Here are the highlights of the preliminary Statewide School-Financing plan as proposed by a special advisory group:
[T]he 14-member group, which included state Commissioner of Education Peter McWalters, Timothy C. Duffy, president of the Rhode Island Association of School Committees, Marcia Reback, president of the Rhode Island Federation of Teachers, and Will Van Horne of the business-backed Education Partnership, made the following recommendations:
•The financing formula should be “weighted” to allocate additional money for the neediest students. The cost of educating a special-education student, therefore, would be twice the base amount, or a figure close to $20,000 a year. The cost for low-income students would be 1.75 the base amount if they receive free lunch, or around $17,500, and 1.25, or $12,500, if they receive reduced lunch. The cost to educate students at career and technical schools would also be budgeted at 1.25 the foundation cost, and the cost to educate English-language learners would be 1.2 times the base amount.
“We don’t yet know exactly what the weights should be because those more sophisticated systems to determine weights don’t exist yet,” McWalters said. “But don’t abandon the idea of weights, because it is fundamental to the idea of fairness.”
•The formula should ensure a base amount per student to every district, regardless of how wealthy it is, and should not take away state money a district is currently receiving.
•The formula should be evaluated for periodic “mid-course corrections” and should be phased in over several years, as the state gradually takes over more education costs.
There is also another panel that is looking into how to pay for all of this. However, apparently they’ve been waiting to get a better idea of what the formula would be and the costs associated before figuring out how to pay for it. That’s when it gets interesting!
[Open full post]An update on the status of two old and one new ethics complaints, both reported by the ProJo’s Bruce Landis. First the new, from the ProJo’s :
State Sen. Frank A. Ciccone III yesterday denied parts of the ethics complaint filed against him the day before and said that one element of it, his failure to disclose his union jobs in an Ethics Commission filing, was an oversight.
Ciccone, a Providence Democrat, was the target of a complaint filed by Operation Clean Government President Arthur C. “Chuck” Barton III the day before accusing him of sponsoring legislation favoring his union, not disclosing that source of income, and potentially benefiting unionized employees by participating in a legislative investigation of the Carcieri administration’s hiring of temporary workers.
Ciccone said he has two paying union jobs, one as a field representative of Local 808 of the Rhode Island Laborers International Union and another as business manager of the local. He acknowledged that he omitted them from his last two years’ financial disclosure reports, which are intended to let the public detect conflicts of interest among public officials.
“I made a mistake,” he said. “It was inadvertent.”
Sounds familiar….Which brings us to an update on two “older” cases. First, in case you forgot:
[Senator President Joseph] Montalbano is accused of violating the ethics code by failing to report tens of thousands of dollars in income from West Warwick for legal work associated with the Narragansett Indians’ failed casino proposal there. He’s also accused of participating in Senate votes when he had a clear conflict of interest.
Montalbano also claimed it was an “oversight”, and has decided to take the unprecedented step of asking for a jury trial instead of a hearing in front of the state Ethics Commission. Well, they’re not going for it.
[T]he commission and its staff wrangled for more than an hour yesterday with Montalbano’s lawyer, Max Wistow….Commission prosecutor Dianne L. Leyden said Wistow was merely trying to delay the case and the hearing, scheduled for June 5 and 6. She opposed the jury trial demand, and said the commission doesn’t have the legal authority to hold one even if it wanted to.
The commission’s independent legal counsel, Kathleen Managhan, agreed that the state Constitution and state law don’t provide for Ethics Commission jury trials, but she said the commission can rule on whether an accused official has a right to one.
If officials accused of ethics violations were regularly tried before a judge and jury, and not the commission, it would take away the commission’s greatest power, the job of enforcing the Code of Ethics, which is given to it in the state Constitution.
After Leyden repeatedly accused Wistow of using “delaying tactics,” Wistow said that he doesn’t think it’s his job to help make the process run smoothly. “It’s not my place to make things easier for the prosecution or even for the commission,” he said. To the contrary, he said, “I have a sacred obligation to my client to make things as difficult as possible for the prosecution.”
