Providence Committee on Finance-Wednesday, July 16, 2025-5:30 PM
Call to Order and Roll Call
Chairwoman Melanie Anthony called the committee meeting to order at 5:31 PM. The clerk conducted the roll call and confirmed a quorum was present with five members in attendance.
Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) FY2025-2029: Overview and Redline Amendments
The committee introduced an ordinance amending and approving the Capital Improvement Plan for fiscal years 2025 through 2029. Finance staff outlined redline reallocations among parks and public infrastructure line items without altering the total CIP outlay.
CIP Review: Department of Public Works Projects
Department of Public Works representatives detailed planned capital projects involving bridge asset management, stormwater and sewer repairs, road paving, and citywide sidewalk repairs. Council members questioned staff regarding traffic calming studies, utility coordination delays, and sidewalk maintenance prioritization.
CIP Review: Department of Public Property Projects
Public Property staff presented upcoming facility projects, including City Hall roof and elevator repairs, fire station ventilation upgrades, the new DPW complex, and rec center HVAC electrification. The committee also discussed potential real estate acquisitions, playground accessibility, and long-term facility bonding.
CIP Review: Planning and Development Projects and Financial Administration
Officials reviewed Planning Department capital projects, focusing on Cathedral Square improvements, CityWalk completions, and the Trinity Square infrastructure project. Discussions also addressed federal and state grant matching funds, bond interest accruals, and IRS arbitrage compliance.
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Let me have. My name is Melanie Anthony. I'm calling to order or major this meeting, 07/16/2025 at 05:31PM. Madam clerk,
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would you please call the roll? Chairwoman Anthony. Present. Vice Chairman Taylor?
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Here.
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Councilor Inglot? Here. Councilwoman Graves? Present. Councilor Sanchez?
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Present.
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We have five present. We have a four. Woo hoo. Thank you very much. That would take us to the meeting item number one.
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An ordinance and amendment of chapter twenty twenty four dash one number one approved 01/12/2024 of the ordinances of the city of Providence approving the capital plan for the fiscal years 2025 through 2029.
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Wonderful. And I knew it's coming about the first to the neighborhood.
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Deputy finance director, and adjust.
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Thank you so much, everyone. Before we start, I believe we have an amended the CIP, which we all have red lines in front of us. May I mark that as This is to sub. It's a substitute. I'm sorry.
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We have a substitute for I just want to just remind those of you who were last time. We are talking about this plan by department, and we had first culture and tourism in the last meeting as we did parks. And I know there were a lot of questions concerning, you know, whether our, you know, how our, you know, non CIP funds, none of those were being amended by with the CIP funds for projects. And I just want to say that when done, I I was sent out really looking spreadsheet because I answered a lot of those questions on how those how those CIP lead numbers were supplemented. So I just told that maybe I'm not specific to questions about that inbox project, and then refer to the email that you got filed and also to don't hesitate to talk to them about the status.
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K? So with that, I also want to say thank you very much for printing our budget book because our many of those budget books ended up in the cracks. I'm not sure if this appeared. I'm not sure. Some some people some men lose their father's, but as long as they're themselves.
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They're recyclable then. Alright. But I will say that I appreciate because not only do we have the what is printed here, we also have I wanna make sure that people see me on page number 17 starting in notes. All wanted to know which bombs, you know, the dates of the bonds and what projects are funded by what bonds. And you can see starting on page 19, you can see the 2017 on 2019.
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And, honestly, you can see all the projects that have been bonded to date. So I just wanna make sure people can refer to that. Guess another way in case people are trying to mix up, get a little mixed up. I think you can also tell that on page 19. Not around, but maybe we do not.
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But, anyway, so with that, I think we'll go on our next burden. Believe unless you have any new watch, you don't give us something.
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I don't know if you'd
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like me to disclose the red line changes for the record. But but we're doing what I have done. I submit it. Mhmm. Okay.
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Definitely. Course. So the first
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red line addition to this today works to be done on the Apples Avenue in parts. It's a 200,000 allocation, and it's coming from the previous allocation for pampronin. Additionally, funds from the line have been reallocated to improvements for our water park and. And the balance remaining from the line item, which is $100,000, has been added to the public that
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number again that is added to public infrastructure? 100,000. Mhmm. In the three that that that's in the.
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That's in the parks department. That has been moved to the parks department, and it's $450,000. Thank you. Mhmm. So, Annette, the total outlay for fiscal year twenty twenty six has not changed since it's been reallocated amongst those line items, and the total value of this capital improvement plan has not changed.
