Just as the East Providence School Committee was convening its scheduled meeting Tuesday night, Sept. 22, City Council President and Mayor Tommy Rose issued a scathing press release criticizing the board’s plan to undo consolidation of the Human Resources Department.
Mr. Rose called the plan, which he wrote will come with a cost of approximately $600,000 annually, “grossly wasteful.”
He continued, “They are voting to undo another major part of the cost cutting consolidation measures which were adopted by the state Budget Commission. They have already separated the buildings and grounds departments and now this. There are necessary school repairs everywhere, the swimming pool at East Providence High School remains closed and is an embarrassment to the entire city and even with the proposed raises for our teachers, they remain the lowest paid in the state and these people want to create new high paying jobs for the front office. This is outrageous.”
The School Committee began discussing the break up of the HR Department, which the Budget Commission did in fact consolidate back in 2013, some two months ago. The move even gained the public support of state-appointed Municipal Finance Director Paul Luba back in August.
The Committee apparently expected the Council to take up the matter, but the city-side elected officials have yet to do so. Ward 4 representative Tim Conley put an item about the topic on the Council docket for its September 15 meeting, but he eventually deferred bringing it up for discussion.
Tuesday, Mr. Rose came out blasting, blaming the Committee for the conditions of schools, lack of hiring and retaining teachers among a host of charges.
“While discussions and actual decisions are taking place all over the state to consolidate government services to save money, our school department is determined to go in the opposite direction,” Mr. Rose wrote. “They are asking the city to give them $4 million dollars more in this budget cycle and they are ready to do this. We’re losing teachers to other communities because of our low pay, we have schools were repairs are long overdue and this is the way they want to spend taxpayer funds? They are not even hiring people to teach our kids or buying new books and supplies. They are loading up on high pay jobs for administrators.
“As the school committee is fond of saying, they are taking money away from the kids. What are they thinking? Don’t they remember how bleak our city finances were such a short time ago? On top of all this, to undo Budget Commission decisions, a vote of the city council is required. They are blatantly ignoring that. It is my belief that a majority of the council does not support this financial waste. For the school committee to be doing this on the eve of budget deliberations, which includes their $4 million dollar tax increase,is the height of arrogance. If their position is that they have the funds, then they have been hiding money. Otherwise, what they propose to do will come directly out of the pockets of the citizens of East Providence. This councilman vows to do everything possible to not allow that to happen.”
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