Jonathan Pascua - Coventry Town Council District 1

09/12/2025

🚨 Town shows a Budget SURPLUS 🚨

Great news!! The town just received its draft 2025 draft audit from CLA for year ending June 30, 2025 and the Town has a surplus of $1,964,764 bringing our Fund Balance (savings account) to $19,368,078!

Additionally, The School had a surplus of $1,357, 040 reducing their deficit to $4,513,670

Great job by our Finance Director Robert Civetti, Town Manager Dan Parrillo and past/current council members.

09/09/2025

Summary of tax conversation proposed by the Town of Coventry Finance director... **NOTE** NOBODY IS LOSING A TAX FREEZE DESPITE WHAT PEOPLE ARE TELLING YOU.

Changes will be considered by ORDINANCE.. which means public hearings so you can ask questions and provide testimony.

I hope this helps and clears up some anxiety.

04/09/2025

🚨 Central Coventry Fire District – Fire Tax Escrow Issue 🚨

Hi Everyone, hope you’re doing well. I want to make you aware of an important issue that came to light in the past 24 hours regarding fire tax escrow payments.

Like many of you, my mortgage company has always paid my Central Coventry Fire District (CCFD) fire taxes directly out of my escrow account without any problems.

Recently, however, I learned that my mortgage company stopped making those payments.
At first, I thought this was an isolated case, but after speaking with CCFD today, I found out it’s actually a widespread problem affecting over 700 homes.

Here’s what’s happening:

Mortgage companies rely on a third-party service called CoreLogic to notify them when local taxes are due.

This year, CoreLogic failed to notify the mortgage companies about the fire tax bills.

As a result, many mortgage companies did not make the escrow payments, leaving accounts marked as past due.

CCFD has been overwhelmed sending out overdue notices to residents caught up in this issue.

👉 What you should do:
If you normally have your fire taxes paid through escrow, check to make sure your mortgage company actually made the payment.

Don’t assume it was handled automatically this time.
This problem highlights why many of us have argued for years that fire taxes should simply be blended into the regular property tax bill. That would eliminate issues like this entirely.

For now, please take a minute to double-check your account so you don’t get caught off guard.

12/05/2025

24/04/2025

🚨BUDGET HEARINGS🚨

Tuesday April 29th 6pm @ Council Chambers or Zoom

Saturday May 3rd 10am @ Council Chambers or zoom

Show up, give your feedback and ask your questions!

18/04/2025

Good Evening. The resolutions I spoke about the other day are on the agenda and posted for consideration on April 22nd 2025. These took time to write and I have spent a while tweaking and adding things to this. To those that have asked me why I haven't said much when this was bought up, I do want to point back to the March 11th 2025 meeting when ***I had suggested that we send the Solicitor invoices through the TM and not the Council*** This was on the first meeting that this was brought up to be an issue.

Since then, we’ve taken the time to fully understand the issues at hand. In response, I’ve drafted a comprehensive package of resolutions with the bigger picture in mind. Today, the discussion may center on the Solicitor’s budget....but tomorrow, it could just as easily be Parks & Recreation, Public Works, or another department. That’s why my approach goes beyond a single concern.

My goal was to create a lasting framework that protects residents not just now, but for years to come. That vision includes a companion resolution requesting the School Committee adopt similar accountability measures — because overages and fiscal mismanagement in any part of our government impact us all.

These two resolutions go far beyond the original concerns raised by previous Council members. While they may have identified a leak, what I’m proposing is to rebuild the entire ship — stronger, more transparent, and better equipped to handle future challenges. This isn’t just about solving today’s problem. It’s about establishing a foundation for lasting fiscal discipline and good governance.

Additionally - We posted the Charter Review committee for citizen participation.

Here’s what they do:

Resolution 2025-46
✅ Triggers Council Review if any department is trending 5% over budget YTD

✅ Gives ALL Council members access to unredacted invoices, including the Solicitor’s and provides them with a review on a monthly basis.

✅ Requires all legal invoicing to go through the Town Treasurer

✅ Ensures transparency with every action **recorded** and filed as official meeting minutes.

✅ Requires delivery of Budget to Actuals at the close of each fiscal quarter.

✅ Requires Council/TM follow up of corrective actions progress of departments that were previously trending over budget to identify the need for more interventions.

Resolution 2025-47

✅ Requests the School Committee adopt a similar policy being considered by the council noting that they control 60% of the budget.

https://coventryri.civicweb.net/document/192747/

17/04/2025

Good Evening. I’ve introduced a legislative package to add guardrails to our spending and increasing transparency to our taxpayers. I’ve requested these incoming resolutions for our April 22nd 2025 agenda.  Learn more about these important resolutions by watching the short video below.

Sorry it took so long to get out to you guys since this started, but I’ve been working on getting this right because this is so important.

🚨This is a call to action. Share and get the word out, let’s support these important resolutions. 🚨

- Note, March 11th Town Council meeting, after hearing the concerns, I suggested BACK THEN, the invoicing should be done through the town manager. You can review that on the town’s YouTube page.

Thank you.

Councilman Pascua - District 1

09/04/2025

You asked and we listened! The Transfer Station will remain open until 7pm the second Wednesday of each month. The amount of people that utilize this service will determine how long it lasts.
Tomorrow Wednesday April 9th will be the first one! The office will be closed, so please plan accordingly.

04/04/2025

WCFD Budget meeting April 14th 2025 7:00pm

Proposed 3.64% tax rate increase.

1110 Victory Highway Coventry RI

02/04/2025

$40,000 to ride a school bus… and it gets worse than that.

This was SHOCKING to me, the other day. The school deficit has been a hot topic recently. I’ve made comments that residential building can cost us significantly and actually produce a financial LOSS for that said home.

I have attached a clip of the Town Council meeting from a couple weeks ago, where the superintendent talked about the costs to pay tuition for a student that decides to go outside of Coventry and then the unbelievably **insane** costs for transporting that student.

Take the 1 minute and listen to this. It’s absolutely INSANE. This is a major reason school costs are so high and it’s not Coventry Schools fault.

— It would be cheaper to send them with a Helicopter 🚁

22/03/2025