House budget bill: The good, the bad and the booze
Rhode Islanders best not blink in June. If we do, we might just miss much new state policy being swiftly passed in the annual budget bill. The tax and spending plan, and oftentimes some new policy tucked in for good (bad, or indifferent) measure, typically breezes through the General Assembly in the waning days of [...]
Privatization of Higher Ed Violates State Constitution
As reported here and here, the University of Rhode Island has spent close to $500,000 on repairs of its president’s tuition-funded home, which is among the fringe benefits that come with the president’s job, such as a car, an expense account, and club dues. Excessive administrative spending is but one of many results of nationwide privatization of [...]
Welfare Program Stat More Misleading than Wrong
Good for Politifact for calling foul on Rep. Patricia Morgan’s misuse of the old talking point that welfare programs account for more than 40 percent of the state budget. First of all, her numbers were flat our wrong. As Politifact points out, her definition of welfare programs is quite broad. It includes “such spending as [...]
Progressives May Still Push for Tax Equity in Budget
Progressives had mixed reactions to the budget bill passed by the House Judiciary Committee late Thursday night, expressing disappointment with the lack of focus on the revenue side of the ledger. While there are few new cuts in this year’s spending proposal, and a few restorations, it didn’t include tax-the-rich revenue enhancers that organized labor [...]
Budgeting for Disaster: How RI Pays for URI
Should URI Faculty get a 3 percent raise? Let me tell you a story and you decide. URI is the big kahuna among the three institutions run by the Board of Governors. It educates about 16,000 students, around 10,000 of whom are from Rhode Island. Researchers there pull in about $80 million each year in [...]
Budgeting for Disaster: Medicaid in the Budget
In volume II of the budget, you’ll find there the Executive Office of Health and Human Services (EOHHS), which contains the Departments of Children Youth and Families (DCYF), Health (DoH), Human Services (DHS), and Behavioral Healthcare, Developmental Disabilities, and Hospitals (BHDDH). Collectively these departments spend over $3 billion, about 40% of the overall budget. In [...]
Budgeting for Disaster Part VII: Quasi-appropriate?
Trick question: Why is Rhode Island’s housing policy not made by the state government? How about economic policy? Why do we have two environmental agencies? Two elections agencies? The questions sound unrelated, but they have very similar answers, and they’re all related to the state’s bevy of “quasi-public” agencies—whose budgets are in Volume I of [...]
Budgeting for Disaster VI: DMV Manages for Success
One part of the Department of Administration that gets a lot of press is the Department of Motor Vehicles, which is actually a unit of the Department of Revenue. DMV, of course, gets press because people don’t like it, and the lines are long, and it’s in an inconvenient place, and so on and on. [...]
State Cuts Also Cause for City’s Fiscal Woes
It’s certainly fashionable to blame retirees and their generous post-employment benefits for Providence’s fiscal problems. But for other causal factors, look to the state of Rhode Island and former Governor Don Carcieri. Tom Sgouros, in his ongoing series dissecting the state budget, reports this morning that in 2008 the capital city was expecting $65 million [...]
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