SOUTH KINGSTON — Rhode Island’s school districts and three public colleges are poised to receive a total of $135 million in federal stimulus funds — but the state could lose the badly needed federal infusion.

To receive the “state stabilization funds” designed to protect education budgets, states must prove they have funded education from kindergarten through college at the same level, at least, since 2006. However, Rhode Island’s support for public higher education has dropped by $28 million in recent years, from $182 million to run the three colleges to $155 million this year. Now, Rhode Island must apply to the federal government for a waiver to receive the funds.

Just a handful of states are facing this dilemma, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education. At a meeting Monday night of the Board of Governors for Higher Education, Commissioner Jack R. Warner rued the decline in state support.

“A couple of years ago, the [prison] system … was receiving $155 million from the state and we received $180 million. This year, those numbers are reversed,” Warner said. “It’s just a sad statement about where we are.”

The total operational budget for the University of Rhode Island, Rhode Island College, the Community College of Rhode Island and the Office of Higher Education is about $850 million a year, most of which is paid for by tuition and fees.

Officials expect to apply for a waiver in late April, said Elliot Krieger, spokesman for the Department of Education, which oversees K-12 public education. Both education systems — K-12 and higher education — must jointly apply for the waiver, Krieger said. Governor Carcieri will submit it to the federal government.

Education officials say they are hopeful the waiver will be approved, as states must also demonstrate that the portion of the state budget dedicated to education has remained steady in recent years, even if the actual dollar amount has fluctuated. Krieger said the state can show that about 27 percent of the overall budget has gone to public elementary, secondary and higher education for the past several years.

The federal government could give Rhode Island as much as $165 million in stabilization funds, the bulk of which is supposed to go to education. Carcieri has proposed spending about $30 million on non-education related matters, including $10 million to the Station nightclub fire victims.

According to Carcieri’s spending plan, the bulk of the remaining $135 million would go to public K-12 schools. Just $22.2 million would be earmarked for the colleges — $6.6 million for the current year, and $7.8 million a year in both fiscal year 2010 and 2011. While the federal funds would be appreciated, they would not be sufficient to make up for the dramatic drop in state support for the colleges, Warner said.

“We’d need $24 million a year for the next three years to make up for it,” Warner said. “Also, we need to remember this money goes away after three years so we can’t build it into our base budgets.”

One of the intended uses of the stabilization money is to provide some tuition and fee relief to students and their families. Since the amount Rhode Island’s colleges would receive would be relatively small, that would not happen. In fact tuition and fees would rise next year at URI, RIC and CCRI, Warner said.

Massachusetts Governor Patrick, in contrast, is proposing that a recently approved $1,500 fee increase at the University of Massachusetts be largely rescinded, as that state plans to dedicate a much larger amount of its stabilization money to higher education, according to The Boston Globe.

If Carcieri’s spending plan is approved by the General Assembly, Warner said, tuition and fees at the state colleges will not climb beyond the increases set by the Board of Governors last fall — about 10 percent for the 2009-10 academic year. For 2009-10, tuition and fees at URI would total $9,528 for the year. Room and board would go up to $10,638. Out-of-state tuition and fees would go up 5 percent, to $26,026, not including room and board.

At RIC, in-state tuition and fees would increase to $6,318. Average room and board would rise to $9,054. Out-of-state tuition and fees would increase to $15,398.

At CCRI, in-state tuition and fees would increase to $3,376.

jjordan@projo.com