In the sea of woe that marks the springtime budget season for many cities and towns comes a bit of good news.

Its harbinger: a consortium of municipalities and school districts that have become self-insured for the purposes of purchasing health insurance for their employees.

The Governmental Health Group of Rhode Island has announced that it will return a total of $1 million to its 13 members in the East Bay and the northern corner of Rhode Island, including Woonsocket and Central Falls school departments.

The distribution, planned for the budget cycle beginning July 1, marks the second time that the three-year-old GHGRI will have returned a portion of the cost of health insurance premiums to its members.

David P. Faucher, president of GHGRI, yesterday attributed the windfalls to two underlying factors:

•A good claims experience, with the group paying out about 93 percent of the cost of premiums for the current fiscal year.

•A declining administrative charge from Blue Cross-Blue Shield, which processes the claims, as a result of competition between that insurer and UnitedHealth.

During its three-year history, GHGRI has built up a sizeable cash reserve — $3.4 million — and continuing operating surpluses, according to Faucher, who works as finance director in Portsmouth.

The first year, the group chalked up an operating surplus of $915,000 to “beginner’s luck” and used the money to buttress its reserves in the event of cost overruns, Faucher said.

After the second operating year closed last June 30 with a surplus of $2.7 million, the group agreed to turn back to members 40 percent of that amount, or $1.1 million.

With GHGRI now three-quarters of the way through its third year of operation, it is running $2.1 million ahead of budget, giving it enough confidence to project a $1 million distribution for the next fiscal year at a time when member communities are still trying to finalize their budgets, Faucher said.

All communities are wrestling with the impact of reduced revenues — a ripple effect of the state budget crisis — and property tax relief legislation that will limit the growth in local property levies to no more than 5 percent.

The windfall will be especially welcome in at least two school districts — Portsmouth and Tiverton — which have not yet figured out a way to balance their budgets for the next academic year.

The Portsmouth schools will receive $86,261.06 — about half of a projected revenue gap of about $168,000.

Schools Supt. Susan F. Lusi said yesterday that she will recommend the GHGRI distribution be applied toward 2008-09 revenues and that the remainder of the gap be made through staff reductions and the “management” of line item expenses during the fiscal year. She did not elaborate on any cuts in personnel, which would be submitted to the School Committee for approval.

Tiverton schools will receive $66,524.38. The school district’s director of finance, Doug Fiore, said he would recommend that the distribution be applied toward health-care costs in the 2009-10 school year, since the earlier rebate has already been committed to lowering premiums in the upcoming budget cycle, beginning July 1.

The Tiverton School Department faces an unresolved revenue gap of $125,000 for the 2008-09 fiscal year.

Faucher said all the current members joined at the inception of the Governmental Health Group of Rhode Island, which began operations July 1, 2005. The group has signed up several new members effective July 1.

Another similar consortium also purchases health insurance for governmental agencies, but that group — West Bay Community Health — expects its members to provide their own contingency funds.

Governmental Health Group of Rhode Island shares the risk among all its members, Faucher said.

Besides the Tiverton and Portsmouth school departments, the existing members and their shares of the $1 million distribution are: the Bristol Warren Regional School District, $146,742.13; the Central Falls school district, $93,095.76; Little Compton, $8,801.17; the Little Compton school district; $10,288.02; Middletown, $41,511.79; the Middletown School District, $72,064.08; Newport, $108,875.51; the Newport school district, $109,906.71; Portsmouth, $30,216.55; the Portsmouth Water and Fire District, $1,774.62; Tiverton, $30,096.65; the Woonsocket Education Department, $193,841.58.

Faucher said the North Kingstown school district, as well as the towns of Charlestown, Richmond and Hopkinton, have all voted to join the group July 1. Other new members will be the town and schools of North Smithfield, Smithfield, and Burrillville, he said.

gmacris@projo.com