>> i am heart broken. i can't tell you how much this hurts. >> i feel numb. almost like i need to mourn the death of an innocent. it's surreal. there's no justifying this. >> providence mayor defended the decision saying state law says teachers must be notified about changes to their job by march 1st. he says that deadline does not give the flexibility to work out the city's financial crisis, which include a $40 million deficit in next year's budget. the mayor declined a comment after last night's vote but addressed his decision to determi terminate the teachers earlier this week on cnn. >> we need to make cuts. we don't know exactly the extent of the cuts yet, and therefore we thought it was most prudent to give the notices to all of the teachers to maintain the maximum amount of flexibility to make sure we can balance our budget for the next fiscal year. >> okay. well, the city plans to rehire