–
Happy Budget Week, and thanks for stopping by for my weekly column. Your tips and thoughts are always welcome at idonnis (at) ripr (dot) org, and you can follow me all week long on the twitters. Let’s get to it.
1. Governor Gina Raimondo‘s Thurday evening budget address cemented her status as Rhode Island’s Empathizer-in-Chief. Raimondo began her speech by citing a “core belief that every hardworking family deserves the chance to make it.” The governor said she’ll cut her own salary by 5 percent, and she studded her address with references to regular people facing tough times. This approach marks a stark contrast from Lincoln Chafee‘s seeming inability to publicly empathize with Rhode Islanders’ struggles during his own, more economically depressed, time in office. It’s also a natural focus for someone — like Raimondo — who campaigned by pledging to focus on rejuvenating the state’s economy. Yet it’s worth remembering that Raimondo won primary and general election races last year with less than 50 percent of the vote, overcoming the opposition of public employees upset by the governor’s role in the 2011 pension overhaul. So in that context, it’s smart politics for Raimondo to support construction jobs, hike the minimum wage, cut taxes on Social Security for some recipients, and expand the earned-income tax credit. The governor has long made clear her skill in using the bully pulpit. But for the bully pulpit to work, she needs the public on her side, and identifying with everyday people is an important part of that.
2. A deeper look at how Governor Raimondo’s budget impacts healthcare and education, via my RIPR colleagues Kristin Gourlay and Elisabeth Harrison.
3. House Speaker Nicholas Mattiello and Senate President Teresa Paiva Weed were generally positive in their reaction to the governor’s budget. “We’re targeting tax cuts for economic development,” Mattiello told reporters after Raimondo’s speech. “I believe that it is a good economic budget. It’s a good budget to improve our economic condition and create jobs, so I’m very pleased. However, the budget needs to be vetted. We have to look at the details and we’ll have further discussions.” Asked about budget assumptions like $46 million in Medicaid savings to be specified at a later date, Paiva Weed said, “This is an opportunity to save money and deliver better outcomes. Other states have done it, and I’m confident Rhode Island can do it as well.” State Representative Michael Chippendale (R-Foster), who gave the Republican response, expressed particular concern about a budget proposal to help pay for HealthSource RI with a tax of just under 4 percent on Rhode Islanders’ individual and small group healthcare premiums.
4. Paiva Weed’s relatively upbeat view on the outlook for reinventing Medicaid notwithstanding, this problems to be a tough slog, for a few reasons: If this was easy, as the saying goes, it would have been done already. And interests representing hospitals and nursing homes can be expected to aggressively oppose budget cuts. In a statement, Hospital Association of Rhode Island president Michael R. Souza applauded “Governor Raimondo’s commitment to transforming our health care delivery system. Unfortunately, hospitals will face $54 million in cuts that will further destabilize fragile hospitals employing nearly 20,000 health care professionals … We look forward to working with the General Assembly and Governor to reform our health care system to deliver long-term cost savings without hindering the ability of hospitals to continue to invest in innovation, technology, and high quality professional careers.”
5. Meanwhile, while the budget calls for $90 million in overall Medicaid savings, state officials need to identify twice that amount to achieve the savings, according to state Senator Louis DiPalma (D-Middletown), a member of Governor Raimondo‘s Working Group to Reinvent Medicaid. That’s due to how Medicaid funding is split between the state and federal government. The Working Group is set to hold its first town hall meeting this Monday, March 16, in Woonsocket, 6 pm, at Woonsocket Harris Public Library.
6. ProJo notes: 1) A warm Rhody welcome to the newest reporter on Fountain Street, Tracee Herbaugh …. 2) Don’t miss Jon Chesto‘s look at ProJo owner GateHouse Media, “the newspaper industry’s biggest deal maker.” Chesto recounts how GateHouse CEO Kirk Davis “is taking a chance on papers that many other newspaper execs wouldn’t touch, and he said he sees a centralized approach as a path to protect profitability.” At the same time, a Missouri newspaper union official, Jeff Gordon, said this about GateHouse’s far-flung acquisitions in Rhode Island and elsewhere: “They could have a long-term prosperity in these markets. But they could also be short-sighted and be so wrapped up in cash flow that they undermine the foundation of their business.” …. 3) On a related note, there’s a belief among some ProJo insiders that newspaper ads are being composed in India. Providence Newspaper Guild president John Hill said company officials, asked about the situation, haven’t denied that ads were being made in India. “We have concerns about this overall approach,” of moving functions of a Rhode Island newspaper outside of Rhode Island, Hill said. “We think it’s homogenizing,” and diminishes the connection with local readers.
