COVENTRY, RI — The Coventry Town Council, expanded by two at-large members and sporting a new Dist. 5 councilor, ended its first 2025 meeting urging fiscal control of the Coventry Schools deficit, ballooned to $5.8 million.
The new Council, including new at-large members Hopkins Hill Fire Chief Frank Brown, Council Vice President JP Verducci (who works as RIDOT Associate Director) and new Dist. 5 Councilor Scott Copley, released a statement urging the Coventry School Committee to gain better control of its finances.
The jump in the Coventry Schools deficit comes from the the FY23 audit, now wrapping up, and the start of the FY24 closing process, which included consolidating prior fund deficits and correcting the recording of Retiree Benefit Fund expense transactions in the Keystone accounting system, according to a press release Tuesday night.
Wednesday, Verducci noted that the cumulative Coventry Schools deficit was communicated as $4.7M during a joint Council and Committee meeting in December. A few weeks later it grew by 20 percent to $5.8M, he said. The FY23 audit won’t be finalized for weeks, he said, and the FY 24 audit won’t be completed until spring.
Rhode Island Auditor General David Bergantino said he intends to determine how the inaccurate figure on the Retiree Benefit Fund was discovered during a Jan. 22 meeting with the School Department. “It did add to the cumulative deficit and the Town still has the fiscal 2024 audit to go through which is expected to start immediately upon completion of the fiscal 2023. The completion of the audits has taken far longer than anyone would like. I hope to get some clarity on the fiscal 2024 audit timeline on Jan. 22,” Bergantino said.
The Council’s letter continues, “The Coventry Town Council calls on the School Committee to demonstrate leadership and accountability in resolving this issue, with the future stability of both the school department and the entire town in mind. The Council is ready to support the Committee in taking the necessary steps to ensure a stable and transparent financial future for Coventry Public Schools.”
“Because the total deficit is not known, the School Committee has not completed a corrective action plan. It makes sense to a degree to wait for a final deficit number; however, due to the magnitude and budget share this deficit represents, the Town Council would like the School Committee to be more proactive with offering solutions,” Verducci said Wednesday.
“Obviously, the Town Council is frustrated over the increasing deficit. The deficit requires immediate action to be taken by the School Department to begin addressing the issue and the Council is certainly expressing that. The School Department has been communicating the issues as they are identified to ensure transparency,” Bergantino said Wednesday.
Given the urgency of the situation, Verducci suggested some initial “necessary steps” for the School Committee:
- Re-examine the school department’s current financial management structure to determine whether enough competency exists with current staff, or if different resources are required
- Immediately draft a corrective action plan with specific and accurate expenditure reductions and revenue enhancements that can be modified to match the final deficit number
- Increase transparency during the deficit resolution process by offering the highest level of budget detail to the Town’s financial management team so that everyone involved in financial decisions has a chance to creatively problem solve
- Explore options related to energy efficiency, shared services with other districts, or non-essential programmatic reductions. Reduce or combine underutilized programs, facilities, or staff positions. Identify and consider potential efficiencies through operational outsourcing
- Host forums with all stakeholders to gather community suggestions and foster transparency
- Set clear goals and benchmarks throughout the current year to monitor spending
“Regardless of the fiscal 2024 results, the cumulative deficit does require urgent corrective actions to be adopted and employed. The Superintendent did implement some immediate actions designed to ensure that the Schools remained within budget for fiscal 2025 and possibly achieve some savings that will address some of the cumulative deficit. Fiscal 2025 operating results will be a good indicator of how effective the School Department has been in managing the adopted budget,” Bergantino said.
Bergantino continued, “It was clear at its adoption of the fiscal 2025 budget that the prior fiscal years were resulting in operating deficits and that diligent financial management would be required to ensure that fiscal 2025 operated within budget. That has been stressed in many of my meetings with them. Most of the cumulative deficit will need to be dealt with in future budgets beginning with the fiscal 2026 budget.
The School and Town will need to adopt a corrective action plan that fully addresses the cumulative deficit which does take time and cooperation of the two sides due to the significance of the deficit amount. RI General Law does allow deficits to be addressed over a 5-year period to minimize the impact within any one budget cycle.”
Coventry Schools Deficit: How Did The Town Get Here?
When Coventry Schools and Coventry town officials met with Bergantino in October, the deficit was estimated at about $5 million, a number the auditor cautioned was likely to change as a years-long process assessing Coventry’s finances continued, ending with the FY23 audit and FY24 closing.
Bergantino has said the issues leading the town to this point occurred under previous town and school administrators. Town Manager Dan Parrillo and Town Finance Director Robert Civetti are fresh hires made in early 2023. They, Coventry Schools Superintendent Don Cowart, hired not long before in October 2022, and Coventry Schools Finance Director Chris DeVerna, also a new hire, have been making the progress on fiscal reports that uncovered the problem.
Those officials’ predecessors are responsible for late audits, creating a situation where deficit spending occurred over the course of recurring fiscal years, increasing the deficit as departments operated in the dark, as Bergantino explained in a Sept. 25, 2024 Warwick Post article, “Officials Discuss Coventry Schools Deficit Oct. 9.”
“As we have discussed, both the Town and School’s current management inherited financial data that has required significant clean-up to provide governance officials with accurate financial reporting. In addition, the Town had been untimely with issuing audited financial statements and passed that challenge on to the new administrations. The hope is that the fiscal 2024 financial reporting will be more accurate since the current financial management was in place for those fiscal years and the impact of prior misstatements have been addressed,” Bergantino said.
Verducci stressed a focus on fixing the problem. “Although there are members from the School Committee, Town Council and staff that are relatively new, we all represent our respective entities, which includes both good and bad decisions and outcomes. We can’t personalize the deficit discussion by attacking those who have been elected and appointed to help. The deficit resolution needs to collaborative, logical, affordable and sustainable,” Verducci said.
Warwick Post has reached out to Cowart and members of the School Committee for comment on this developing story.
Coventry Finances: The Good News
- State Auditor: Coventry in a sound general fiscal position Bergantino also said the town was in an otherwise sound fiscal position, evidenced by a $16 million fund balance (Bergantino stressed he is not suggesting the fund balance be used to pay the deficit, it just distinguishes the town as operating from an otherwise sound basis compared to communities in similar situations).
- State Auditor: Coventry not in danger of state takeover Bergantino also said Coventry is not in danger of a state takeover by appointed budget commission, as with the City of Woonsocket in 2012. Bergantino said that situation involved a city-wide fiscal crisis, whereas Coventry’s dilemma concerns only the School Department.
- Coventry Town Finance Director: Moodys Rating reinstatement possible within a month using FY23 audit.
Author: Rob Borkowski
Rob has worked as reporter and editor for several publications, including The Kent County Daily Times and Coventry Courier, before working for Gatehouse in MA then moving home with Patch Media. Now he's publisher and editor of WarwickPost.com. Contact him at editor@warwickpost.com with tips, press releases, advertising inquiries, and concerns.
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