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Dear Neighbors:
I hope you are enjoying Memorial Day Weekend’s unofficial start to the summer season. In this week’s letter I describe the budget priority requests I submitted to Senate leadership.
A. The Budget Process
The Governor presented his budget to the General Assembly in January, and since then submitted 19 amendments. The budget outlines the expenditure of both State general revenues and the remainder of federal pandemic relief funds. Over the past four months, the House and Senate Finance Committees vetted the Governor’s budget, while also reviewing requests from organizations seeking funding the Governor’s budget did not propose. The General Assembly budget will originate in the House of Representatives and be approved (as amended) by both chambers. Once approved, the budget will go to the Governor for approval.
The House Finance Committee will prepare the first draft of the General Assembly budget. The House Speaker recently stated he expects the House Finance Committee budget to be released at the end of this week. That budget will go to the full House of Representatives for approval (perhaps with amendments). The House budget will then go to the Senate Finance Committee, and from there to the full Senate. In the final week of session, it is common for both House and Senate to review and pass bills received from the other chamber, culminating on the final night with final passage of the General Assembly budget.
B. My Budget Priorities
During the past few weeks, House and Senate leadership began negotiations over the General Assembly budget. Leading up to those negotiations, Senate leadership asked individual members for (a limited number of) their priorities. I listed the following:
1. Full Funding of RIPTA ($8 million)
As discussed in my letter of January 21, the Governor’s budget for RIPTA is inadequate in both the short term and long term. More specifically, the RIPTA budget for next year contains a gap of $18 million, of which $10 million is filled with one-time pandemic relief funds. At a minimum, the $8 million gap needs to be filled to prevent a crisis next year in funding from whatever source. Longer term, RIPTA will have an $18 million gap in future years that must be filled with State funds. As noted in my May 5 letter, RIPTA will play an essential role in the State’s ability to meet the mandates of the Act on Climate, so full funding of RIPTA is both an urgent transit and environmental imperative.
2. Full Funding of PILOT (approx. $550,000)
The State’s PILOT (payment in lieu of taxes) program reimburses cities and towns for revenue lost from certain tax exempt properties (primarily hospitals, colleges and universities). The law calls for a reimbursement rate of 27% or such lower amount as is included in the budget. The Governor’s budget funds PILOT at 26.7%. I introduced Bill S-2363 to provide full 27% funding of PILOT, and asked Senate leadership to make this one of my budget priorities.
3. The Rhode Island Creative Futures Fund ($18 million)
As described in this web page, Rhode Island’s arts community suffered significant financial hardship during the pandemic, leaving several prominent organizations at risk of failure. While other states supported these organizations with one-time federal pandemic relief funds, Rhode Island has yet to do so. Bill S-2985 would create an $18 million fund from the remaining federal pandemic relief budget to support these pillars of our quality of life and cultural heritage.
4. Full Funding of Office of Child Advocate (approximately $1 million)
A recent opinion piece by several chairs of Senate committees noted the ongoing struggles the Department of Children, Youth and Families (DCYF) to provide appropriate care to children with behavioral disabilities, especially girls. The Office of Child Advocate conducts independent oversight of DCYF. As part of its mission, the Child Advocate produced a scathing Report that led to DCYF’s transferring girls from St. Mary’s Home for Children. The Child Advocate monitors the care of children in facilities (both in Rhode Island and in many other states) on a shoestring budget. The modest additional amounts that the Child Advocate requests beyond the Governor’s budget will support its continued oversight.
C. Conclusion
As one of 38 members, I do not have (nor should I have) the authority to impose my budgetary views on the rest of the Senate (not to mention the 75 members of the House of Representatives). Senate leadership asks members for input on a limited number of budget priorities, which leadership takes into consideration (along with other members’ preferences and the limited amount of money available) in negotiations. I also have many other budgetary priorities beyond the ones on this list (such as improvements to the funding formula for State aid to education) that I have discussed with my colleagues on other occasions. In compiling my list of budgetary priorities, I focused my efforts on specific changes to the Governor’s budget that reflected our District’s priorities and which had a good chance of shifting the budgetary discussion.
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