The Providence City Council Committee on Ways and Means met on Tuesday, May 19, 2026, at 5:34 PM (with discussion continuing until adjournment after 8:00 PM) to review the proposed fiscal year 2027 budgets for the Planning and Development Department, the Inspection and Standards Department (Building), and the Economic Development Department. Chair Miguel Sanchez presided. Present were Councillors Andy Ball, Councilwoman Grave, Councilman Peterson; Vice Chair Taylor was absent. The meeting included detailed presentations from budget director Crystal (last name not provided), Director Woolligan (Planning), Director James Moore (Inspection & Standards), and the Economic Development Director (last name not provided) along with new deputy director Ernesto Figueroa.
Hi, good afternoon. My name is Miguel Sanchez. I am calling the special committee of ways and meetings on ways and meetings to order is 534. Tuesday, May 19. Madam Clerk, can you please call roll call, please? Chair Sanchez. Present. Vice Chairman Taylor is action. Councillor Andy Ball. President. Councilwoman Grave. Present. Councilman Peterson. Present. We have four present and one advantage. We have four. Thank you. I just want to recognize Council Staff that's here. Our city solicitor, our clerk's apartment, Councilwoman Joe Davidson, who's going to be joining this committee in the very near future. Thank you for being here. One through five. A little too. It's hot, so we might be a little slow. Motion made by Councilwoman Interval, second by Councilwoman Peterson. All those in favor, eyes have it. Are we on a general order tonight? Yeah, can we swear everyone in first? Crystal and her deputy instructor and without first. Second. This represents a 7.75% increase over the fiscal year 2026 budget. Total proposed salaries in fiscal year 2026, we're budgeted at 1,74. In fiscal year 2027, we're making adjustments for cost of living increases at $69,865. Step increases for $30,192. Additionally, we have defunded a vacant planner position for savings of $65,611. For total purported stated fee, 27 calories of 1,780,064. The planning department's budget has been broken into fixed and discretionary costs. This is loan software and a translation of the company. Under the service line items, all of their services are to be under the supplies. All of the slides are considered to be discretionary. They have been level funded with the exception of rent, which has been eliminated due to the purchase of 444 Westminster. And the copier lease has been reduced, so we're still doing this a little bit than it was last year by about $500. This department did not have any contracts above $50,000, so we don't have a slide to review those, but the other remaining parts the session did. So we want to take that having been accounted for, we just didn't have it. Thank you so much for your uh collaboration on that. Yeah, of course. Just a quick question before we continue. So there's been a couple of departments before us that no longer have uh the rental expenditure. Where are we going to see uh the debt payment to for the purchase of the building? So we budget all of debt service in uh in its own kind of department called debt service. So in the budget book, we would have talked about that during the budget overview when we talked about debt.