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Given the uncertainties when it comes to state and federal funding to local schools, "a moving target" was a phrase frequently tossed around Monday morning when the ad-hoc group of the Aquidneck Island Schools/ Municipal Advisory Committee met at the Middletown Public Schools Administration Offices to continue discussions on possibly regionalizing schools that began earlier last year.

At these still early stages of discussions--where no one has yet agreed on whether to support any form of regionalization proposal--the group of municipal council members, school committee representatives, planners, and superintendents from Middletown, Newport and Portsmouth had met in hopes of taking a closer look at some of the financial aspects involved with the issue. Instead, they found themselves amidst too much uncertainty about state and federal funds to even begin asking certain questions. In other words, how do you draw a comparison when even the status quo baseline is such an unknown right now?

"The budget process is such a key component in all these discussions," Middletown School Committee member Liana Ferreira-Fenton told Patch at Monday's meeting. "Is regionalization going to save us money? Is there going to be a cost savings or, more importantly, is there going to be any educational benefit? These are just some of the basic questions we need to first answer before we can talk about changing anything."

The budgeting component is currently being prepped for study and review at a presentation scheduled for January 10, while any potential academic benefits are to be the subject of a separate ongoing study and report to be presented before the ad hoc committee in late January, school officials said.

Ashley L. Denault, policy analyst for the Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council (RIPEC), has been working behind the scenes to pull together the financial snapshots for the three communities for the regionalization discussions. On Monday, she described how state finances right now, especially as it relates to school funding for 2012, are "virtually impossible to predict."

"The (tax) revenues right now don't match the state's expenditures," Denault explained. "Right now the state budget is looking at about a $300 million gap, about 10-percent of the budget right now."

What's more, the Rhode Island Department of Education (RIDE) has been "unclear" on where state dollars will go, she noted.

Middletown council member Christopher Semonelli shared how Middletown has already been "kind of in crisis mode" dealing with severe cuts that were less apparent to the general public in the current fiscal year thanks to about $1 million in federal stimulus monies, but will present a tremendous challenge this year in balancing the town's budget and meeting school obligations when that goes away.

"This is a huge issue for us," Semonelli told the advisory committee Monday. "(In 2011-2012) we're losing about $300,000 from the state for school funding (due to RIDE funding formula changes) and another $1 million from stimulus funding."

He later added, "We may have to move on this crisis in some way. It's not incremental changes needed; It's fundamental shifts moving forward."

Middletown officials had decided the issue couldn't wait for the typical annual budget season to begin. Shortly after the Middletown School Department balanced its annual operating budget in late September—after a grueling process to cut expenses by about $650,000 to make up for the current fiscal year's shortfall—Town Administrator Shawn Brown saw even greater fiscal challenges ahead and ordered that the new budget season begin almost immediately.

Brown set up a workshop for the new Town Council, School Committee and administrators to address the issue head-on. It's typical for the new incoming Town Council to have a retreat following an election to workshop big issues that lay ahead, but this is the first time the Town Council and School Committee have been brought together in this manner, Brown had recently told Patch.

The Town Council and School Committee members are scheduled to meet in a workshop Wednesday afternoon to address the looming school budget crisis.

While the town's school funding is an issue independent of regionalization, the issue nonetheless remains germane to the larger context for regionalization discussions, which currently are taking place on two fronts.

Middletown's own regionalization advisory committee that is separate and apart from the ad hoc island-wide committee has been meeting in recent months, charged to come up with a recommendation to present to the Town Council on whether to proceed with pursuing regionalization in some manner, with some specifics on the general advantages and an overall strategy for moving forward.

"Our planning committee is winding up and they're going to propose to the council that we should move forward," Semonelli informed the island-wide regionalization committee Monday. Middletown's committee is expected to present its proposal at the next Town Council meeting Monday, Dec. 20, he said.

Some school officials, such as School Committee Chairman Michael F. Crowley Jr., have said repeatedly that regardless of cost benefits, regionalization wouldn't be in the best interest of Middletown unless there were educational benefits too.

He reiterated this point again Tuesday night when the topic came up at the Little Compton School Committee meeting, where Middletown made a presentation pitch to bring back Little Compton High School students beginning in 2012.

At that meeting, Middletown Superintendent Rosemarie Kraeger agreed that education benefits remain the "line in the sand" for regionalization discussions, not costs, and she noted that the Middletown Public Schools District has prided itself on finding "efficiencies" to provide and expand "robust" educational and extracurricular opportunities for students, such as the Virtual High School program that offers more than 150 additional classes on a wide range of topics, and partnerships with area companies, businesses and colleges such as Salve Regina, which provided the new $1 million professional-grade football field at no cost to Middletown.

Others at Monday's island-wide meeting agreed that besides costs and the education components, a wide range of other issues important to community members inevitably will enter into the larger discussion, from cultural and geographic issues, to school pride and Thanksgiving football games.

Even if a schools regionalization proposal materializes, and it's approved by voter referendum in the 2012 Election, the build-out and execution of such a plan would still be years away, town and school officials have stated.

Until then, Aquidneck Island schools must still face tough fiscal challenges from state and federal funding streams.

On Monday, Dr. Charles Shoemaker, Chairman of the Aquidneck Island Schools/ Municipal Advisory Committee and member of the Newport School Committee, acknowledged this point and reached out to Middletown and Portsmouth school and town officials in presenting a united front on Feb. 7, 2011 to meet with state leaders and legislators to discuss the island-wide crisis and projected funding shortfalls.

"There's only so many schools you can close and so many things you can cut... You're limited to what you can do, unless they are able to give us some support at the state level," Shoemaker said. He later added, "They need to hear about the consequences…This workshop will be a mechanism for them to hear from us before the June budget season, because by then quite frankly it's just too late."

Superintendent Kraeger agreed. She also proposed that the Aquidneck Island officials use that opportunity to offer up an alternate education plan to the state that proposes some local solutions to the coming shortfalls. Like many other communities throughout Rhode Island, she noted that Middletown is limited to what cuts can be made based on state laws that govern contract negotiations.

"We will need the right tools from the state. If the state wants municipalities to be able to renegotiate contracts, we need collective bargaining laws changed," said Kraeger. "More support is needed at the state legislation level."