Fall River City Council votes down full budget in 7-2 decision, pushes City toward restrictive 1/12 budget plan

FALL RIVER ─ A week before the deadline to pass the city’s $484.2 million fiscal year 2027 budget, the City Council voted in a 7-2 vote to reject all items in the budget and to reduce the appropriation to zero on Tuesday.

The move to reject the budget now calls into question whether the city will be forced on July 1 to move financially into a so-called and highly restrictive 1/12 budget, whereby the administration must plan spending on a month-by-month basis.

City councilors Joseph Camara and Paul Hart were the dissenting votes.

Acting City Administrator Ann O’Neil-Souza said Wednesday that Mayor Paul Coogan has a meeting tomorrow with City Council President Cliff Ponte. Department heads have also been directed to start creating a monthly budget if the city must go to the 1/12 budget.

City Councilor Michelle Dionne, who also received support to cut over $1 million from the Emergency Management Services enterprise fund, requested the budget items be read line by line, a move she indicated, to ensure the budget was properly rejected.

A response, no doubt, harkening back to budget season 2022, when the City Council missed a 45-day deadline to act on the budget and Mayor Paul Coogan proposed spending plan was passed by default.

While voting against the budget, councilors Michael G. Canuel and Andrew Raposo attempted to convince fellow councilors to schedule a special meeting before the July 1 deadline and the start of the new fiscal year to give the administration a chance to resubmit a budget.

However, their attempts gained no traction with their counterparts.

By law, the City Council has the power over budgets to reject, accept or reduce the budget. They declined to make the cuts themselves and sent it back to the administration.

Legitimate concerns

A consistent and costly concern throughout the budget discussions is the disparate points of view on the cost of education transportation between the School Committee, the administration and council.

The municipality is responsible for the cost of school transportation.

The School Committee says the School Department needs over $17 million to transport its students, while the 2027 budget sets aside a little over $12 million, and down from $13.2 million appropriated last year.

The matter is further complicated because student enrollment is down.

On Tuesday, the council expressed frustration over the lack of an agreement over the cost.

The council, particularly Dionne, also questioned the validity of the more than $5 million calculated in indirect costs associated with the EMS budget.

The $40,000 question

Then there is what has been the consistent and niggling question of will or won’t the City Council get their $40,000 appropriation in their budget for legal services.

City Council President Cliff Ponte and Councilor Shawn Cadime have led the charge on getting the money, while City Corporation Alan Rumsey has been steadfast that he is the legal authority for the city.

Coogan seemed to attempt to reach a compromise and placed the money under the law department, which has not swayed some of the councilors, who vowed to reject the budget if they did not receive the $40,000 in their account.

The sentiment was repeated after the rejection of the budget on Tuesday.

“I know some of my colleagues rational is the budget isn’t balanced,” said Cadime. “And I want to be clear, and I was clear with the mayor. We still do not have legal counsel in the City Council budget. So, I will not be supporting a budget that does not include that, so I was upfront with the mayor since day one.”