One of the state’s most influential political advocacy groups has a new leader, and it’s a familiar face for East Providence residents.

Mayor Bob DaSilva, who said in a recent interview he had been a member of the Rhode Island League of Cities and Towns since he was first elected and a member of its executive board for four years, was voted in by their nomination board during its meeting on Sept. 18 as its newest President.

“The benefit is that we get to advocate for the entire state, not just East Providence, on good policy that protects taxpayers in the long run and allows the management of the workforce to remain within the administrators,” DaSilva said when asked about his assuming of that role.

The League of Cities and Towns — which is a consortium of leaders including mayors, town managers and administrators, and members of city councils in all 39 cities and towns in Rhode Island — was founded in 1968 and has been vocal in recent years speaking out against various proposed legislation that, in their view, would have a detrimental impact on municipal budgets or the ability of municipal leaders to manage their public employees and labor unions.

“A lot of the legislation that comes in, while the legislation that gets introduced may sound wonderful, there’s severe impact on the workforce and on the taxpayers when you put in legislation that expands pension benefits, or expands disability definitions and things like that,” DaSilva said. “So it’s important to be the checks and balances.”

DaSilva specifically mentioned the League’s advocacy against the original 2023 bill that sought to provide lifetime injury pension benefits for police and firefighters in Rhode Island who are diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) stemming from events that occur on the job. Ultimately, following months of pushback from the League and other groups, an amended bill ultimately passed both chambers with more stringent definitions and requirements for such a pension to be approved.

“Post-traumatic stress is a real thing, but how you arrive at the person being classified as a person who qualifies for a pension under PTSD needs to be defined, and you need to give the employer an equal balance as to how that determination becomes a thing,” DaSilva said.

Additionally, the League was involved in the recent amendments made to the Law Enforcement Officers Bill of Rights (LEOBOR), which ultimately passed following a similar process of extensive negotiations.

“I was actually involved with meeting with the unions to negotiate a path forward where the unions felt comfortable, and the League felt comfortable, the legislators felt comfortable and the partners in the community felt comfortable,” DaSilva said. “It really is a give and take, but if you don’t have somebody looking out for the administration or for the individual cities and towns, then you’re just going to have one point of view being advocated for at the General Assembly. We are the counterpoint for that.”

DaSilva said that a top priority for him going forward in his work with the League would be looking into addressing inequities born from the state’s educational funding formula.

One local impact from the current machinations of the formula he wants to find a solution for is how funding is provided to children and adolescents who are placed in the Children’s Residential and Family Treatment Program (CRAFT) at Bradley Hospital, which is located in Riverside.

In contrast to how public school students attending schools outside of their home district are paid for by the home district, DaSilva said that the taxpayers of East Providence foot the bill for all patients of the CRAFT program, regardless of where they come from.

“This could be a child who lives in Coventry, Westerly, wherever he lives, if the parents decide to put that child into the CRAFT program at Bradley, guess who picks up the tab? The people of East Providence — which makes no sense to me,” he said. “That’s something that we’re going to be working on, not only in my capacity here as Mayor in the city, but working on that side as well with the League.”