That approach appeared to annoy some commission members. James C. Segovis objected to “this fractured use of English” and, a few minutes later, said of what went on yesterday, “It’s an abuse of our time and our process.” George Weavill Jr., another commission member, remarked that “a lot of what Mr. Wistow has raised has been smoke and mirrors.”
“I‘ve apparently antagonized two members of the commission,” Wistow said a few moments later. He said he had only been trying to assert Montalbano’s rights.
Finally, the ProJo’s Landis also reports that former Senate President William Irons, “accused of breaking the ethics laws by using his office for financial gain and by voting on pharmacy legislation where he had a substantial conflict of interest,” is trying to go the “jury trial” route. Now, why do you suppose this novel idea is being suggested? Unfortunately, I’d say that the lawyers for both Irons and Montalbano are confident that they can confuse the average citizen juror enough to get an acquittal. I expect that they won’t confuse the Ethics Commission so easily.
[Open full post]Pah! Who needs $1 million?
Before a room packed with apparently health-coverage-minded municipal employees, the Warwick City Council voted 5-4 last night against giving United Health Care the city’s health care contract – even though a switch to United Health from current provider Blue Cross would have saved the city a significant amount of money.
…
A recent city-commissioned study found the school district and municipality would save a combined $885,000 in the first year of a three-year contract with Blue Cross, as compared to the rate the city has been paying up until this point. But United offered the city even more aggressive pricing, and the study pointed to a $1,807,000 savings that could be realized after a switch.
The study also called attention to questions about the quality and scope of United’s offering, as compared to that of Blue Cross – leading the Warwick Personnel Department to recommend a switch to United, but only for a one-year contract.
Council members voting against United last night said they didn’t believe United’s coverage would be comparable to what Blue Cross already provides.
Voting against a switch to United were council members Helen Taylor, Donna M. Travis, John DelGiudice, Bruce Place, and Raymond E. Gallucci. Voting for the switch were Council President Joseph J. Solomon and members Robert Cushman, Steve Merolla and Charles J. Donovan Jr. {emphasis added}
It’s not worth trying for one year? Really? Not worth $1 million? And concerning that difference in coverage:
“The only area that United has a notable deficiency is in their number of specialists/ancillary providers,” this report adds. Blue Cross has approximately 1,136 primary care physicians compred with United’s 987 — a total of 10 percent fewer doctors.
But a review of claims submitted by Warwick employees found that 96 percent commonly used providers were in both networks, according to Cornerstone. To help ease the transition for the small percentage of patients who would lose network access to their doctors, the report recommends a six-month transition period where the city funds any out-of-network claims at an in-claim rate.
‘Course, I suppose if I was able to vote on what health care plan I wanted for myself, I’d go with the status quo, too….
[Open full post]Michael Barone observes that George Bush has done a poor job of selling the Republican party–and by extension, conservatism–to the under-30 crowd. For instance, Barone writes, “when Bush’s call for [reforming Social Security] was opposed by Democrats, the response of young voters seemed to be, ‘Whatever.'” Barone explains why:
My sense when I look at what young voters tell pollsters is that they assume that everything is going to be just fine if things roll along pretty much as they are. They have grown up in an era, lasting nearly 25 years now, when we’ve had low inflation coupled with economic growth 95 percent of the time. They may grouse about gas prices or paying off college loans, but they’re able to get jobs that mostly pay pretty well and often are more interesting and less backbreaking than the vaunted factory jobs of the past.
They have grown up in an era when personal choices that were stigmatized as immoral not so long ago are accepted and even respected. You can live with your girlfriend or boyfriend before you get married; you can be gay — nobody is going to give you a very hard time…
The one issue on which young people seem dissatisfied with things as they are is the military conflict in Iraq — that would be with the exception of most of the young people who have served there and who are re-enlisting at higher than projected rates. The attitude of those without military ties seems to be: If we just get out of Iraq, if we just get rid of George Bush, then everything will be all right. We won’t see suicide bombers and improvised explosive devices on our television screens; we won’t see mass demonstrations by Europeans and Muslims against us; we won’t have all this controversy and bitterness in our partisan politics.
