Title 45
Towns and Cities

Chapter 2
General Powers

R.I. Gen. Laws § 45-2-3

§ 45-2-3. Power to appropriate money.

Towns or cities may, at any legal meeting, grant and vote sums of money that they judge necessary:

(1) For the purchase of sites for, and for the erection and repair of, town and city houses and other public buildings;

(2) For the support of schools, and purchase of sites for and the building and repair of schoolhouses; and for the establishing and maintaining of school libraries;

(3) For the use of hospitals, to be expended and paid under limitations and conditions prescribed from time to time by the town or city council;

(4) For the support and maintenance of the poor, and the purchase, erection, and repair of proper buildings for the accommodation of the poor, as well as for the purchase of proper sites for these buildings, and, if they judge expedient, of farms or farm lands, for the employment and support of paupers and others chargeable to them;

(5) For the purchase of proper sites for, houses of correction and reform schools for juvenile offenders, and the purchase, erection, and repair of proper buildings, fixtures, and apparatus for these sites, and the purchase of lands for the employment and support of the inmates of these sites;

(6) For the laying out, making, repairing, and amending of highways;

(7) For the building, repairing, and amending of bridges;

(8) For the improvement, in any manner they may deem fit, of any property belonging to the town or city;

(9) For all necessary charges and expenses arising within the town or city, whether incidental or not to the items enumerated within this section; and

(10) For the allocation of donated monies to specific purpose or purposes as designated by a donor.

History of Section.
G.L. 1896, ch. 36, § 4; G.L. 1909, ch. 46, § 4; P.L. 1918, ch. 1629, § 1; G.L. 1923, ch. 47, § 4; G.L. 1938, ch. 329, § 4; G.L. 1956, § 45-2-3; P.L. 1992, ch. 208, § 1.