Warwick Lawsuit Fallout: State Tuition-Formula Fix Could Raise What South Kingstown Pays to Send Students to Narragansett

The South Kingstown School Committee spent part of a budget-planning workshop Tuesday sorting through a newly disclosed state decision that could reshape how much the district pays other communities to educate its students — a change that traces back to a lawsuit filed by Warwick against the state over how tuition costs are calculated statewide.

According to the committee's published meeting recording, a district finance official told the committee that Rhode Island's education department has decided, in response to Warwick's suit, that so-called out-of-district tuition — the per-pupil rate one district pays another when it sends students there, often for career and technical education programs — must be calculated differently than districts have done for years. Districts had been billing based on the sending student's own per-pupil cost, minus certain capital expenses. Under the state's new guidance, tuition is instead supposed to be an average of the sending and receiving districts' per-pupil costs.

The official said South Kingstown officials only recently identified the change and are still working through what it means for the district's own numbers. "Everybody in the state was doing this," the official said, describing Rhode Island's education department as effectively telling districts to treat the old method as "past be the past" and calculate correctly going forward. The decision remains under appeal and is not final.

The practical effect for South Kingstown, the official explained, depends entirely on which district is on the other end of the calculation. South Kingstown's own per-pupil cost is high compared with most communities it sends students to, the official said — for the coming fiscal year, the district's per-pupil figure was cited as roughly $21,500. Averaging that high number with a lower-cost receiving district's rate would pull the tuition rate down, meaning South Kingstown would pay less. But Narragansett, the official said, has a per-pupil cost that runs even higher than South Kingstown's — and Narragansett is where the district sends its largest number of out-of-district students. Averaging South Kingstown's rate with Narragansett's higher one would push the tuition rate up, meaning the district would likely pay more to send students there. The official said South Kingstown's second-largest out-of-district enrollment goes to Chariho, with 139 students, followed by North Kingstown, both of which have lower per-pupil costs than South Kingstown.

The official estimated the statewide financial impact of the recalculation at "at the very least" $50 million, though South Kingstown's own net effect is still unclear. "We're pretty close to a break even," the official told the committee, cautioning that final numbers won't be available until the district recalculates this year's tuition obligations for every district it sends students to.

Committee members asked how the district is protecting its position. The official said South Kingstown is not part of the Warwick litigation directly — a separate attorney represents Warwick's interests in that case, while another attorney represents South Kingstown's interests in the broader dispute over the calculation. One committee member noted the local property-tax share of school funding had already been rising for other reasons, including declining enrollment paired with rising coastal property values, making any additional tuition cost increase unwelcome timing.

No vote was taken on the tuition issue Tuesday; it was presented as background for the committee's early work on its fiscal year 2028 budget planning. The finance official said the district plans to bring in the attorney handling the matter for a fuller legal explanation at a future meeting once the recalculation and appeal status are further along. The committee did not set a specific date for that follow-up discussion.