7. Who better to chair the Providence Board of Licenses — which deals contentious and sometimes seamy issues involving bars, spas and the like — than a respected minister (Dr, Jeffrey A. Williams) who is a regular chapel speaker for the Patriots and a part of everything from the RI Free Clinic to the Providence Police Advisory Board and RI Kids Count?
8. West Warwick native Paul Tencher has a new gig: national director of public affairs and deputy director of the Washington, D.C., office for PR outfit MWW.com. Tencher, once chief of staff for Elizabeth Roberts during her first term as lieutenant governor, has more recently won winning Democratic US Senate campaigns, for Joe Donnelly of Indiana in 2012, and Gary Peters of Michigan in 2014.
9. Thought-provoking read from coffeeblackRI, a newish blog which recently re-surfaced after a few weeks without a post. Key excerpt: “The true big question for RI is if we are serious about playing the innovation game it is going to take financial resources beyond those our institutions possess particularly at URI to be serious players. If the Governor and General Assembly are not willing to step to the plate (a new engineering building at URI is not an example – that just brought the engineering program into the late 20th century and don’t get me started on the “game-changing” nursing school) and make investments at the right level of scale (please no per capita metrics) let’s stop the conversation now about 195Land as the hub of the innovation universe and the next Kendall Square. Instead let’s make it a lifestyle play with some innovation mixed in.”
10. Rhode Island lawmakers are all over the place in their approach to Twitter (three years after I wrote this piece) and other forms of new media. But how about this: Massachusetts House Speaker Robert DeLeo doesn’t use email.
11. Other highlights from my colleagues at RI Public Radio (and thank you, Rhode Island, by the way, for enabling us to end our March fund drive ahead of schedule!): Deborah Gist spoke reflected on her time here, speaking to Elisabeth Harrison … Ambar Espinoza continued her series on climate change, looking at how salt marshes are adapting …. and Scott MacKay reported on Woonsocket Mayor Lisa Baldelli-Hunt paying an ethics fine.
12. Two Fridays the 13th in two consecutive months? Does this augur poorly for the months to come? Actually, no, because the research doesn’t draw any connection between Friday the 13th and bad luck. So how to explain the Indian food I spilled on my shirt at lunch today?
13. A legislative commission co-chaired by Representative John Edwards (D-Tiverton) and Senator Maryellen Goodwin (D-Providence) is reviewing the question of how to regulate disruptive services like Uber and Lyft. The commission includes Rep. Shelby Maldonado (D-Central Falls); Rep. Daniel Reilly (R-Portsmouth); Sen. Roger Picard (D-Woonsocket); Sen. Nicholas Kettle (R-Coventry); Daniel Moriarty, representing the taxi industry; John Olinger of the New England Livery Association; James J. DuFault Jr., representative of Property Casualty Insurers of America; Cathy Zhou, representing the innovative technology industry; and Terrence Mercer, representing the Division of Public Utilities and Carriers.
14. I joined Ken Block, Joe Shekarchi, and Kate Nagle to talk the budget and other subjects this week on A Lively Experiment on RI-PBS. Tune in this weekend.
15. Edward “Ted” Siedle, a past critic of Governor Raimondo, is now part of an effort to use crowd-funding “to improve and investigate your retirement plan.”
16. The mild weather last weekend offered a good chance to visit a few stops off of regular path, including the Tilted Barn farmhouse brewery in Exeter and Proclamation Ale Company in West Kingston. While micro-brewers won’t be the economic salvation of Rhode Island, it is encouraging to see them proliferating, both as a sign of new business and as purveyors of tasty beer. On a related note, Lou Papineau has an update on what the big Providence fire earlier this week means for the Isle Brewers Guild and long-sought attempts to bring Narragansett’s beer production back to Rhode Island.,
