Republican Dave Talan kicks off his campaign for Mayor of Providence tonight. Here are the issues motivating Mr. Talan to run as described in his official campaign announcement…

On education, Talan wants every child to be able to attend a good school, close to home, of their parents’ choosing. If that choice is a private or parochial school, Talan would provide vouchers to ease the financial burden – both for the 8,000 children who have already fled the public schools, and for the 10,000 more he believes would leave if they could afford to. Talan’s plan would save taxpayers about $25 million. It would also benefit children who stay in public schools, by relieving overcrowding; ending cross-town forced busing; and providing competition that would force the teachers unions to relax their stranglehold on needed reforms. Talan, who attended public schools (Lexington Ave. Elementary; Reservoir Ave. Elementary; George J. West Jr. High; Classical High; URI & CCRI), would fight for an unlimited number of public charter schools; and would ease the way for experts to teach math and science.
On taxes & spending, Talan would balance the budget by reducing spending; rather than by raising taxes and relying on unlikely increases in state aid. As already mentioned, his school voucher plan would save $25 million. Talan would also fight to end all unfunded state mandates, that require spending on unnecessary things of little value. He endorses Mayor Steve Laffey’s “Taxpayers Relief Act”, that would clarify management rights, and lower pension and health care costs.
On ethics & honest government, Talan will continue the practice of refusing all contributions from city workers or people who do business with the city. He would expand this to the City Council, and push for an ethics ordinance, in order to promote more economic development in the city. Investors want to know they will not have to pay bribes, kickbacks, or campaign donations, in order to do business.
Talan is putting together a team of 35 Republican running mates to campaign together with him (15 City Council; 7 State Senate; 13 State Representative).

RI Democrats have been promising some tax relief recently, and now they’ve apparently realized that spending reductions are a good idea, too:

Senate leaders yesterday offered what they hailed as a “property-tax reduction plan.”
. . . Senate Democrats — led by Senate President Joseph A. Montalbano and Senate Majority Leader M. Teresa Paiva Weed — suggested the legislature instead take steps to rein in future growth in state and local spending. . .
The senators are proposing to lower, over six years, the current ceiling on annual city and town spending increases from 5.5 percent to 4 percent of the tax levy, starting in fiscal year 2008. . .Similarly, the senators are seeking to lower, by 2012, the cap on state spending increases from 5.5 percent of total appropriations, including federal funds, to 4.5 percent of all state taxes and fees.
After years of nudging from school superintendents across the state, they also pledged their support to a bill, introduced by Sen. Maryellen Goodwin on March 9, that would prohibit the state from imposing any new mandates on local school districts “without the provision of adequate and commensurate funding by and from the state to insure that the city or town is able to pay for such mandate.”
…the senators pledged “to continue to work on reducing the property-tax burden of Rhode Islanders” by launching a new study of school financing, and accumulating information on all current tax treaties, exemptions and freezes granted across the state.

The story is devoid of any specifics as to what type of spending is going to be reduced. Instead, we are left with a promise to reduce unfunded mandates, to decrease the amount of annual budget increases via a new spending cap and the commissioning of various “studies.”
This seems like a nice conceptual and structural change, but what exactly, pray tell, do the Democrats plan on cutting? Do they really need more time to “study” the problem? It’s a bit disingenuous to lambaste the Governor for his proposed budget cuts and then–instead of countering with your own specific cuts–issue a vague, non-specific promise of reductions. Anyone can get behind the idea of cutting government spending, I’ll take the Democrats seriously when they actually put forward some specific cuts.

