Marc Comtois
Former Judge Mark A. Pfeiffer, appointed as receiver for troubled Central Falls, has come out with his recommendation (PDF): merge Central Falls with Pawtucket (via 7to7). “The problems are so severe that they cannot be solved solely through efficiencies and additional revenue at the city level,” he wrote. ” … state action is required if…
For those interested, HERE is a working list of all of the earmarks contained in the lame duck FY2011 budget. I assume it will be continually updated as required (hence, the “working”). I’ve also broken out the RI earmarks from messr’s Reed, Whitehouse, Langevin and Kennedy and you can download it HERE. All told, according…
In yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty went over familiar ground regarding public employee unions and leads him to conclude: The moral case for unions—protecting working families from exploitation—does not apply to public employment. Government employees today are among the most protected, well-paid employees in the country. Ironically, public-sector unions have become the…
Wanna turn a school around? Frederick Hess points out that quick fixes won’t work in and of themselves: When we talk about SIG turnarounds, the four models include things like replacing half the staff, handing control to a charter operator, or “transforming” the school by replacing the principal and embracing instructional reform. All of these…
The ProJo editors got it right in their criticism of the 15% absentee rate of Central Falls High School teachers so far this year, which led to over half of the students receiving at least one “No Grade” on their report cards. Why? Administrators said they could not grade those students for the first quarter…
A Federal Judge in Virginia has ruled that the individual mandate portion of President Obama’s health care reform law is unconstitutional. From a note on page 36 of the decision: If allowed to stand as a tax, the Minimum Essential Coverage Provision would be the only tax in U.S. history to be levied directly on…
The upcoming, filmed in Rhode Island, ABC show Body of Proof (starring Dana Delaney and Jeri Ryan) was feted at the State House today. Both Delaney and Ryan extolled the virtues of the Ocean State while executive producer Matt Gross explained that it was the tax credits that brought the production to Rhode Island: “Having…
I note a couple things from the ProJo story about Chafee spokesman Michael Trainor’s defaulted loan from the RI EDC. 1) Trainor and his partners approached the RHODE ISLAND EDC for a loan for a business based in CONNECTICUT. 2) The business plan centered on the purchase of three companies in the south that would…
From Andrew Malcolm: For some reason it took a male Speaker of the House to accomplish this: The nearly six dozen female members of the incoming House of Representatives will have a new restroom just as close to the chamber’s floor as their male colleagues. A sometimes significant comfort, given legislators’ propensity to blather….Until now…
President Obama, triangulating his way to 2012, has proposed to freeze federal employee pay for 2 years. Given that said employees have received raises throughout the current recession, it’s probably about time. But let’s not forget those step increases! As regular AR readers know, year to year, each unionized employee moves up a job “step”…