Strained local and state finances reached a breaking point over the past week, and helped lead to three teacher strikes and discord over contracts in several other school districts.

Education leaders and union officials said that while the strikes were regrettable, they were not unexpected, following the decision by lawmakers in June to “level fund” state education aid at last year’s amounts and the impact of a new state law that limits how much municipalities can raise property taxes to pay for schools.

Many cities and towns say they simply don’t have enough money — and have no way of getting more — to pay for salary raises or the escalating costs associated with health and pension benefits for teachers.

“Between those two acts, there is a vise grip being tightened here,” said Peter McWalters, state commissioner of elementary and secondary education, who criticized the teacher strikes as unprofessional and inappropriate. “I understand the pressure, but it only hurts the kids.”

Union officials said conflict was inevitable, as districts grapple with increasingly restricted budgets and salary and health costs continue to rise.

“We predicted this would happen,” said Robert A. Walsh Jr., executive director of the National Education Association of Rhode Island, which represents 28 teacher locals. “We believe this is bad government decision-making and we believe they have a responsibility to fix it. They are killing public education.”

State Republicans lashed out at unions, saying the strikes are “disrupting the start of the school year for tens of thousands of students and creating chaos for families scrambling for childcare arrangements.”

“This state faces a serious fiscal crisis,” Giovanni Cicione, chairman of the state Republican Party, said in a statement. “The unions have got to be told that the days of getting their way on every issue are over and they’re going to have to learn that their demands exceed what communities can afford.”

But union leaders, and other groups unhappy with the school financing pressures, say the state has let municipalities down by not creating a statewide school financing formula that would relieve the pressure on local property taxes. Rhode Island ranks third highest in the country in its reliance on property taxes to finance education.

“It’s true that school committees in general are holding unions to a much harder line than they have in the past because they are looking at the limited resources they have and are cognizant of the fact that the money is just not there,” said Tim Duffy, executive director of the Rhode Island Association of School Committees. “But what is playing out this fall should serve to make the legislature prioritize discussions about finding a solution to the education funding formula issue.”

If lawmakers do not move swiftly to establish a “fair, equitable and adequate” funding formula — a project they have already spent two years studying with few solid results — next autumn could see a repetition of this year’s conflict and disruption, Duffy said.

TENSIONS WERE EXPOSED in Burrillville, Tiverton and East Greenwich, where teachers voted to strike over the past several days, and in West Warwick, where teachers agreed to do only the bare minimum required by contract, a decision called “work-to-rule.” West Warwick teachers are angered by the district’s decision to not honor a fourth year of the existing teacher contract; administrators say they cannot afford it.

Three other districts also do not have new contracts in place and are currently in mediation: Exeter-West Greenwich, Ponaganset, which is shared by Foster and Glocester, and Providence.

The state law governing teacher contract negotiations does not give teachers the right to strike. In fact, teacher strikes have been ruled illegal by the state Supreme Court. But one or two teacher strikes a year are not uncommon, and usually end when a judge orders teachers back to the classroom while mediation or arbitration resumes.

The last time Rhode Island experienced more than two teacher work stoppages was sixteen years ago. In 1991, five districts went on strike after the state cut local aid to cities and towns by 11 percent.

“It strikes me that in 1991, the state was in the middle of the banking crisis and that was the last time the state was this draconian [with state education aid],” McWalters said. “The state actually took money back that year.”

In June, lawmakers eliminated a 3-percent increase to cities and towns in state education aid — a cut of $19.4 million — saying local communities needed to “get a better hold of their finances before we are willing to commit large amounts of money,” said state Rep. Robert B. Jacquard, D-Cranston, who chairs the subcommittee on education for the powerful House Finance Committee.

“My feeling overall is that the support for local education aid has really diminished and I just don’t think the support was there this year,” Jacquard said. Poorer communities receive a large share of the state education aid, while wealthier communities receive 10 percent or less of their education costs from the state and rely heavily on local property tax.

“You’ve got 75 members of the House,” Jacuard said, “and when you look at $20 million or $30 million, rural and suburban districts see almost no effect [of that aid] on their school budgets.”

MEANWHILE, A STATE law known as Senate Bill 3050 also went into effect this year; the law gradually lowers the cap on the amount cities and towns can raise through property taxes to finance municipal services and schools. The intent of the bill was to control escalating property taxes and force communities to analyze and rein in spending, not encourage teachers to strike, said state Senate Majority Leader, M. Teresa Paiva-Weed, a Newport Democrat who designed the bill.

But the property-tax cap was never intended to solve the problem of school financing — that must come from the development of a statewide school financing formula, which Paiva-Weed says she will push lawmakers to focus on this year.

“I think there needs to exist a willingness of our cities and towns to give up some of their control, and a willingness of the state to accept responsibility,” she said. “It is my hope we can overcome the natural tendency cities and towns have to keep education local and we can work together to achieve savings.”

jjordan@projo.com