The largest portion of my workdays, over the last decade, has been spent remodeling houses in neighborhoods of Newport that appear zoned to require airy names rather than street numbers. Tourists who venture away from the Breakers, Chateau-sur-Mer, and the rest of the Bellevue arcade of opulence may spot plaques and embossed stones labeling the homes of families still in the flesh and still in the money. My sense of humor being what it is, I've dubbed my North Tiverton cottage Piddlinghouse and await only the free time and resources to whittle a name-post at the end of my driveway.

The title would be apt, given the Dickensian feel of this Christmas season. Most of the presents under our tree will be a testament to the generosity of my children's extended family - as well as the generosity of Mr. and Mrs. Claus. The legendary couple made an appearance at a recent family gathering, and the next day, the person who arranged the visit swung by Piddlinghouse with a box of like-new used clothes that the jolly Mrs. had thought we might put to good use.

Does Santa Claus exist?  I'll offer an unequivocal "yes."

As grateful as I am to the residents of Santa's Workshop, I do wish that their special attention could have been reserved for needier families than mine - which is, I suppose, another way of saying that I wish mine weren't as needy as it is. I testified to that effect when I explained to the Tiverton voters present at last May's financial town meeting that the large tax increase that they were hell-bent on imposing wasn't just $6 per week for the average household, but was, in fact, Christmas presents for my children. Actually, with a near doubling of the town's tax levy over the past decade, the sacrifice is quite a bit more substantial than that.

Supporters of higher taxes (many of whom directly profit from them) jeered at me that morning. One can presume that they've been satisfied to read about municipal and school district surpluses in the range of a million dollars for fiscal year 2010, which ended last June.  With every $300,000 in local government spending roughly corresponding to 1% in property taxes, however, that's around 4% in tax increases that didn't have to happen even by big-spending standards.

The latest budget-related controversy has to do with Treasurer Phil DiMattia's reclamation, with the Town Council's unanimous support, of more than a third-of-a-million dollars that the school department spent in excess of their local appropriation for FY10. There is sure to be a blizzard of wasted communication as representatives and residents talk past each other on this issue, but when the flurry settles, the basic facts will prove to be as follows:

• At the May 9, 2009, financial town meeting, resident Sanford Mantell successfully amended the school department's appropriation to $24,900,722, "comprising $20,047,960 for operating and capital budgets from local sources, and for general state aid of $4,852,762."
• A last-minute decrease in state aid, in June 2010, however, brought total general state aid to $4,476,597 (which includes $293,067 in federal stimulus dollars).
• Basic arithmetic shows the financial town meeting's estimate of state aid to be $367,165 higher than actually materialized, and the schools claim that Tiverton's voters promised them the total, whether it ultimately comes from local property taxes or the State of Rhode Island.

It wasn't until auditors sought to balance the town's books, after the close of the fiscal year, that it became clear that the school department had spent hundreds of thousands of local taxpayer money to replace state money that never arrived. With the facts laid out on the table, it may seem odd that local officials can't keep track of what money belongs to what department, but there's a complicating factor. The town also acts as a go-between for large payments from the state and federal governments intended for specific educational purposes, such as special education and targeted literacy programs. 

Because the local district can't redirect these funds for other uses, the school department calls them "restricted" and doesn't include them in public budget conversations. But obviously, any money that might otherwise have been budgeted for the same purposes becomes available. If you win a month's mortgage payment through a radio show contest, you may not be able to use that check to pay off your credit cards, but you also don't have to pay your mortgage for a month.

In FY10, mainly because of federal stimulus spending, Tiverton Schools received $698,563 more in restricted funds than they did in FY09. It's also important to note that part of the state's reduction in aid was directly related to pension reforms that saved the school district $284,613; the state just didn't give the town money it no longer needed to spend.

As the attached charts show, the total revenue for the Tiverton school district was about $27 million in fiscal year 2010 - about $2.5 million more than the financial town meeting "promised." If we include pension reform in the total, the department had roughly an additionall $600,000 in revenue in FY10 compared with FY09; if we don't include pension reform, the increase was about $900,000.

In the shadow of these gargantuan numbers, a moral, compassionate school committee would direct schools Superintendent William Rearick to call his lawyer off the litigious attack, allowing Treasurer DiMattia to add $367,165 to the $922,420 in municipal surplus from FY10. Then, the Town Council and Budget Committee ought to thaw those frozen dollars as a tax cut.

With the return of this gift that we were compelled to give the town, the lady of Piddlinghouse may not find it necessary to wrap used tools donated by toy-making elves for her carpenter husband, next Christmas.

(Figures pertaining to federal restricted aid have been corrected as of Wednesday, Dec. 22. This update does not affect the $367,165 currently under contention.)