FOGARTY

CRANSTON –– It is, perhaps, the dominant issue this campaign season: the city’s fiscal crunch.

But don’t expect any 10-point plans from the mayoral candidates.

Democrat Cynthia M. Fogarty and Republican Allan W. Fung are offering little in the way of detailed policy prescriptions.

And what they have said on the subject is remarkably similar.

Both speak of trimming “wasteful” city spending without delving into specifics.

And neither will rule out a property tax hike.

“I’m not going to tell people that it’s not going to be a consideration for next year’s budget,” said Fogarty, a lawyer and former City Councilwoman.

“I can’t make any promises on taxes or tax increases,” added Fung, a lobbyist for the Metlife Auto & Home insurance company who has also served on the council.

The prospect of a tax hike has roiled local voters for months.

Rep. Peter G. Palumbo, D-Cranston, commissioned a poll of residents in May.

The biggest local concern: property taxes. “Controlling city spending” and education tied for a distant second, with improving the neighborhoods and illegal immigration trailing behind.

But the city, like many municipalities across the state, has to confront real financial problems.

A sagging economy has bitten into government revenues and the state has chopped non-education aid to cities and towns.

Meanwhile, health care and gasoline costs are on the rise.

In recent months, the City Council has eliminated the municipal engineering department and the School Committee has eliminated supervisors for academic, nursing and art programs.

The school district and City Hall, meanwhile, are fighting in court over millions in local education aid.

Fung, the Republican, acknowledges the impact of larger economic forces.

But he also blasts outgoing Mayor Michael T. Napolitano, a Democrat, for negotiating what he calls an overly generous firefighters contract and a series of ill-advised legal settlements.

The mayor has called the firefighters pact fair and affordable. And he has defended settlements with a police sergeant who claimed sexual harassment and a woman who was paralyzed from the waist down after a motorist fleeing the police struck her vehicle head-on.

Napolitano argued that the city, which paid the sergeant some $84,000 and the crash victim $2.5 million, faced steeper awards if the cases in question had gone to trial.

Fogarty says the Napolitano administration has not made any major financial gaffes, noting that the city has won bond rating hikes from three ratings agencies in recent months.

And she suggested that the city, despite the recent financial troubles, is on solid ground.

“We have a very strong reserve that other cities around us don’t necessarily have,” Fogarty said.

That reserve, estimated at some $20 million, is healthy by accounting standards.

But it could take a substantial hit if the schools prevail in a lawsuit designed to wrangle some $4.6 million in additional operating money from City Hall for the fiscal year that ended June 30.

And a district victory, under some interpretations of state law, would mean the $4.6 million is built into the district’s base funding formula –– an amount the city must pony up year after year.

That would mean even more trouble for the reserve down the line –– or, more likely, a property tax hike.

Fogarty and Fung are well aware of the power of a tax hike. Both were elected to the council in 2002, when the city was on the brink of fiscal ruin.

And they supported a series of tax hikes, proposed by then-Mayor Stephen P. Laffey, designed to get the city back on its feet.

Both candidates insist that the fiscal recovery was about more than tax hikes –– pointing to a series of financial controls the council put in place at the time.

And Fung and Fogarty credit each other with playing substantial roles in the city’s return to solvency.

But the rivals have sparred over which candidate is better equipped to steer the city’s fiscal ship going forward.

Fogarty points to her work as chairwoman of the council’s Finance Committee and experience running her legal practice.

Fung, for his part, claims that his “broad experience” as a lawyer, lobbyist with a Fortune 100 company and City Council member makes him the better candidate.

dscharfe@projo.com