With her term as governor half-way over, Gina Raimondo used her latest State of the State address to assert she’s steering Rhode Island in the right direction and to tout a series of initiatives that could bolster her support among middle-class voters.
Raimondo began her third State of the State address by describing a success story: a young man named Christopher who wound up in a state training program after dropping out of CCRI. “Today,” she said, “Christopher is employed full time in a good job as a machinist at Greystone Manufacturing. Greystone Manufacturing is a local company that added jobs last year because of our new economic development incentives.”Listen to an audio version of this story.
The governor used that anecdote as a metaphor for her administration: by bolstering infrastructure, workforce training, the business climate and other aspects of Rhode Island, Raimondo said, the Ocean State is moving past its perennial economic problems.
“Because of hardworking, gritty, determined and talented Rhode Islanders; Because of companies that are expanding here; Because we have come together as one state to invest in ourselves, I stand here this evening with optimism, confidence and pride and say that the state of our state is getting stronger every day,” Raimondo said in a House chamber packed with lawmakers, state officials, and other interested observers.
Yet the fate of the governor’s marquee initiative in her fiscal 2018 budget — two years of free tuition for Rhode Islanders attending CCRI, Rhode Island College or URI — remains unclear; House Speaker Nicholas Mattiello was non-committal on the concept.
Raimondo called reducing college costs a priority as more specialized skills are required to compete in the economy. “Too many others who want a college degree have been denied a shot at a bright future for one simple reason: They can’t afford it,” she said.
“I think it’s a laudable goal,” Mattiello told reporters, referring to the free tuition concept, after Raimondo’s speech. “We’re going to receive it, I haven’t seen particulars on it. We’re going to send the budget over to our Finance Committee – they’ll vet it. The process will be transparent, open, and the public will weigh in, and we’ll see where it goes. I don’t have any preconceived notion. We’ll let the Finance Committee vet it.”
During her address, Raimondo said there’s room for compromise between her approach on cutting the state car tax, initially focusing on how vehicles are valued, and the strategy of the speaker, who wants to cut the tax by roughly $40 million in the fiscal 2018 budget and eliminate it within five years. Mattiello, though, was resolute in insisting that a cut will take place in the next budget.
On the whole, Mattiello characterized Rhode Island’s condition as “fair to good. We’re much better than we were. We’re much better than we were before I became speaker and before the governor became governor. We’re moving in the right direction.”
Yet House Republican Leader Patricia Morgan (R-West Warwick) used the GOP rebuttal to paint a far darker picture of Rhode Island and its economic condition. She said many citizens continue to struggle with insecurity about their jobs and their finances.
“They are fed up with a broken government, a government that makes their lives harder, a government that takes too much, wastes too much, and refuses to be held accountable to the people who pay the bills,” Morgan said. “Many have lost hope.”
To restore hope, Morgan says, the state should shift its approach from using incentives that she says bring too few jobs for too much money. Instead, Morgan says, the emphasis should be on cutting regulation and boosting the small businesses that provide most of the jobs in Rhode Island.
During her address, Raimondo defended the incentives that spurred a series of jobs announcements last year, most of them in December.
“For the first time in a long time world-class companies like GE and Johnson & Johnson, they’re choosing Rhode Island as a place they want to be, as a place they want to grow,” the governor said. “And our local companies like A.T. Cross and Virgin Pulse and Electric Boat, they’re all making a decision to stay here and add jobs here.”
Raimondo said she hopes the General Assembly will replenish the incentives that have fueled her economic-development program.
The governor acknowledged Rhode Island still faces tough challenges, like the ongoing opioid crisis and the troubled rollout of the state’s costly IT system for administering human service benefits.
But Raimondo’s overall message was that she’s making Rhode Island a stronger place — a theme that is hardly a coincidence with the 2018 campaign season fast approaching. The governor has said she plans to seek re-election.
The governor’s speech touched on a series of initiatives in her latest budget proposal. She wants to boost manufacturing; raise the state’s minimum wage to $10.50 an hour, and increase pay for home care workers and those caring for the developmentally disabled. The governor also expressed support for a key progressive priority — backing earned sick days for workers who don’t currently receive them.
The governor’s budget for the fiscal year starting July 1 is slated to be presented to the General Assembly on Thursday.
