That’s about a two percent increase overall from the current year budget.
Providence Mayor Jorge Elorza gave his third budget address Wednesday evening at City Hall. The address comes as steep financial issues loom over the city.
The city faces more than $900 million in unfunded retiree pension costs as well as a structural deficit. However, there are no new taxes in the proposed budget, and Mayor Jorge Elorza touted the city’s work to gain a better financial footing.
“We ended last year with the biggest surplus in over 20 years in our city, we’re making 100 percent of our pension contributions, and we’re doing it sooner than we have in a decade,” said Elorza.
Those pension contributions will top out at more than $70 million this year, roughly ten percent of the city’s overall $734 million budget proposal.
The proposed budget includes a number of new programs, including a new municipal ID program. It also calls for new policemen and firefighters. Mayor Elorza says one new program is paid family leave for city employees.
“We will implement a policy that will offer new parents up to six weeks of paid parental leave to care for their newborn or adopted children,” said Elorza. “This benefit will begin for all non-union employees forthwith.”
That would cover nearly 500 employees at an estimated cost of $13,000. Union employees will need to negotiate a paid family leave program through contracts. There’s already a similar state program. Elorza said one of the largest investments will be in the schools. The proposed budget includes a $3.6 million dollar increase in the city’s contribution for the district.
“I am proposing the first increase in education funding in seven years, and an overall increase in youth programs and our school department of over $7 million dollars for the upcoming fiscal year,” said Elorza.
$500,000 of that money will go to buying laptops for city school children. Providence also receives millions in state aid for schools. Last year that number topped $200 million. The budget now heads to the Providence City Council for review.
Editor’s note: This post incorrectly said the newest proposal represents an 2 percent increase from last year’s budget. It is, in fact, an increase over the current year budget. This post has also been updated to reflect that the state paid family leave policy is not specific to state workers.
