PAWTUCKET, R.I. (WPRI) — Pawtucket school committee members say they're struggling to pay the district's bills as officials warn a looming cash shortage poses a threat to the entire city's finances, Target 12 has learned.

At a meeting last Thursday, Pawtucket School Committee Chairman Gerard Charbonneau said while the issue has been growing for roughly a year, committee members only started realizing the district faced money problems when he asked to look at the departmental capital and medical reserve funds in January.

"The finances in the district are in rough shape right now," Charbonneau said at the meeting. "If anyone thinks we're going to unwind it all and put it all back together over the next month or so, I think the chances of that are slim to none."

Target 12 obtained documents from the city and schools showing the district has a negative balance in its capital reserve fund, which is where money is drawn from to pay for building projects and other big-ticket items.

Last week Pawtucket Finance Director Mark Stankiewicz wrote a letter to Superintendent Patricia Royal explaining that unless the cash-flow problem is addressed, the city would "no longer be able to make substantial contractor payments in order to reserve sufficient funds for normal operating expenses, including payroll," beginning April 15.

"Our most recent projections show that without receiving significant reimbursements for the school department construction projects, reimbursements for educational grants, or issuing a long-term borrowing, our reserves will be depleted in early May 2024," Stankiewicz wrote.

Royal — who is in her first year as superintendent — didn't immediately respond to comment on Tuesday. The Valley Breeze reported last month that the capital reserve fund showed a negative balance of $2.2 million as of mid-February. Committee members had thought it would have contained a $4 million surplus at the time.

July is the earliest the finance director estimated the city could issue bonds to help shore up the school's money problems. That means — absent some injection of cash from elsewhere — there could be weeks, if not months, when city doesn't have enough reserves to fully fund operations and construction projects.

In an interview with Target 12 on Tuesday, Stankiewicz said the city implemented a freeze on most expenditures at the start of this year "to hold down our spending." The only exceptions are for emergency hires or critical needs, he said.

Stankiewicz added that city officials are looking to help the school district, which manages its own operations. "We're here and we want to cooperate and resolve it as quickly as possible," he said.

Stankiewicz also rejected the idea that the schools weren't paying their bills, saying all invoices come to the city, which cuts the checks for vendors.

But multiple School Committee members said vendors aren't getting paid. And the nonpayment has left the schools at times lacking basic necessities, according to committee member Joanne Bonollo.

"How many purchases are being held up because of the unknown amount of money that we have?" Bonollo said at Thursday's meeting. "That's something I'd like to look into because I know at one point we were short on toilet paper and paper towels — and we have those now. But I'd like to see what other things are being held."

Part of the reason committee members and city finance officials have struggled to get answers is because the district no longer has a chief financial officer.

The former CFO, Anthony Voccio, was let go within the past two weeks and Stankiewicz said the city wasn't immediately notified. Voccio had been hired last year, replacing longtime CFO Melissa Devine, and Stankiewicz estimates about half the school's finance office has since turned over.

The staffing problem is also affecting the city's ability to submit an audit for last fiscal year to the R.I. Division of Municipal Finance and the Auditor General's Office, which is required each year of all cities and towns by Dec. 31.

Pawtucket is now facing a March 31 deadline to submit the audit, Target 12 has confirmed, which could shed more light on the city's overall financial position as of last year.

"It's a question of getting the bodies in there to produce the work," said Charbonneau, the committee chairman. "The immediate need is to allocate the funds correctly ... the city holds the cash, so our financial house has to be in order to not negatively impact the city operations."

The School Committee has scheduled another meeting for 6 p.m. on Tuesday to discuss the "critical school and city finances," according to a posted agenda.

Committee member Kimberly Grant told Target 12 she's hopeful the meeting will give the public many more answers about what's going on.

"One of the bigger questions that I have is what does this all mean, how did this happen and most importantly how do we continue to provide stability for the students in the district and what they need," Grant said. "Whatever happened should not affect the students. They should still receive what they deserve to receive and that's an education."

Alexandra Leslie contributed to this report.