In Depth
Based on some Twitter chatter this morning, I learned that the property tax assessment letters are going out today in Providence. The citizens of our capital city are learning what value their homes and land will be taxed at. There is always some confusion as to what this means. First, the city should be using…
Senators Lou Raptakis and Nick Kettle submitted a pair of bills to the General Assembly today concerning the Central Coventry Fire District. The first bill describes new outlines for the Coventry, Western Coventry, and Hopkins Hill Road fire districts, which I assume would cover all of the town of Coventry between them; the last two…
Commenter “Mike” noted that there is more to the Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Kilmartin’s proposed firearms permitting bill (h/t Providence Journal) than which office handles an application. Here is a basic outline of the set of overlapping provisions that form the basics of Rhode Island’s firearms law, and how the Attorney General’s bill might…
The Rhode Island House of Representatives Finance Committee has a bigger-than-usual open-government dilemma on its hands. Yesterday, the Finance Committee heard three separate bills for dealing with bond payments to 38 Studios (see bills 1A, 1B, and 1C here). There is also a fourth option available — take no further legislative action and pay off…
That is correct; Kim Kalunian at WPRO reports that a bill … submitted by Rep. Charlene Lima (D-Cranston) would create a Rhode Island state bank. The bill would establish a Rhode Island state bank to “protect the financial welfare and economic vitality of the citizens” and create jobs. The state bank would have the same…
Here is a link the General Assembly press release on the 9 bills to be introduced, labeled as the “gun safety package”. The two items likely to be most controversial are…Gun Control and Safe Firearms Act: This bill bans the manufacture, sale, purchase or possession of semi-automatic assault weapons after July 1, 2013. It also…
1G. H5746: Limits the Economic Development Corporation’s total liability for loans, bonds, guarantees and other financing instruments to $1B, unless a larger amount is authorized by a General Assembly joint resolution. (H Finance; Tue, Apr 9) 1F. H5268: Caps EDC loan guarantees to any one entity at $10M. (H Finance; Tue, Apr 9) 1E. H5745:…
9. H5748/H5371/H5303: Mandates state use of “data verification and provider screening technology solutions” and “state-of-the-art predictive modeling and analytics technologies in a pre-payment position within the healthcare claim workflow” to reduce Medicaid, RIte Care and RIte Share fraud and waste. H5734 is a variation on the same theme, repeating some of the same descriptions of…
19. H5285: “The Comprehensive Racial Profiling Prevention Act of 2013”, including such provisions as requiring police officers to document the grounds of their “reasonable suspicion” or “probable cause” searches and to contact a dispatcher or supervising officer where practicable before such searches, and requiring traffic stops to be recorded when a police vehicle is equipped…
29. H5132: Families qualified to receive child-care subsidies because their incomes were less than 180% of the Federal poverty level would continue to receive the subsidy if their incomes rose to 225% of the poverty level “provided that the family requires child care in order to work at paid employment”. H5409 and H5473 would allow…