Good evening.

This time I'd like to call this uh special meeting for the introduction of the uh mayor's budget to order.

I ask the clerk to please call a roll.

Present conspiracy present present traffic presentri, present Casper Campiano, present.

Present Vice President Heroyan, present, Council President Wall.

Here thank you.

First item of business will be the introduction of new matters before the council.

Um these matters will be referred uh to public hearings in the appropriate subcommittee, um, and they are listed for informational purposes only.

Um while the hearing dates before the appropriate subcommittees have been established, they are of course subject to change.

The current information related to the public hearings, and the public is encouraged to consult the city calendar on the city's website.

Pursuant the first item we're going to look at pursuant to the charter six point zero three of the city charter welcomes Mayor Kenneth J.

Hopkins to deliver his budget message and introduce the city's operating budget for the fiscal year beginning July first, two thousand twenty-six and ending on June thirtieth, two thousand twenty-seven.

Mayor, when you're ready, feel free to step up to the podium.

Thank you, Council President.

Good evening, everyone.

Honorable members of the city council and to the people of Cranston, those that are here tonight, and those that are watching at home.

Alongside me, interim finance director, Mike Igo, my nominee for new finance director, Bob Strom, my chief of staff, Anthony Moretti, and every department head who gave us honest numbers, worked with us to reorganize our workforce where necessary, and found efficiencies in their departments.

Its streets, its neighborhoods, its schools, its parks, its business corridors.

Preparing for its two hundred fifty celebration this summer.

In the state support from Speaker Shikauchi.

A historic corridor has now become a destination.

Rod families live.

We also allotted 1.2 million dollars in federal grants to upgrade Brayton Park.

That is now beginning.

That is so our girls will have one of the best softball complexes in New England.

And I see Aqueduct Road where the new aquatic center and splash pad is taking shape.

Cranston families will be swimming and having fun and picnicking by July of this year.

And then there are the schools.

In 2020, we asked Cranston voters to invest 147 million dollars in their children's futures.

Nearly 80 percent of the city said yes.

We built the new Garden City School, now touted by Ride as a statewide model.

We transformed Eden Park, and we are doing the same at the Apprentice Exploration School, one of my favorites.

We broke ground two years ago on the new eighty-three million dollar Gladstone Elementary opening this fall.

I say all of this not to avoid what comes next, but because everything we have built together depends on a city government that is financially strong to keep on building.

And tonight, that is exactly what I'm here to talk about.

In February, the Rhode Island Auditor General contacted my administration with some serious concerns about the city's financial position.

Our reserves, our internal service fund accounts, and the trajectory of our spending relative to our revenues.

His assessment was direct.

So was mine.

What matters is what happens next.

We didn't wait for someone to force our hand.

We were immediately engaged with the Auditor General's office and the Rhode Island Division of Municipal Finance.

We met with both.

We listened.

We committed to ongoing regular meetings, not because we were required to, but because transparent partnership with our oversight partners is how responsible municipal governments operate.

And beginning last month, this council committed to actively studying the monthly budget to actual reports that it receives, not quarterly, not annually, but monthly, so that the kind of compounding that created this situation cannot happen again.

Now I want to tell you how we got here plainly, because you deserve that.

Submitted budgets for two consecutive years that were not just optimistic.

They were wrong in ways that are hard to explain.

Public safety over time was cut to levels that bore no relationship to what these departments actually cost to operate under their contractual obligations.

Interest income was miscalculated.

Debt service payments, the city's most fixed, predictable financial obligation, were entered incorrectly.

That is not responsible financial management.

It is how a problem compounds and becomes the situation that we are now in.

That finance director is now gone.

The damage those numbers caused is what this budget is now trying to correct.

To the police officers and the firefighters of this city.

Your overtime was cut on paper to levels no one understood.

Your operations could have believed were real.

The fire department answered more than 13,000 calls last year.