Providence Committee on Finance-Tuesday, October 15, 2024-5:30 PM
Call to Order and Providence Water Lead Service Replacement Loan
Chair Anthony called the Committee on Finance meeting to order and took Item 3 out of order to discuss lead service line replacement funding. Representatives from Providence Water outlined the terms of a $26.2 million loan and grant package through the Rhode Island Infrastructure Bank.
RISD Parking Agreement Update
The committee reviewed an updated agreement with the Rhode Island School of Design governing the use of 66 on-street parking spaces. Members discussed the relocation of spaces to Meeting Street, ticketing enforcement procedures, meter revenue, and signage requirements.
Lifespan PILOT Agreement and Recommendation
The committee reviewed a three-year PILOT agreement between the City of Providence and Lifespan establishing annual payments and community contribution reporting. After extensive discussion regarding hospital operations and institutional zoning extensions, a motion was made to recommend the agreement for approval by the full City Council.
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Good evening. My name is Melanie Anthony. I am the chair of the committee on finance. I'm calling to order a regular meeting on Tuesday, October 15 at So I would like to have a motion to take item number three out of order.
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So moved. So moved.
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Motion made by counselor Graves. Seconded by counselor Sanchez. All in favor? Aye. Aye.
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All opposed. Thank you all for joining us.
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Thank you. Thank you for
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having us. Appreciate you getting sent here. Basically, this is the second tranche of money from the law for lead service replacement. We came in last year asking for the same number, 26,200,000. Basically, it's it's the the money to replace lead services.
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The terms of the loan last year was half principal forgiveness, half loan. That would be the same this time. So roughly 13,000,000 would be, for lack of better term, grant. 13 debt service would be paid off or paid back. Last year, the debt service was 0%, so there was no interest on it.
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So, basically, like cash, the whole thing that we're getting the same terms again this year.
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Wonderful. And I'm sorry. You're taking this this one is going to be with me. I'm sorry. Who was that?
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Construction bank.
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Okay. So
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the the federal government puts it's basically it's the money's sent out to utilities, like, they do state revolving fund money
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with a round construction bank.
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And the terms, can you just talk about the terms of that?
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The loan?
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The loan?
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Yeah. So loaning, it'll it'll be well, hoping the terms would
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be the exact same as they were on the last one. Okay. Where it was 13,000,000. Okay. The loan for last time was 0%.
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So we think no wages on it. I'm sorry to make
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you repeat yourself. No worries. No worries at all. Okay. Do we have any questions?
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Yes, Thank you so much for this program. Do you have a report on how the first half was spent? Like, how I remember last time you were really prioritizing certain that had access Yes. So we had four contracts. The first two are wrapping up.
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The second two are just gearing up. And the second two contracts utilize the the first tranche of money. So we should be moving through that very quickly over the next year or so. And then we're already planning the design of two more construction contracts, which will utilize this new. So with the the first two contracts, it's on a different funding mechanism.
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They're roughly 1,200. The second two contracts, roughly 3,000. And then the next two that are being developed, we're looking at another 23 times 500 for patients for patients.
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Can I add? I just just we're still year was year one, so we're really just ramping up.
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Okay. So
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we only probably like you said, we probably only did two to three thousand last year,
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a little bit more. We're hopefully close
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to five to six thousand a year. And we just now last year, we've had a lot of lessons learned last year. And so for this year, we really just started spending last year's money, and it's really gonna start going quick. And he really wants to get that
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money out the door as well.
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This sorry. This would this be, like, on next with the next board meeting? Yes. And is that when you find out the terms of the
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Yes. Okay. It's on this month's work. This month's And they probably won't we probably won't close on this month, maybe December, maybe January, because they have it's not just Providence Water that's getting the item money. It's other utilities throughout the state.
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So it's depending on their timetable as well. As long as we have it by the spring.
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Should be good. And then in addition to this, then we go to the PUC once we get approval here. Okay. Before we have
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Yeah. We have that division of public utilities
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that carries approval as well.
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Okay. Other questions?
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Just to build up on Yes.
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Councilor Sanchez.
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Thank you, chairman. Thank you guys for for coming. Nice to have you. What's, like, the total goal of, like, households that we wanna service with all of the infrastructure money? Hopefully, it's enough to replace all of
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the service in our system.
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That's the goal. Are we gonna have to on pace? Is there gonna be another sale going that that goes afterwards?
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See, this the way it works is this the federal government had it to do in five years. So we're on year two. And each
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I think it's 15,000,000,000 throughout the
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federal government. And each state a certain percentage of that, but Allen gets 1%. It's the same percentage that we get our state revolving fund loan. But what they're gonna do, the federal government will do have to each each year, they're gonna reevaluate who uses their money and who doesn't. That's kinda why Grid wants to get its money out the door and say, hey.
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Problem's worthless. Use this money. You wanna spend it. So, like, for instance, maybe Arizona, pretty new, maybe not a whole lot of, like, services. Maybe they got 400,000,000.
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They only use 200. They're gonna reallocate that 200 throughout the entire country. So if we're not able to utilize or we're not able to replace all of that services, hopefully, of that extra money will come back to
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Rhode Island and, hopefully, profits.
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So just to follow-up on that, so does the infrastructure bank have that money already then?
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It's a good question. I don't wanna speak out of time. Believe they do that,
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but I I don't know that for a fact.