PROVIDENCE — An audience of 500 educators, politicians, child advocates and business leaders met at the Rhode Island Convention Center yesterday to discuss one of the most pressing education issues facing the state — developing and enacting a fair school funding formula.

While the formula was the centerpiece of a legislative joint committee, a plan died in the final days of the session in June after two years of work.

Organizers of yesterday’s event, “A Discussion on Funding, Consolidation and Efficiency: Improving Education Funding in Rhode Island,” say they want to “refocus” attention on the topic and encourage a broad range of leaders to work together. They said they are concerned momentum might be lost with the demise of last year’s plan.

Supporters of developing a “just and equitable” school funding formula — a group that includes teacher unions, the state commissioner of education, taxpayer watchdog groups and mayors of cash-strapped cities — say the state should move quickly to establish a formula, as it will take several years to phase in.

“What we have in place right now is no formula,” said Providence Mayor David N. Cicilline. “It’s an unfair system. The status quo is not an option. We need to do something bold and different.”

According to speaker Michael Griffiths, school finance analyst for the Education Commission of the States, 38 states use a “foundation” formula that determines an adequate and equitable per pupil cost. Most formulas calculate extra money for students who cost more to educate, such as low-income and special-education students and English language learners. Just Rhode Island and Pennsylvania allocate money based on the previous year’s contribution from the state, Griffiths said.

Rhode Island ranks among the top three states that depend most heavily on local property taxes to finance schools.

Added to the lack of a funding formula was the passage last year of a Senate bill that gradually caps the amount cities and towns can raise through property taxes to finance municipal services and schools. Local officials said the bill has further handicapped them.

“The financing governance is dysfunctional,” said Warwick Mayor Scott Avedesian. “We had a $600,000 deficit in the school budget this year, and they are estimating [an even larger] deficit for next year. So you can see the immediacy of the need for a formula.”

Despite calls for action, establishing a statewide school funding formula has run into roadblocks for years, said Gary Sasse, the outgoing executive director of the business-backed policy group the Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council, one of the event’s sponsors.

“The purpose of this event is to refocus attention on the need to reform the way public education is financed in Rhode Island,” Sasse said. “But it’s a political process and you have to reach consensus. One of the reasons we have not made progress is that the proponents can’t reach agreement. We end up fighting with one another.”

This spring, after two years of work by a joint committee, lawmakers balked when estimates indicated Rhode Island would have to spend between $100 million to $600 million more a year to educate students.

The proposal was shelved in June, although the joint committee asked staff at the State House to continue to research the issue. State Rep. Edith H. Ajello, D-Providence, co-chairperson of the joint committee, says she and co-chair Sen. Hanna Gallo, D-Cranston, plan to testify before the House and Senate Finance Committees in January, Ajello said.

At yesterday’s conference, Robert G. Flanders, chairman of the state Board of Regents for Elementary and Secondary Education, announced a proposal to shift some education costs away from school districts. Flanders said the budget the regents will review tomorrow recommends that the portion of teacher pension costs now covered by local communities be gradually shifted entirely to the state over three years.

This year, the state paid about $92 million toward teacher retirement and cities and towns paid $148 million, according to the state Education Department.

Flanders proposes shrinking the local contribution by half over three years, until the state assumes the entire cost. In turn, the state would give communities less education aid each year — the same amount it used to give to cover teacher retirement costs. While the move won’t save districts money, it will begin to offer some stability to the school financing system, Flanders said.

Bill Duncombe, a professor of public administration at the Maxwell School at Syracuse University, said research is inconclusive about how much districts save by consolidation. Instead, he recommended other forms of cost saving, including state purchasing of goods and services for schools and the state helping districts with accounting and auditing procedures, two efforts now under way by the state Education Department.

jjordan@projo.com