March 2, 2025 Letter

March is National Women’s History Month, and our East Side neighborhood provides the setting for the Rhode Historical Society’s HerStory: Historic Women of the East Side walk, that tells the story of the “educators, artists and unsung heroes” who made history in our neighborhood. In this week’s letter, I discuss the suite of legislation introduced to close the Rhode Island Public Transit Authority (RIPTA) operating deficit presented in the Governor’s budget, and the Superior Court’s decision in the Washington Bridge case.

A.     Closing the RIPTA Deficit

As noted in my January 19 letter, the Governor’s budget includes a $32.5 million operating deficit for RIPTA. At a press conference this past Thursday, the Save RIPTA Coalition promoted a package of seven bills to close this deficit in different ways. Three of them closing RIPTA’s deficit by redirecting general revenues (including taxes on ride sharing that currently flow into general revenue), while a fourth proposes a new surtax on ride sharing dedicated to RIPTA. A fifth would mandate that employers of large companies offer RIPTA bus passes to employees. While a greater commitment of general revenues to RIPTA is both sensible and fair, it may be difficult to accomplish this year because of the many other stresses on the budget, including the expiration of pandemic relief funds and the risk of cuts in other federal funding.

My two bills (which are discussed in the January 19 letter) are different, in that they seek to redirect to RIPTA revenues within the Department of Transportation budget currently directed towards other programs. They propose restoring RIPTA’s previous 30% share of motor fuel tax revenues. This could help close as much as $7 million of the $32.5 million deficit.

While this could be a good start, I view it as the beginning of a larger project. The multiple sources of revenues and expenditures within the transportation budget are complex, and I will need more time to understand them. With that said, I have reason to believe that the RIPTA budget has become the orphan stepchild of our transportation system, based on a very broad overview of the growth of budgets over the past 9 years, as reflected in this chart:
As you can see, RIPTA’s budget has grown by 35.6% over that period, an average annual rate of 3.4%, while the entire RIDOT budget has grown by 91.8%, or 7.5% average rate annually, and general State revenues have grown by 54.6%, a 4.9% average annual rate. I will need to refine this analysis to account for different revenue sources (federal and state), operating versus capital expenditures, etc.; however, these broad figures suggest that RIPTA’s share of the transportation budget has declined over time, and that if we restore RIPTA to its previous budgetary position (perhaps by trimming modestly other transportation initiatives), we also would close its budget deficit without placing demands on the general fund.

B.     The Washington Bridge lawsuit

Also on Thursday, the Superior Court issued a Decision on the motions to dismiss portions of the State’s Washington Bridge case. The issues involved are detailed and complex, but I see two general themes in the Court’s ruling. First, the Court denied all of the motions to dismiss because, at this early stage of the case, the Complaint filed by the State provides the defendants with sufficient notice of its claims, even if it lacks specificity or clarity in certain areas, giving the State the benefit of a “close call.” Second, the Court appeared skeptical of several of the State’s claims based on negligence, but provided the State with an opportunity to amend its complaint to correct certain flaws.

The contractors objected to the Complaint’s failure to identify the specific provisions in their contracts that the State claims were violated. This could matter; for example, the contractor who built the bridge based on another contractor’s allegedly flawed specifications can argue that it only did what it agreed to do, while an inspection contractor claimed that its inspection duties were limited to areas of the bridge that did not fail. As the lawsuit proceeds into discovery, the parties will exchange information, at which time the contractors will have an opportunity to refine these defenses, while the State will have the opportunity to inquire further about the contractors’ awareness (or perhaps failure to be aware) of the problems that arose during their work. Once discovery is complete, the parties may file motions for summary judgment, based on the record of undisputed facts. The Court’s ruling on that aspect of the case, which will define which issues need to be decided at trial, may set the stage for out of court settlements.