'Relentless grind': Providence City Council is a big job. Some members aren't always doing it.

PROVIDENCE - City Councilman Justin Roias describes the start of his daily routine as a "delicate dance."

He jumps into his day job as a school social worker, juggling constituent concerns during lunch break. Later he scoots off to fetch his daughter from her babysitter, drops her at home and runs to various council and committee meetings. Sometimes, by the time he wraps up, he's missed the chance to tuck his little one into bed.

"This relentless grind poses a significant hurdle to a healthy work-life balance," Roias said in a text message before the clock struck 6 a.m. on Tuesday. He spent the night before leading a neighborhood meeting with barely a moment to write his statement until the next day.

"While I embrace the challenges, I think it's crucial to acknowledge that the part-time structure of the Providence City Council creates barriers for working folks aspiring to engage in elected government," Roias added.

Who leads in missed meetings? Numbers tell only part of the story.

The pitfalls of a part-time structure show in attendance rates at full council meetings. Across all regular and special meetings held in 2023, nearly half the council missed 10% of meetings or more. Had they been students in the Providence Public School District, they would have been branded "chronically absent."

Councilwoman Ana Vargas missed seven of those 29 meetings last year, placing her in the lead on absences without counting Councilwoman Helen Anthony, who logged 11 absences after being struck by a vehicle in June. (The accident in California left Anthony in critical condition and requIring a long stretch of hospital care. She's now suing the driver.)

More: Months after being hit by vehicle, Helen Anthony returns to PVD City Council

Anthony achieved perfect attendance before and after her accident. Had she not been hit, she might have had even better attendance than Council President Rachel Miller, who missed two meetings.

Vargas – who was well beyond the mark for chronic absence – did not reply to a request for comment after several days. (Lack of attention to requests for comment has been an ongoing issue for The Providence Journal in attempting to reach some council members for statements.)

Councilwoman Jo-Ann Ryan had six recorded absences from full council meetings last year, which she attributed to a broken leg and work travel.

Miller doesn't think using public school standards is the way to evaluate attendance.

"I think that’s a little bit like comparing apples to bananas just because on any given week there are multiple things that people are working on that are part of council obligations," she said.

One challenge, Miller noted, is that this relatively new, younger council has young children and significant job responsibilities. Some, she said, experienced a reality check last year when realizing the time-intensive demands of being a council member.

Nearly half the council missed a briefing on homelessness

Outside the council's regular and special meetings, March 2023 featured a briefing for members on the state of homelessness in the city – a perennial issue that has prompted study by a special committee. Nearly half the council missed the meeting, led by the Rhode Island Coalition to End Homelessness. At the time, the Cranston Street Armory warming site was on the verge of closing, and the coalition said 1,400 people in the state were homeless.

More: Providence City Council gets grim report on homelessness

"I think its very hard to look at one snapshot of a single meeting and draw conclusions about what people care about," Miller said when asked whether she had any reaction to the attendance that day. But she added that "the obligation to be there for votes is real and firm."

Should council members be paid more, move to full-time status?

For years, debate has lingered over whether local elected officials, from the General Assembly to the City Council, should be made full-time and paid as such. That might make the job easier to do, and taking on its responsibilities might not be as burdensome for those with other work and life obligations.

At present, council members make annual salaries ranging from $23,004 for Miller and Majority Leader Jim Taylor to $20,682 for all other members of the body.

"Certainly the fact that it is very low-paying, that’s kind of a reflection of the value that has pervaded for a long time in America – that legislatures should be made up of regular citizens or residents of the state or city that they’re representing," said John Marion, executive director of Common Cause Rhode Island. "But we know that it can result in bodies not being necessarily as representative of a community as [they] could be because the lack of pay means that people who don’t have flexible jobs or don’t have a source of wealth that allows them to serve what is a pretty substantial commitment – that creates incentives for certain people to run for [city council]."

David Segal, a former congressional candidate and former state representative, is a proponent of full-time status for lawmakers at all levels.

"It's a serious job and doing it well requires not just going to full council meetings, committees, boards and commissions, and caucuses, but also attending to myriad ongoing constituent needs, meeting with organizations from across the city, studying up on policy ideas, and more," Segal said. "In a city as dynamic as Providence that's in practice a full-time job, but we're in effect paying council members less than minimum wage."

Miller wants to see the possibility of higher pay considered during this council session, and she thinks there should be discussion about the part-time status of the council. But she said she does not have an opinion on whether the council should move to full-time work.

She does know that regardless of the job's status on paper, the council does a lot of work.

"Some of my neighbors look at the schedule I keep," Miller said, "and they’re like, 'Wow, that does not seem ideal, nor something I would want to do.'"

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Members' absenteeism high at Providence City Council meetings