Council approves East Providence's FY2021-22 operational budget

Initial tax increase would be 1.37 percent, but could drop significantly if federal grant monies are received

By Mike Rego
Posted 10/6/21

EAST PROVIDENCE — The City Council passed the Fiscal Year 2021-22 budget ordinance for East Providence by a 3-2 vote at a meeting of the body Tuesday night, Oct. 5.

The $202,263,889 sum …

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Council approves East Providence's FY2021-22 operational budget

Initial tax increase would be 1.37 percent, but could drop significantly if federal grant monies are received

Posted

EAST PROVIDENCE — The City Council passed the Fiscal Year 2021-22 budget ordinance for East Providence by a 3-2 vote at a meeting of the body Tuesday night, Oct. 5.

The $202,263,889 sum approved covers $177,570,346 in operational expenditures for the city and school department as well as $24,693,543 for the Water Division, which is a self-sustaining, revolving fund entity.

The total figure represents a combined spending increase of $8,208,328 (or 4.8 percent) over the previous year. The city’s operating expenditures would increase by $6,586,079 million (8.1 percent) and the school department’s by $1,622,249 (1.8 percent).

The budget required one passage. Two other fiscal year ordinances, to allow for the city to collect levies necessary and to borrow monies through Tax Anticipatory Notes (TANs), needed two approvals. Both garnered that last week and will need one more before each can be enacted.

The budget, proposed by the administration of Mayor Bob DaSilva and eventually accepted by the council nearly as submitted, potentially includes a 1.37 percent across the board (residential, commercial and tangible) property tax increase due largely in part to restaffing the East Providence Fire Department to levels commensurate with industry and contractual manpower guidelines.

However, the city has applied for and anticipates receiving $7.3 million over three years in federal SAFER (Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response) grant monies in support of the department. Those monies would fund the salaries of some two dozen hires over the span of the grant and in FY21-22 reduce the tax high to just .59 percent.

If the 1.37 percent holds, however, it would cost $59 more in taxes for owners of properties valued at $232,000, the median for residential parcels in the city, according to Finance Director Malcolm Moore. The estimated tangible increase with the same percentage hike, Moore said, would be $56.17 per $1,000 in value from $55.41 per.

Councilors Bob Britto, Bob Rodericks and Nate Cahoon voted in favor of the budget with peers Ricardo Mourato and Anna Sousa opting against.

The budget takes effect on November 1 and runs through October 31, 2022. Of note as well, the city is currently engaged in a state-mandated revaluation of properties, which takes place every three years. Property values will not be finalized until sometime in the first half of 2022 calendar year, but no later than the end of May.

Lastly, the budget includes some $2 million in Capital Improvement line items. As it has done in the past, the council approved the total figure, but opted to hold a separate session to discuss and/or adopt those expenditures.

The same trio of councilors voted to approve the budget last fall while FY21-22 marked the second year in a row Mourato has voted against it. Sousa, joined by Britto, voted against the FY19-20, but was absent from the formal proceedings last fiscal year due to work commitments.

Mourato, referring to research documents he compiled with concerns he had with the expenditures, said one of his objections to the FY21-22 budget was a proposal to consolidate the dispatchers for the police and fire departments into a single center located at Fire Station No. 3 in Rumford.

He also noted his opposition was due to a lack of certainty in the property revaluations, a plan to hire a dozen employees in various city-side departments, him having not yet received the latest audit of the previous year’s budget and the uncertainty around the SAFER grant funding.

Rodericks and Mourato differed in opinion about how the dispatcher center was indicated in the budget, if at all.

Cahoon said he was “having a hard time following the logic” of Mourato, the Ward 4 member, from year-to-year. The Ward 3 rep noted Mourato had fought to include expenditures for his district last year, but ultimately opted against the final version.

“I don’t have any particular issue with a particular council person’s view on something or not,” Cahoon added. “I do have an issue with the implication that someone is doing their homework and someone else is not. That is not the case.”

Mourato, who requested a week’s delay so he could potentially get the answers from the administration to his questions, said his vote last year was not pertinent and it was not his intention to imply others were not prepared. He said his stance this year was “what I truly believe in. This is not rhetoric. This is not politicized. This is what I truly believe in. It doesn’t make sense to me.”

In response, Cahoon, who has voted for the budget during each of the three sessions during the current four-year council term, said, “I totally get it. And every year we have to vote on the budget and we take turns with the two people who want to say, ‘I’m supporting the taxpayers and I’m against the tax increase, so I’m not going to vote for the budget this year.’

“So, you’re not going to vote for the budget this year. Totally get it. So that puts me in the position of being the person who is not going to vote for it or the person who is going to vote for it so we can have a budget. O.K. so that’s what it comes down to.”

(Updated, October 10, 10 a.m.: Read Mourato's further explanation of his vote here...)

Sousa, like Mourato, questioned the dispatch situation and sought the thoughts of counsel. City Solicitor Michael Marcello said it was within the purview of the mayor to do so because it was an “accounting” change, not the creation of a new department.

She also said a quite a few aspects included in the budget were dependent on federal or state grant monies. Sousa wondered, once those grants end in the future “if they become tax burdens that we’re not thinking about right now.”

Council president Britto told his counterpart Director Moore had previously indicated the city expects to have off-set funding in place in the coming years because its current bond obligations will be lowered as they mature during that time.

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MIKE REGO

Mike Rego has worked at East Bay Newspapers since 2001, helping the company launch The Westport Shorelines. He soon after became a Sports Editor, spending the next 10-plus years in that role before taking over as editor of The East Providence Post in February of 2012. To contact Mike about The Post or to submit information, suggest story ideas or photo opportunities, etc. in East Providence, email mrego@eastbaymediagroup.com.