Today’s 21-year-old was 3 when the Berlin Wall came down; his or her parents were born well after World War II. Unlike people who lived through the experience of 1914-1918 or 1939-1945, they have no reason to draw the conclusion that everything can — and sometimes does — go terribly wrong.
Yet, the younger generation aren’t necessarily to blame for having a skewed perspective of what is “normal.” They grew up during a decade of peace and prosperity. Perhaps, in a way, it’s akin to those who look back to the post-WWII 1950’s longingly. During both the 1990’s and the 1950’s, America was basking in the glow of international triumph and a surging economy. But in the background, the seeds of a new conflict were sown and began to grow. Many adults didn’t see the new threat on the horizon–or didn’t take it seriously enough. Heck, many still don’t. So how can we be surprised when many of our youth don’t either?
[Open full post]The Heritage Foundation has done an analysis of the new House Budget crafted by the Democratic majority in Washington and concluded that it means higher taxes across the board. Their reasoning:
The House leadership has proposed to increase spending over the next five years. Given the leadership’s avowed commitment to paying for spending increases, tax revenues will have to rise. Which taxes will have to rise is unclear, as budget resolutions are notoriously short on details. However, the failure of House leaders to include any language addressing the expiring Bush tax cuts of 2001 through 2004 indicates that they could intend to end these tax cuts.[1] This, in turn, means that the House leadership could be allowing American taxpayers to assume a large and expensive tax increase upon the expiration of these tax cuts.
The House budget resolution has the potential to cost the average American taxpayer an additional $3,026 in taxes. In addition to the increased tax burden, Americans could also see their personal income decrease by an average of $502 dollars due to a weaker economy. Moreover, the budget resolution could damage employment growth, causing about one million fewer jobs to be created, and has the potential to damage economic output by over $100 billion nationally. The average cost of the House budget resolution to each congressional district amounts to the potential loss of 2,284 jobs that would have otherwise been created and a loss in economic output by an average $240 million.
The culprit for these negative impacts is higher taxes. Many economists believe that higher taxes, particularly on capital, cause the level of private investment to fall, thereby slowing productivity improvements and weakening the earning capacity of households. Wages and business earnings, which are closely tied to productivity, would fall as well.
Again, the budget resolution does not contain a detailed tax plan. However, the resolution also is silent on the most important tax policy change since 2001: the expiration of the tax law changes from 2001 through 2004 over the next four years. This paper presents estimates of the potential impact that allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire would have on Americans.[2]
Here’s how–according to their calculations–Rhode Islanders would be affected:
Woonsocket Mayor Susan Menard has submitted a city budget that assumes a slight decrease in state education aid compared to last year. From Kia Hall Hayes in Saturday’s Projo…
Mayor Susan D. Menard submitted a $115.7-million budget yesterday that calls for a 3.85-percent tax rate increase — only the third tax hike in the mayor’s 12-year administration.And Douglas Hadden of the Pawtucket Times reports that city officials in Pawtucket are also expecting the legislature to reduce and maybe eliminate the Governor’s proposed 3% increase in state education aid…
“In my 12 years as mayor this is the most difficult one I have had to put together,” Menard said yesterday, citing a decrease in state aid and increases in fixed costs such as state pension contributions, health care and debt service….
Menard has budgeted for a $100,000 decrease in state aid for schools and level funding in general revenue sharing from the state.
“I can’t tell you how the General Assembly is going to balance the state’s mess,” Menard said.
With legislative leaders struggling to reduce a projected $360 million state budget deficit, the question increasingly seems to have become not whether something has to give, but what.If there was ever any doubt about how the legislature plans to modify the Governor’s budget, there isn’t anymore; the plan is to reduce spending on education to protect spending on social welfare programs and state government operations.
How much of the city’s projected boost in state aid could be threatened remains unclear, but a cut of some kind appears increasingly likely. “There’s a good chance – I’m not saying it’s definite – but there’s a good chance that could happen,” acknowledged City Clerk Richard Goldstein, who is the Doyle administration’s lobbyist on Smith Hill.
