Cranston Mayor Hopkins Loses Budget Battle

Cranston Mayor Hopkins Loses Budget Battle

Cranston Mayor Ken Hopkins took a battering in his first budget. The Cranston City Council passed their own budget and overrode Hopkins' veto by a 7-2 margin.

Hopkins attacked the move, “The decision of the Cranston City Council to override the veto messages that I exercised for the adopted 2021-2022 budget passed last week is both disappointing and concerning to me as Chief Executive.”

“Their actions tonight are a loss for the taxpayers of our city. I had proposed a balanced no tax increase budget. In failing to sustain my vetoes, they have reaffirmed a budget with the creation of an unnecessary position in the Board of Canvassers; paid a part-time lawyer $42,000 with a 75% pay increase; overestimated revenue expected in the next fiscal year; and established a slush fund for city council spending with little disclosed expenditures,” said Hopkins.

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Councilor John Donegan (D Ward 3) said, “No budget is perfect, but the one adopted by the City Council made significant improvements from the one presented to us by the Mayor.  With bipartisan support, the Council approved net-neutral amendments to create programs and add positions that will directly benefit our community."

Donegan said the Council’s budget features:

A full-time Bilingual Elections Specialist position in the Board of Canvassers Dept. This position will help to ensure that our elections are more accessible for everyone.
A full-time Inspections position to help ensure code compliance.
$20,000 in the Parks & Recreation budget for program aid to assist low-income families who want to send their children to Cranston Park & Rec summer camps and programs.
$10,000 for the Diversity Commission to allow them to offer programs and training.
Money set aside to help upgrade City Council chambers to meet safety protocols for the eventual return to in-person meetings, as well as investing in technological upgrades to allow for hybrid meetings to continue.
Money in the capital budget to improve the Bike Path.

Loyalist Defects

Councilor Ed Brady (R Ward 4) -- a Hopkins loyalist -- split with the Mayor on the budget and voted to override his veto.

“Mayor Hopkins and our administration did an excellent job with this year's budget coming out of a pandemic. His team has consistently been at the forefront of reopening the economy and moving Rhode Island forward over the last 5 months.  The mayor submitted his team's budget to the city council 8 weeks ago meeting the deadline of our city charter,” said Brady.

“Since his submission, we acquired additional information with Covid restrictions being lifted and we were able to find areas where revenues would increase to make net neutral changes on our amendments. With additional projected revenues we were able to fund two new positions requested by specific departments in addition to making additional investments in arts, diversity and other areas we found to be critical throughout Cranston. We are not always going to agree with Mayor Hopkins but I have found our mayor to be a great listener and leader who consistently finds a way to be in the middle making for a great bipartisan leader for our Cranston community,” added Brady.

Donegan said the effort was bipartisan, “Some of these amendments were sponsored by Democrats, and some by Republicans; although not always unanimous, they received bipartisan support. These expenditure increases were made by reducing expenditures elsewhere in the budget and increasing revenues to more accurately reflect projections.

Donegan rejected Hopkins comments about the budget being balanced on the one-time federal funding, “The Council made no expenditure increases in the operating budget using one-time revenue plugs; for anyone to suggest or insinuate otherwise is inaccurate.”

Hopkins said, “As Mayor, I will take the necessary steps to preserve our financial health and protect Cranston taxpayers. The City Council fell short of their responsibility this evening.”