Council narrowly approves reduced East Providence Fiscal Year 2018-19 budget

School district absorbs $250,000 cut, tax rate increase set at 1.59 percent

By Mike Rego
Posted 10/25/18

EAST PROVIDENCE — It was as chaotic and, at times, as caustic as one might expect considering the stakes and the late hour in the process, but in the end nothing changed.

The council, by a 3-2 …

This item is available in full to subscribers.

Please log in to continue

Log in

Register to post events


If you'd like to post an event to our calendar, you can create a free account by clicking here.

Note that free accounts do not have access to our subscriber-only content.

Day pass subscribers

Are you a day pass subscriber who needs to log in? Click here to continue.


Council narrowly approves reduced East Providence Fiscal Year 2018-19 budget

School district absorbs $250,000 cut, tax rate increase set at 1.59 percent

Posted

EAST PROVIDENCE — It was as chaotic and, at times, as caustic as one might expect considering the stakes and the late hour in the process, but in the end nothing changed.

The council, by a 3-2 vote at a special session of the body Thursday night, Oct. 25, gave its second and final approval to a Fiscal Year 2018-19 budget of $185.3 million with a 1.59 percent tax increase. Councilors Robert Britto, Brian Faria and Anna Sousa voted in the affirmative while counterparts James Briden and Joseph Botelho dissented.

The council faced a hard-and-fast deadline per the City Charter to either affirm their previous vote on the budget, which took place at a similar special session the week prior, or back the initial submission of Acting City Manager/East Providence Police Chief Christopher Parella that called for a 2.9 percent tax increase and a total budget of $185.8 million.

The council voted to keep in place the decreases and reduced tax rate despite the protestations of some from the school side, including three members of the School Committee in attendance — Jessica Beauchaine, Joel Monteiro and Anthony Ferreira — there to challenge $250,000 in cuts to the district’s budget.

Their efforts, however, were to no avail.

The committee people spoke during what turned into a roughly two-hour public hearing on the budget. Actually, few members of the “public” spoke. Instead, the time was consumed by mentions of miscommunication between the bodies themselves and their respective administrators. Mostly, what occurred was attempts by some of the elected officials on the dais or at the podium to either deflect any potential blame on their parts or rationalize their eventual stances.

During the budget season, the vast majority of the council had instructed Chief Parella to trim his proposed tax increase to what they deemed a more manageable 1.5 percent.

The chief eventually returned with what he said was a bottom-line figure of 1.59 percent. To get there, he proposed cuts totaling $493,523 including: mayor’s office $78,220; Information Technology $52,989; city clerk’s office $71,698; tax assessor $25,000; highway department $10,000; streetlight purchase $50,000; buildings $55,616; and school department $150,000.

The school budget, which ultimately was reduced to $84,871,107, was trimmed by $100,000 during months-ago held discussions between Chief Parella and the city-side administration, including Finance Director Malcolm Moore and Municipal Finance Advisor Paul Luba, and School Superintendent Kathryn Crowley along with District Finance Director Craig Enos.

Chief Parella had stated helping to ease the blow a bit to the schools would be the police department’s ability to pay $50,000 for a School Resource Police Officer position.

Two nights prior to the October 25 council forum, at a School Committee meeting Superintendent Crowley and Director Enos presented the board with an itemized list of cuts the district would incur. They were/are: $20,001 from dental benefits; $20,521 from the purchase of non-essential software; $25,000 from a Special Education one-on-one healthcare professional; $120,690 from transportation; $30,000 from in-state and $24,000 out-of-state education collaborative tuitions; $12,300 from the purchase of sleeves for Chromebooks, batteries and other technology; $15,000 from furniture and fixtures; $26,974 from computer carts; and $30,514 operations software.

Those reductions did not sit well with the committee, who instructed the administration to provide the council and city-side counterparts with the exacting cuts in time for the latter's Thursday night meeting.

Then, Mr. Botelho, as he had been before, was on record supporting the draft budget submitted by Acting City Manager/East Providence Police Chief Christopher Parella back in early September, which called for a 2.9 percent tax increase including .8 percent earmarked for debt payments towards the construction of a new East Providence High School should a ballot measure pass on November 6.

Mr. Briden, who was among those councilors that urged Chief Parella to significantly reduce the draft tax increase, recanted his initial stance, he said, because he was unaware how adverse the school cuts would be.

In contrast, Messrs. Britto and Faria along with Ms. Sousa said although it was not their intention to inflict harm on the school department, they were still in favor of the other cuts Chief Parella made allowing for just the 1.59 percent property tax increase. The councilors insisted they would find the means to make amends for the school cuts in short order.

2024 by East Bay Media Group

Barrington · Bristol · East Providence · Little Compton · Portsmouth · Tiverton · Warren · Westport
Meet our staff
Jim McGaw

A lifelong Portsmouth resident, Jim graduated from Portsmouth High School in 1982 and earned a journalism degree from the University of Rhode Island in 1986. He's worked two different stints at East Bay Newspapers, for a total of 18 years with the company so far. When not running all over town bringing you the news from Portsmouth, Jim listens to lots and lots and lots of music, watches obscure silent films from the '20s and usually has three books going at once. He also loves to cook crazy New Orleans dishes for his wife of 25 years, Michelle, and their two sons, Jake and Max.