Fiscal Policy

Budget Summit: Second Panel Discussion

By Carroll Andrew Morse | December 17, 2010 |

Richard Licht continues to moderate… [10:33] Q to George Nee, President of the RI AFL-CIO: I know you are concerned as anyone else with balancing this budget. Do you have any ideas where money can be saved? [10:34] George Nee: We have focused too much on the FTE issue. We haven’t looked at total personnel…

Budget Summit: First Panel Discussion

By Carroll Andrew Morse | December 17, 2010 |

Richard Licht moderates. [9:24] Q to John Simmons of RIPEC. What’s happening in other states? [9:24] Simmons: Rhode Island has acted much faster than other states in facing the fiscal crisis. Simmons is presenting some RIPEC “How we compare charts”… [9:23] Simmons highlights “vendor payments” as a big RI budget driver, and that a lot…

Welcome to the Governor-Elect’s Budget Summit

By Carroll Andrew Morse | December 17, 2010 |

Good morning, from the Sapinsley Center on the campus of Rhode Island College, where I will be liveblogging Governor-Elect Lincoln Chafee’s budget summit this morning: Governor-Elect Chafee offers opening remarks: First priorities are education, state-aid and Central Falls Deficit for next year as high as 300M There are 2 columns in any budget, revenues and…

Tabulating Rhode Island’s FY2011 Federal Earmarks

By Marc Comtois | December 16, 2010 |

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…

Which City of Providence Accounts are the Reserve Accounts?

By Carroll Andrew Morse | October 25, 2010 |

Philip Marcelo‘s story on Providence City Auditor James Lombardi’s memo expressing “grave concern regarding the financial stability” of Providence is running in today’s Projo. The memo addresses several issues, one of which concerns the reserve fund that the City is supposed to maintain. According to the memo, the balance in the “reserve contingency funds cash…

Open Thread: Ballot Question 4

By Carroll Andrew Morse | October 24, 2010 |

The floor (aka the comments section) is open, for people who’d like to discuss why they will or will not be voting for or against the fourth question that will appear on the Nov. 2 Rhode Island ballot…OPEN SPACE AND RECREATION BONDS — $14,700,000 Approval of this question will authorize the State of Rhode Island…

Open Thread: Ballot Question 3

By Carroll Andrew Morse | October 24, 2010 |

The floor (aka the comments section) is open, for people who’d like to discuss why they will or will not be voting for or against the third question that will appear on the Nov. 2 Rhode Island ballot…TRANSPORTATION BONDS — $84,700,000 Approval of this question will authorize the State of Rhode Island to issue general…

Open Thread: Ballot Question 2

By Carroll Andrew Morse | October 24, 2010 |

The floor (aka the comments section) is open, for people who’d like to discuss why they will or will not be voting for or against the second question that will appear on the Nov. 2 Rhode Island ballot…HIGHER EDUCATION FACILITIES BONDS — $78,000,000 Approval of this question will allow the State of Rhode Island to…

Re: A Billion-Dollar Cold Turkey Dinner for Rhode Island?

By Carroll Andrew Morse | October 10, 2010 |

In response to my post from yesterday on the potential crunch coming to the Rhode Island budget based on the loss of Federal dollars, spurrued by Professor Leonard Lardaro’s Staurday Projo op-ed, commenter Bill replies…Most respectfully and to the contrary, there will always be “bailout” or other “funny” money from Washington for RI. Obama knows…

A Billion-Dollar Cold Turkey Dinner for Rhode Island?

By Carroll Andrew Morse | October 9, 2010 |

In an op-ed in today’s Projo, University of Rhode Island Economics Professor Leonard Lardaro connected the macroeconomic to the macropolitical…The upcoming election is more important than is generally assumed for Rhode Island, because federal bailout money will no longer be available by this time next year. Fiscally, this will force us to go “cold turkey.”…