Here is the meat and potatoes of what the Giuliani group found in their audit of Beacon Mutual [the whole report is here (PDF)]. First, we have the in house problems:

Beacon executives maintained a VIP list of about a dozen companies, some of which received favorable treatment resulting in lower workers’ comp rates. Solomon denied the list’s existence to Giuliani’s investigators, but told another Beacon executive to delete it from his computer.
Beacon paid some insurance agents “significantly greater” commissions than required under their contracts — about $2.5 million from 2001 to 2004.
Beacon’s longtime chairman, Sheldon Sollosy, who resigned in February, misused his position by refusing to provide the insurer with payroll records for a company he owned, Temporary Manpower Services. His refusal, “ignored” by Beacon management even though it violated Beacon policy, made it impossible to determine whether Sollosy’s company paid the rates it should have.
Beacon’s president, Joseph A. Solomon, had granite countertops installed in the kitchen of his East Greenwich house by a company that received undocumented breaks on its workers’ comp insurance. An executive of the stone-working company told investigators that the $10,000 Solomon paid for the kitchen work didn’t cover the total cost. Solomon said in an interview that the cost was only slightly higher, but the contractor honored his original quote of $10,000. The report found no evidence of a “quid pro quo.”
Solomon and three Beacon insurance agents used Beacon funds to help pay for a trip to the exclusive Carnegie Club at Skibo Castle in the Scottish highlands three years ago. Solomon said in an interview that Beacon spent $19,000 on the trip.
The report also found “weak or non-existent” policies at Beacon regarding corporate governance, ethics and internal auditing, as well as “inadequate” financial checks and balances that invited potential, and actual, abuse.
Controls are so lacking, and special deals so prevalent among the limited number of policies reviewed, the Giuliani review found, that several Beacon employees said that “two underwriters given the same information will come to two different conclusions” regarding the rate that a company should pay.

Then there’s a bit more on those “special” deals:

The Giuliani report cites several instances in which companies may have paid lower rates as a result of misclassified workers.
The report cited evidence of “misclassifications of payroll” at Temporary Manpower Services. Over a nine-year period ending in 2002, just before Sollosy sold the company and canceled his policy, Beacon lost money on Manpower six years, paying out more in injury claims than it collected in premiums.
The report also quotes an internal Beacon analysis in 2002 highlighting “numerous areas” in which Manpower received “preferential treatment,” including credits that normally go to companies (based on their safety records, and a lower volume of claims), but which Beacon didn’t normally grant to temp agencies. But nothing changed.
Investigators expressed concern that while Sollosy’s company received “special treatment,” Sollosy, as head of Beacon’s compensation committee, recommended board approval of “excessive” compensation packages for Beacon executives, including Solomon, who has a $490,000 salary and a $3-million severance package.
Sollosy was also the lone person to approve Solomon’s travel expenses, and did so after the fact, including the trip to Scotland, the report said.
The Giuliani team tried to interview Sollosy, but he declined, on the advice of his lawyer, Peter A. DiBiase. (DiBiase could not be reached for comment.)
In the case of Paul Arpin Van Lines, the report found credits that were “unearned and unwarranted due to a history of losses,” as well as “incorrect” classifications of workers.
During an overlapping period, from 2001 to 2005, Beacon reimbursed Arpin $450,000 for its use of a luxury box for New England Patriots football games. Solomon has said that Beacon used the box to entertain valued clients and insurance brokers, but discontinued the practice early this year to avoid controversy.
An Arpin official did not return a call seeking comment.
Investigators also found evidence that the Cardi Corp. did not have any employees classified as bridge workers, even though there is “ample evidence” that Cardi is involved in bridge construction, including the company’s own Web site and “at least one claim” involving an injury related to bridge construction.
Beginning in 2003, the report says, Beacon loss-prevention employees “began to insist” that bridge workers be included in Cardi’s policy, bolstering their case with an auditor’s visit to a Cardi construction site and photos of Cardi employees performing bridge work. But to date, Cardi does not pay any premiums for bridge workers.
A Cardi spokesman did not return a call seeking comment.
The report also questioned Beacon’s due diligence in checking the payrolls and job classifications at Lifespan, by far its largest policyholder, with nearly $5 million in premiums last year. Lifespan’s three-year guaranteed rate was “highly unusual and not customary,” the report said.
Jane Bruno, a spokeswoman for Lifespan, said the company was above-board in its dealings with Beacon, and would not have done business with the insurer without a multiyear guarantee.

And all of this even though the Beacon Mutual guys weren’t that forthcoming. Imagine what will be found when the state insurance investigators–who have subpoena power–get in there. Of course, the fact that they can’t look at those hard drives isn’t very helpful, is it?