Governor should do cost-benefit analysis

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To the Editor:

It’s been said that a new broom sweeps clean. However, that certainly is not the case regarding Governor Gina Raimondo’s budget proposal, which eliminates state funding for transporting students to private and parochial schools. Instead of sweeping clean she’s just scattering old dirt around.

It appears that the governor is attempting to play the “Gotcha Game” with Bishop Tobin and the Catholic Diocese of Providence. Her efforts to eliminate these transportation costs apparently is directed at students who attend Catholic Schools. The idea seems to be a plan to get even with Bishop Tobin for the churches opposition to her position on sensitive issues where the governor and church disagree.

The idea that the state and its 39 cities and towns and public school districts will save money by eliminating these costs is wrong. 

It does not take a Rhodes Scholar to figure out that every student who attends a private or parochial school is saving the state and the taxpayers a substantial amount of money each year. If you do a cost-benefit analysis on the per pupil costs of sending a child to a public school versus the per pupil costs of providing school bus transportation to children attending private or parochial schools the results shows that there is a substantial cost savings to pay for the school bus transportation.

The following hypothetical example confirms that. If there are 60 students attending a private or parochial school and the per pupil costs to send these same 60 students to a public school is $16,000. a year the annual costs to the local taxpayers equals $960,000 Conversely, if these same 60 students are provided school bus transportation and the per pupil costs for the buses is $7,000 a year the annual costs equals $420,000. That represents an annual savings of $540,000. In addition, the costs of paying for a public education is amortized into the local tax rate so a property owner who pays tuition to a private or parochial school is paying for the costs of a public school education as well.

Governor Raimondo’s proposal is a bad idea and leaves a lot to be desired. The R.I. House of Representatives should end this nonsense immediately by returning this funding to the state budget.

James M. Mageau

Charlestown

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