely be focused on governance, central office structure and policy work, with limited day-to-day impact on students and staff.
She said declining enrollment in Newport could collide with growth in Middletown, where she pointed to large two- and three-bedroom housing complexes underway off West Main Road and additional units expected to break ground.
“Middletown, in my opinion, if this continues, they will see some growth,” Jermain said. “I don’t know how they’re going to avoid it with student population. Newport, on the other hand, I’m not sure because we are limited as far as housing space.”
‘Broken’ funding formula
Jermain repeated her view that Rhode Island’s school funding formula is broken because it relies on enrollment rather than student need. She pointed to the Blue Ribbon Commission convened by the Rhode Island Foundation and led by former Congressman David Cicilline, which held its first hearing Monday night, as the most promising avenue for change.
She said Newport, Middletown and Chariho were among four districts cited in commission discussions as examples of communities the new formula is being designed to serve. Jermain said she has invited Cicilline to address the May 5 budget workshop to explain the commission’s work.
She said reliance on the property tax to fund schools “is not cutting it” and praised Chariho Superintendent Gina Picard for pushing the same argument.
Asked by City Council members earlier this year whether she has the resources she needs, Jermain said her answer was, “Absolutely not.”
“I don’t have the teachers in front of my students that I should have in front of my students,” she said, citing certification gaps in multilingual learner services as a particular concern.
The school committee’s next budget workshop is set for 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, May 5 at Pell Elementary School.
