In Rhode Island, Colleges Will Help Foot Providence’s Bill for Services

Posted by on June 20, 2003

In a move that could set a precedent for colleges across the nation, four major colleges in Providence, Rhode Island, have agreed after months of negotiations to help finance city services, the Providence Journal reports.

Brown University, Providence College, Johnson & Wales

University, and the Rhode Island School of Design will pay the city a total of about $3.9 million in each of the next four years and nearly $50 million over the next twenty years. While that’s a small portion of the city’s $550 million annual budget, Providence officials praised the agreement as a major breakthrough in the city’s relationship with the schools. "What is fair, what feels right to the people of this city, and to me, is that everyone must do their fair share," said Mayor David Cicilline. "Few people expected any agreement, let alone this historic agreement. After so many failed attempts, and with so many barriers in the way, some people thought we were attempting the impossible."

The agreement comes as Providence faces a deficit of more than $40 million in the coming fiscal year. But as municipalities across the nation struggle with budget shortfalls, elected officials looking for new sources of revenue increasingly are turning to local colleges and other non-profit institutions to help pay for city services.

Elsewhere in New England, for example, New Haven, Cambridge, and Boston already accept voluntary payments in lieu of taxes from such institutions and are considering more systematic arrangements that would increase the amount they receive from wealthy universities such as Yale and Harvard.

MacKay, Scott. "Colleges to Pay Millions to Capital City." Providence Journal 6/08/03.
<a href="http://www.projo.com/news/content/projo_20030606_mayor6.89997.html">http://www.projo.com/news/content/projo_20030606_mayor6.89997.html</a>

O’Leary, Mary. "Nonprofits Asked to Dip into Coffers." New Haven Register 6/08/03.
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