The state budget commission appointed to help Woonsocket with its finances says it needs a supplemental property tax in order to make ends meet this year. Such a tax would need to be approved by the General Assembly, but the House won’t vote on it until it has the support of the Woonsocket delegation, which it doesn’t – local legislators would rather have a receiver appointed than add a new tax.
So, to make a long and politically complicated story short, three Woonsocket legislators hold the financial fate of the city in their hands – and there is nothing Mayor Leo Fontaine, the city council, the budget commission or to some degree even the governor can do about it … unless the House decides to vote for the tax over the objection of Reps. Lisa Baldelli-Hunt and Jon Brien.
Speaking of Woonsocket, Bill Sequino is an excellent choice to serve as chair of the budget commission … He’s the longest serving municipal manager in the state and knows the budget process backwards and forwards. East Greenwich, where he has served for more than 20 years, may be known as a haven of conservatism but its local pols actually spend public money like drunken sailors (EG is again raising property taxes this year to help pay off debt service on huge spending projects) and then look to Sequino and his staff to make it all work.
Interestingly enough, Sequino’s former adversary on the town council, Vince Bradley, is now serving on the West Warwick School Committee, reports EG Patch.
No wonder Curt Schilling’s $75 million loan guarantee was so easily approved by the EDC – he was doing business with one of the board members who voted in favor of the deal. The Projo reports this morning that when the EDC was voting on the Schilling deal, the ex-Red Sox was also developing board games for Hasbro, whose chairman of the board Al Verrecchia was one of the EDC board members who voted for the deal. Verrecchia is also a good friend and close ally of former Gov. Don Carcieri.
The Patriot Ledger takes RI to the proverbial woodshed for the 38 Studios deal.
Ian Donnis on the efforts to reform payday lending.
It was a bad day for organized labor across the country … not only did Wisc. Gov. Scott Walker survive the recall election waged against him, two California cities voted to cut pension benefits to public sector retirees.
The good news coming out of Wisconsin: Democrats regained control of the state senate.
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It’s hard to be happy about something that will hurt so many working class retirees across Rhode Island, as would Governor Chafee’s proposed bills to help cities and towns. But Chafee designed his suite of legislation to help the most cash-strapped communities the most, which is the right way to handle the state’s municipal fiscal crisis that is disproportionately plaguing the poor.
Rather than giving every community the ability to suspend annual pension increases, Chafee’s proposal would only allow those with pension funds less than 60 percent funded to exercise this tool, reports the Providence Journal. While no retiree deserves to have the deal they struck changed, at least this wasn’t a blanket exemption.
Chafee also made a number of cost-saving tools only available to the “most distressed” communities. As we reported earlier this week, those four communities are Providence, Pawtucket, Woonsocket and West Warwick. Ian Donnis has a good list of the relief measures offered to these cities and towns.
While Ted Nesi notes that former Governor Carcieri offered some of the same mandate exemptions that Chafee proposed yesterday, the big difference is Chafee’s bottom-up approach. Carcieri’s proposal was a blanket exemption to every municipality and Chafee’s is need-based. RI Future has held the former governor’s feet to the fire for cutting so much money from cities and towns that had so little. So did Chafee earlier this week.
Here’s hoping that Chafee’s proposal sparks a big debate in the General Assembly about the disparity between the haves and have-not communities in Rhode Island as this is arguably the biggest affliction affecting the entire state. After all, no one is talking about how rough it is for East Greenwich, Barrington and South Kingstown have it. Rather it’s the plight of Central Falls, Woonsocket, West Warwick, Pawtucket and Providence that is pulling our state down.
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