The budget for the fiscal year running from Nov. 1, 2026 to Oct. 31, 2027 passed through the East Providence City Council by a 3-2 vote during their meeting on Oct. 13.

The budget, which amounts to a grand total of $241,580,171 (with $209,930,748 funding the city’s operating expenses and the remainder encompassing the city’s enterprise fund), will require a projected 3.5% increase to the tax levy over last year, which the city has projected will result in an estimated 2.5% increase in the residential property tax rate next year.

The budget includes just over $1 million in capital spending, a comparatively small number to previous budgets that encompasses only three items — road paving throughout the city for $750,000; a $250,000 match to activate a portion of a $4.2 million federal grant to fix traffic signals around the city; and $84,667 for one new police vehicle.

There were no major alterations made to the budget by council members, and only one change in general; a $20,000 transfer from the city council’s budget that went into the Office of Municipal Integrity to hire a part-time employee (without health insurance).

When it came time to vote, Council President Bob Rodericks, Council Vice President Frank Rego, and Ward 3 Councilman Frank Fogarty voted in favor. Ward 4 Councilman, Rick Lawson, and Ward 2 Councilwoman, Anna Sousa, voted against the budget.

“Once again, Oldham has been ignored,” Lawson said, explaining his vote, referencing the former Oldham School on Bullocks Point Avenue. “We have been talking about turning this into a building for the community and it’s been a nonstop struggle to get this administration to take care of a public-owned building.”

Lawson added that he wasn’t happy with the school budget, and not putting more money into capital to maintain buildings.

Prior to voting on the budget, Sousa said to city finance director, Glenda Delgado, that it was troubling to her that the city was not projecting a surplus for the second year in a row, and agreed that the school’s budgetary trouble would continue to affect the city, as it ultimately is the city’s responsibility to fund the schools.

“We know how budgets go,” she said. “Once you start not making a surplus, it only goes in the opposite direction; typically.”

After voting, Sousa made a more pointed statement about the budget and what she believed to be a troubling financial trend.

“Either you’re okay with the budget or you’re not okay. This is an election budget. This isn’t a fiscally responsible budget,” she said. “Last year we did not end the fiscal year in a positive. We are not projected to end the fiscal year coming up that we just approved in the positive. So how do we approve, continuously, budgets that are not in the positive? The city is spending more money than it is generating with the hopes that it will create new revenue and bring in new revenue.”

Sousa, like Lawson, brought up the small capital fund in the year’s budget as a “red flag”, and said the city should be seeking ways to make cuts to be able to better fund capital projects. She raised concerns that the city has just $1.3 million in its capital reserve account.

“Nobody wants to make cuts. It doesn’t feel good. It doesn’t look good,” she said. “But at the end of the day we have to, as a city, make these financial decisions and make it work so that we can put money into the capital improvement. It’s ridiculous that we’re going to drain the capital improvement and we’ve got nothing to put in it. That’s a serious red flag to me that we can’t even add money into that fund.”

Mayor responds

Throughout two budget workshops in previous weeks, city department heads and Mayor Bob DaSilva framed the FY27 budget as one that makes the most of a difficult financial situation — one where a large, looming school deficit, increases to fixed costs such as healthcare and pension fund obligations, and contractual salary raises have largely driven expenses.

At the same time, DaSilva reasoned that the city has continued to experience healthy economic growth that has lowered the tax burden on residents to levels below national and regional inflation rates, while investing in the building of two new schools and renovation projects at others, while beautifying and updating its parks and public spaces.

On Tuesday night, following the vote, DaSilva responded to the criticism levied by the two dissenting councilors.

He said that the city is being hit hard at the moment by debt service payments on the some $300 million in borrowing they entered to build and renovate the aforementioned school buildings. He said that when reimbursement payments start coming in from the most recent bonded projects at Martin Middle School and Waddington, the city should start seeing some financial relief. He said he had full confidence in new superintendent, Dr. Robert Perry, to right the district’s ship.

DaSilva said approving this budget with a tax increase was the opposite of an easy or convenient political decision.

“Like you said, Councilwoman Sousa, this is an election year, but this is not an election budget,” he said. “An election budget would be a budget that didn’t raise taxes, didn’t properly fund the operations of city government, so I can go around telling everybody I didn’t raise taxes. What these council people did right here is they did the right thing by taking a difficult vote in an election year. They should be applauded and praised for taking a difficult vote in an election year.”

“The easy vote is the 'nay' vote,” he continued. “The easy vote is underfunding the budget with a 0% increase and then you can say, 'Look, I’m a hero.' The reality is we are a thriving community. I speak to people from across the state about how great East Providence is doing. So I want to thank you, even the people who voted nay, for your due diligence and going over this budget. This was not an easy budget.”