PROVIDENCE – Facing a fiscal shortfall after the legal settlement last month with the R.I. Department of Education that required the city to pay $15 million toward the school district's budget over the current and next fiscal year, Mayor Brett P. Smiley's administration has proposed to tap $4.4 million in remaining American Rescue Plan Act dollars to close the gap, including the last $3 million from the city’s COVID-19 Equities Program adopted in 2022 under the Jorge Elorza administration.
The Providence City Council approved the first vote during a special meeting on Dec. 2, though five of the 15 members were absent. A final vote is scheduled Thursday night.
“We cannot hesitate. We need to take action," said City Council member and Committee on Finance Chair Helen Anthony, who pointed out the U.S. Department of Treasury rules mandating municipalities allocate remaining ARPA funding by the end of the year.
“They tried very hard to spend it all in timely manner but some of [the ARPA funds] were not able to be spent,” she said.
Some feel the city didn't try hard enough.
Jim Vincent, a former president of the Providence branch of the NAACP and member of the 12-member Providence Municipal Reparations Commission, was critical that the funds were available in the first place and would be used to address a financial mandate the city would be facing whether there was a reparations program or not.
“That money was just the tip of an iceberg. It was not meant to be a solution but the first step,” he said. “We expected that money to get spent relatively quickly. To the extent it has not gone out I am disappointed.”
But Vincent added that if the remaining money needed to be redirected anywhere, education was the right move, so long as the funding could somehow be targeted directly toward student improving student achievement.
“We included programs around education [in the Equities budget], which has always been of the highest importance to me. It the great equalizer as far as I'm concerned,” he said. “So, to the extent those funds can be targeted in the spirit of equity and reparations to further those goals we set out, then I see it working.”
The administration said it has already committed $7 million of the $10 million fund. More than $6.1 million is under contract with another $930,000 set to be awarded before the federal deadline.
Among the major line items approved in the original equities budget now being redirected are the $1 million for a homeownership and financial literacy program; $50,000 to establish a history school; and $250,000 to invest in minority-controlled media firms. Other programs came in under budget or were partially spent.
The administration on Thursday acknowledged these cuts were "difficult decisions," but necessary given the outcome of the court case and the "significant scale of the budget gap Providence is now facing," said Smiley spokesperson Anthony Vega.
"While this was not the original plan for the remaining COVID-19 Equities Program funding ... the decision is aligning with one of the original priorities," he said. "This change will hopefully allow the District to improve results for our students and support a school system that fully meets the diverse needs of our community."
While Black Lives Matter RI PAC President Harrison Tuttle agreed K-12 education in the city remains “a critical area of need," he is troubled over “how these dollars have been handled from the start."
Tuttle believes the money should have already trickled down to the communities it was meant to serve.
“This was a poor execution overall. We can look back now and see these individuals that have been economically oppressed upon for generations are still struggling,” he said. “Many are facing the same issues, if not worse. This is a missed opportunity to execute a real reparations plan.”
Christopher Allen is a PBN staff writer. You may contact him at Allen@PBN.com.