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K. It's That's okay. So with that, I system right there after that. Going from sidewalks or side just sidewalks. Suites and suites and sidewalks.
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Okay. So this is gonna be everything between suites and sidewalks today. Exactly. Just start. Whatever you're getting.
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This
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is this is everything, madam chair. But in terms of, like, details or conversations about, you know, this sidewalk, my sidewalk, that's how we make That that is probably best better handled at the future meeting. Okay. Yeah. But
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Bye. I think there's
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a lot of time. Yeah. Be shy. We don't have enough chairs for you. We oh, they should sit I will sit behind them because they're the experts.
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Okay. So I I imagine what we're doing right now is we're, like, organic projects that are listed at the department of public works.
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Sure. You can start talking
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to me.
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Let me just ask. Bowden Street?
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Bowden Street. So Bowden Street has been an existing issue for us quite some time. It was quite a steep drop off to the east of it. And with stormwater runoff, it's become an a road slip issue and a safety issue. We continue to lose guardrail, which makes we're going to free a safe traveled way.
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So in the interim, we've had out some some temporary barrier for about three years now,
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which has been working employee. And we've reduced the
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travel to one one way in that motorway street to accommodate that temporary safety accomplishment. So this is to address a more permanent fix, to reopen Bittering Street to two way travel, and to address the stormwater runoff issue that exists.
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Okay. And the patient so it's the twenty seventh. So you haven't done anything on this today?
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That's correct.
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Yeah. We have some concepts that we've developed in house, but then even funding, we have not advanced.
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And should we do any?
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No. Got the list. So bridges, this is an exciting one for us. We're in the middle of developing a twenty year asset management plan for our bridges as well as developing design solutions for three known bridges with issues. We had an update today.
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We've got a design ready for the apples at bridge over the West Pawtucket River. There's a piece of the foundation for abutment is is missing, and we have an issue with the Narragans Bay Commission outflow putting water behind that above runoff. So it's gonna address that issue. Rhode Island usually has alerted us to, some findings on Memorial Boulevard, Northbridge, set up by the Providence River. And we just found out today that that's been added to the statewide transportation improvement program.
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So we went from having maybe a $4,000,000 project to $400,000 band aid until the right up comes up with that project in about twenty third. We're also looking at some stabilization on the Point Street Bridge. Looking to address some scale loss and some scale members that need reinforcing, again, to get this to a point where DOT can come in into a future time and do a more substantive repair. And so we're we're trying to prolong the life until a more substantive rehab can come in, where it's not really within our affordability. This twenty year asset management plan will really kinda set us forward and and tell us what we need to do over the next twenty years and how we budget for that.
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We're anticipating that that's gonna be coming late fall or early winter, but to look at all of our 52 bridges throughout the city and how we can play around that. So it's the first time I I think that we've done this in the history of the city and getting a great understanding of what what bridges we have and what condition we're in. Cannon Upon Dam. This is a dam that the city inherited from a as an abandoned dam. We've done some work in the past to kinda shore up and address a DEM critical finding for our low level outlet, which would drain that pond, impoundment in the case that an emergency has been repaired and functioned.
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There's been discussion about removal of the dam in the past, which is really championed by our parks department to turn that area into a park. But absent a plan to remove the dam, we're looking at, again, stabilizing measures to ensure that this liability does not become a liability. So we're looking at some seepage improvements and some concrete repairs to ensure that we can get more life out of the state. Nate, do you wanna address citywide traffic calming and study implementation? I
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think both of those are what the bungee was saying. The you know, we do have a citywide family policy that we we file in terms of addressing requests for speeding in traffic economy. So the infrastructure needs. So these items there are or integrating that that process. The process includes both some.
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If if there's an approved request based on the data that we collect, that we definitely do our studies. So there's a temporary temporary measures that are put in and they're about a year. And it studies and evaluated neighbor teams are are held, affirmative final infrastructure measures as we we put in. So some of those phones are are used both for temporary measures. A little bit of money is there for staff time to do some of the studies, and most of that money is for the permanent measures.
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From your implementation study. Yeah.
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I I think that's just a matter of how it was it's it's one of the same. It's really it's mostly the actual temporary permanent infrastructure and traffic. It's just a matter of how the official body was recorded in the.
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I just got new stuff on that. I think I know we're starting to get through this, but I'm just wondering how calculated the amounts for both of the sites with. You know, nothing for '28, '29, and '30. And we got about 500,000. So how was that?
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How were those figures calculated?