Goldstein said he first heard such talk from Daniel Beardsley, executive director of the League of Cities and Towns, at a meeting a few weeks ago, and proceeded to relay the news to key city officials.
Beardsley’s message about the local aid levels budgeted by the governor was that “it doesn’t look like we’re going to get it,” Goldstein related. “I’ve also heard it up at the Statehouse, that we shouldn’t plan on it, don’t plan on it.”
Is this the strategy the citizens of Rhode Island want to see implemented? [Open full post]
A Worcester Business Journal story on the expansion of the Providence & Worcester Railroad (including P&W receiving new automobiles “for the first time [in] the company’s history” for transport to New England dealerships via the port at Davisville) hides the news with the most potential long-range impact at the bottom of the page…
P&W is also working on an agreement with “a major fuel provider” that [company president P. Scott Conti] would not name, to bring ethanol into an underused Providence yard the company rehabilitated to bring in the corn-based fuel additive.I hope I’m not revealing anything that is supposed to be secret about the unnamed partner, but a company called Aventine Renewable Energy announced last year that it was working with the Providence & Worcester rail line to develop an improved ethanol delivery network for the Northeast…
“We all drive our vehicles, and we pump gas into them,” Conti said, and in Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island, that gas contains ethanol.
Ethanol is also thought to have potential as an alternative to fossil fuels.
“You look at ways to grow. These opportunities don’t come along each and every day, but when you see one, you try to capitalize on it,” Conti said.
Aventine Renewable Energy Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:AVR), a leading producer, marketer and end to end supplier of ethanol, today announced additions to its existing terminal network footprint….This is a story to keep an eye on, because as the price of gas climbs towards $4.00 a gallon, more and more businesses are going to decide that investing in the permanent infrastructure needed to provide ethanol as a fuel is a good risk to take. And once an ethanol distribution network is built that parallels our nation’s petroleum distribution network, and bunches of flex-fuel vehicles capable of using both primarily-ethanol and parimarily-gasoline fuels come into use, foreign oil suppliers will have to compete directly with ethanol producers when setting prices.
Aventine has also recently contracted for significant rail and waterborne terminalling capacity in Providence, RI. The terminal facility in Providence will be provided by Motiva, a joint venture between Royal Dutch Shell and Saudi Aramco, and will be served by CSX Transportation via an interchange with the Providence and Worchester Railroad Company. This terminal will provide streamlined logistical infrastructure for ethanol supply for the emerging Rhode Island and nearby Boston area markets.
This will be an unprecedented upheaval in the economics of transportation fuel that will change the politics of energy — and oil in particular — in ways that will never be reversed. [Open full post]
Warwick Daily Times editor Louis C. Hochman summarizes…
For those of you who are keeping track, at this point we’ve got new media (Anchor Rising) commenting on old media (the Warwick Daily Times), which was reporting on how new media (RIFuture, and later Anchor Rising) commented on old media ([Dan Yorke’s] show)……and editorializes on the chain of the “varied and sometimes seemingly self-contradictory” responses to the Dan Yorke/Scott Avedisian kerfuffle…
It’s a credit to both Katz and Jerzyk (both of whom participated in our coverage as sources) that they’ve been able to turn an insensitive comment by an often-abrasive talk show host into an intelligent discussion on the responsibilities of media, Internet-age, transistor-age and printing-press-age alike. It’s just too bad our local Imus-of-the-moment didn’t put quite as much thought into what he had to say.[Open full post]
Perhaps this is an annual reality that I’ve just been slow to notice, but my parish priest phrased the traditional blessing of mothers during the closing of today’s Mass as a general blessing for women. He alluded to the pain and regrets that some childless women might feel at having never had the ability or opportunity to beget children but went on to address women qua women, as if there were no meaningful distinction among them. Compassion notwithstanding, it seems to me that there are two possible implications to thus spreading the honor of Mother’s Day:
- Underlying our comforting words, we still understand that mothers are in some respect more worthy of honor than non-mothers — in a Catholic view, more completely fulfilling the role of woman — but shy away from reminding excluded women of that understanding, in which case it would seem that we are emphasizing it all the more.
