PROVIDENCE, R.I. – The school board of Rhode Island’s financially troubled capital voted Thursday to notify every one of the city’s nearly 2,000 teachers that their jobs were subject to being terminated at the end of the school year.

City officials said the action would give them the most flexibility to make budget cuts. A recent audit showed Providence, which has about 175,000 residents, had overspent its nearly $620 million city budget last year by more than $57 million. Next year’s $308 million school budget is projected to have a gap of $40 million or more.

The termination notices do not mean that all teachers will be out of a job, just that they might.

“An overwhelming majority will be rehired,” said Mayor Angel Taveras, a Democrat.

Still, the decision to send the letters has caused anger and uncertainty.

Randi Weingarten, president of the national American Federation of Teachers, which represents the city’s teachers, called the decision shocking.

“A mass firing, announced in the middle of a school year, does not help solve a budget problem, the purported reason, but … disrupts the education of all students and the entire community,” she said in a statement. “Mass firings, whether in one school or an entire district, are not fiscally or educationally sound.”