Cranston Mayor Allan W. Fung was sworn into his third term and a new City Council and School Committee began new terms last night at an inauguration ceremony at Cranston High School East.
Before the swearings-in, a sizable crowd in the audience watched the Cranston Police Honor Guard enter the room and stand to the side with flags and listened to processional music by the combined Cranston East and West Brass Ensembles, followed by a sparkling rendition of the Star Spangled Banner by Marissa DiBiase.
Lila and Catherine Zarrella, Emily Lopez, Conner, Molly and Anna Botts and Henry and Phoebe Lee led the audience in the pledge of allegiance.
Fung told the crowd that he came to office four years ago with a desire to stabilize the city's finances.
"Although we have accomplished quite a few things during my first two terms, there is, still a lot of work to be done," he said.
Some of his priorities in the next term include continuing the progress of economic development throughout the city, fixing the underfunded pension plan, and working with the School Committee and City Council in a bipartisan way to solve city problems.
Read the full text of the mayor's speech HERE.
Fung outlined some of his accomplishments over the past four years, including a focus on ethics in government that has increased the public's confidence in local government. His first executive order was an ethics mandate that created a chief ethics officer for city employees had a place to go if they had question. He also brought in staff from the state Ethics Commission to train directors and employees.
He said he's worked on community engagement to keep the public informed by updating the city's Web site, numerous town meetings, meetings with community groups and even interacting with taxpayers on Facebook and Twitter.
"Yes, for those of you who have hit me up, you know that is me on the other side personally answering your questions," Fung said.
Although the city's finances are far from fully stable, Fung said the fiscal picture is much brighter now than it was four years ago when the city was grappling with big cuts to state aid and the early stages of a recession.
He cut staff, including in the mayor's office. Pay was frozen. Co-pays for health insurance went up. Labor unions gave millions in concessions. Debt was refinanced. The use of outside vendors was pared down and more work has been done in-house. The mayor and director of administration gave up their cars.
"All of those practices we have carried forward whenever possible to maintain a tight line on the City’s budget," Fung said. "And perhaps one of the things of which I’m most proud is the agreement that we negotiated with the Teamsters Union that all new city hall employees become part of a [401K retirement plan] rather than part of the State’s defined benefits pension that we all know presents a burden to all taxpayers. I pushed hard for this change because as we all know, pension costs throughout our State are destroying our communities."
Fung said there's still much work to be done with pensions.
"I have rolled up my sleeves and am ready to work with all interested parties to resolve the looming problem we have with the City’s unfunded police and fire pension system. All three rating agencies cited that pension as a concern for our City…and we intuitively know that any organization or household facing that kind of debt, no matter how efficiently it is running, will face problems. This will and must be solved for our city’s long term fiscal health."
Coming up later today:
Who was chosen to be City Council President — and his speech
School Committee Chairwoman Andrea Iannazzi's speech
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