- We really don’t think that motherhood adds anything to womanhood, in which case it would seem that we are belittling women who’ve done all of the extra work and made all of the extra sacrifices and commitments by offering their due plaudits to anybody with the same physiology.
Recollection suggests that past versions of this concession have emphasized women who’ve “taken on the role of mothers” for other people, even if they were not so in the biological or even adoptive sense. That’s reasonable, I’d say, because it acknowledges an ideal and does not penalize women for having faced hardships in achieving it.
Perhaps the priest just overstated with his extemporaneous blessing, but I’m not sure that our culture, in general, is as apt to make these distinctions as it ought to be.
Somebody asked me, the other night, what I would do about the housing affordability problem, and to be honest, I didn’t have much of an answer. I guess I’m not at the point, yet, of having comprehensive understanding of or prescriptions for every important issue, and housing is still one of those for which I’ve mainly reacted to specific developments based on an inchoate sense and general principles.
In constructing a notion of what we, as a society, should actively do about affordable housing — and to avoid creating an invisible barrier to communication between people with different approaches — it seems advisable to divide our thinking into two perspectives:
- Helping a particular family to afford housing
- Increasing housing for such families
On the first aspect, there’s a degree to which acknowledging society’s developmental history requires us to admit that, as difficult as it is, sometimes families just have to pull up stakes and find that place in which both housing and opportunity exist. If we increase assistance to those who are being priced out of the system, we increase their threshold for sticking it out rather than moving where they could live more comfortably (and productively).
We also keep the pay rates of low-end, but necessary, workers artificially low. The market mechanism might not be wholly adequate, but if store clerks (say) are forced to move out of the system, then there will be fewer around, and stores will have to pay more per clerk, thus increasing the ease with which they can pay for housing.
Permeating this all is the fact that providing sufficient subsidies to make a difference in as expensive a housing market as Rhode Island’s will increase the burden on families across the spectrum, including those (such as mine) that are just barely able to afford the housing that they’ve managed to acquire. So, for the side of the question that seeks to help particular families to afford housing in Rhode Island, the not-surprising solution that I would offer is to implement some variation of the conservative, free-market panoply of policies that, in essence, seeks to help families to afford higher standards of living because they can afford higher standards of living, not because their neighbors can afford to subsidize higher standards for them.
In other words, help low-income families to become less-low-income families. Help them to start businesses. Reduce the barriers and regulations that constrain career ventures. (For example, as far as I know, my 2005 observation that Massachusetts’s licensing laws will produce twice as many master plumbers in about a decade as Rhode Island’s still stands.) And as another approach, make their housing dollars go farther by decreasing costs and fees for building, renovation, and, perhaps most glaringly, property taxes.
As far as direct government investment in resolving housing problems is concerned, however, I think we’re better off concentrating on the second perspective, and it isn’t sufficient to mandate percentages of “low income housing,” not the least because that engenders hostilities and divisions — building housing for those people because we have to, rather than because we have an opportunity to. Instead, our focus should be on thinking creatively about ways in which to encourage the development of housing that is more likely to be of the sort that we need, such as zoning to encourage the placement of apartments on top of businesses and garages. We must consider the flip-sides of health-related regulations, such as the percentage of property that must be put aside for septic systems and the number of bathrooms that can feed into each.
Indeed, the most appropriate area for local and state governments to invest in housing is the expansion of utilities (such as sewer systems) so that building is less expensive and easier precisely where it is more likely to be of benefit to lower-income families — that is, in out of the way and densely populated areas. (This, of course, would involve an easing of the mandated costs associated with public construction activities.)
To my experience, though, Rhode Islanders are reluctant to allow their neighbors’ property to become multifamily lots. They dislike the prospect of construction disrupting their daily lives. And they darken at the idea of development in open areas — even if they only drive down that road once a year to get their Christmas trees.
