Providence Mayor Smiley Threatens Budget Cuts

The city is waiting on a Superior Court judgment that could require it to kick in additional millions in school funding

Mayor Brett Smiley warned the city could significant budget cuts if forced to pour millions into school funding.
Mayor Brett Smiley warned the city could significant budget cuts if forced to pour millions into school funding.
Nina Sparling / The Public’s Radio
Share
Mayor Brett Smiley warned the city could significant budget cuts if forced to pour millions into school funding.
Mayor Brett Smiley warned the city could significant budget cuts if forced to pour millions into school funding.
Nina Sparling / The Public’s Radio
Providence Mayor Smiley Threatens Budget Cuts
Copy

Libraries. Parks. Summer programming for kids. The latest phase of the legal battle between city and state over funding the Providence School Department could mean significant reductions in these and other essential city services, Mayor Brett Smiley announced at a press conference on Tuesday.

“We’re going to have no choice but to have harmful, harmful cuts,” Smiley said. “(They) are going to impact the very same children and families that the school department says that they’re trying to help.”

City employees could face a furlough, Smiley said. New hires and discretionary spending are already on pause. Tax increases are on the table, Smiley warned.

This story was reported by The Public’s Radio. You can read the entire story here.

A $15.2 billion budget approved by the House would raise taxes on millionaires, create a state inspector general’s office and preserve Rhode Island’s 2033 renewable energy target
The Pulitzer Prize-winning scholar of the American Revolution taught at Brown University for decades and was one of the country’s most influential historians
The legislation comes after a scathing report that detailed decades of clergy abuse and potential cover-ups within the Diocese of Providence
Why is progress on the state’s top hurdles so elusive?
A new state report lays out the numbers behind a familiar problem: fewer doctors, longer waits and growing barriers to care
Wilbury’s ‘Girl from the North Country’ brings Bob Dylan’s music to a moving Great Depression-era story, while the Gamm’s ‘Cat on a Hot Tin Roof’ delivers big performances for a towering classic