Dear Neighbors:
I hope you are enjoying a happy Mother’s Day. In today’s letter, I will describe my budget priorities I submitted to the Finance Committee Chair.
The Senate and House have begun negotiations over the budget. To prepare for those negotiations, the Senate Finance Chair invites members to share a short list of priorities for leadership to consider as part of those negotiations. My list was as follows:
1. The Limitations of This Year’s Budget
As mentioned in, among other places, my January 18 letter, this year’s budget will be affected by a substantial pullback in federally funded human services that we will try, within our capacity, to replace with State-funded programs. This limits the amount of State “general revenue” funds to pay for new programs.
2. The Motor Fuel Tax
The Governor’s budget for RIDOT incorporated a two cent reduction in the motor fuel tax (which had generated $8.6 million annually) because the State had recently retired a highway bond to which those proceeds had been dedicated. As the Finance Chair noted at the time, this tax reduction would provide the average motorist with annual savings of less than $8; therefore, it did not seem meaningful. His observation has only been amplified by the changes in gasoline prices resulting from the Iran war. I therefore proposed that the motor fuel tax remain at its current level, and the $8.6 million annual revenue be redirected in two ways:
a. RIPTA Funding
The Governor’s RIPTA budget does not include funding to restore the routes that were cut in last year’s budget. An additional allocation of RIPTA of roughly $5-8 million could restore those routes.
b. RIDOT Efficiency Study
As noted in my March 29 letter, a recent WPRI-12 Report noted that Rhode Island’s state roads rank among the nation’s worst in quality and most expensive. I introduced Bill S-2124 to commission an independent efficiency study of RIDOT’s road and bridges program. I requested a one-time expenditure of up to $500,000 in motor fuel tax proceeds to pay for that study. I believe this study can produce future savings that will more than pay for itself.
3. Using the Oil Spill and Response Fee to Fund the Executive Climate Change Cordinating Council
Senator DiMario introduced Senate Bill No. 2547 to increase the Oil Spill and Response Fee to provide funding for the Executive Climate Change Coordinating Council (EC4), which coordinates the implementation of the Act on Climate. As I noted in my April 19 letter, the State currently lacks the capacity to evaluate how changes in policy (such as the Governor’s Energy Affordability Agenda) affects the emissions regulated by the Act on Climate or consumer costs. I propose allocating funding (estimated at $300,000-$500,000) to support the maintenance of a model that can project how policy changes affect consumer energy costs in one direction, and greenhouse gas emissions in the other. That way, we will be able to predict the impacts of proposed policy changes rather than our current course of “flying blind.”
4. Next Steps
The Finance Chair will compile the input from me and my 37 colleagues, and share that information with Senate leadership. Senate leadership will negotiate the budget with the House of Representatives leadership and the Governor. At some point towards the end of this month, leadership will inform membership of the tentative agreements reached on the budget.