Dear Neighbors:
While yesterday’s weather was cool, I found warm spirits at the No Kings Rally march from our State House through downtown Providence. Mindful of the complementary strategies of organizing and mobilizing, I hope yesterday’s successful national mobilization will support greater organization, especially in red or purple states, to awaken a slumbering United States Congress. In the meantime, my letter will discuss an upcoming Senate Finance Committee hearing that will review the budgets of the Rhode Island Department of Transportation (RIDOT) and the Rhode Island Public Transit Authority (RIPTA).
A. Reviewing the RIDOT and RIPTA Budgets
This coming Thursday, the Senate Finance Committee’s Agenda will include a review of the budgets for RIDOT and RIPTA (which is legally an independent quasi-public organization), as well as a number of bills related to both agencies. I commend the Finance Committee Chair for combining these issues for a single hearing, as both RIDOT and RIPTA are part of our State’s transportation network, and they rely on largely overlapping funding sources. I expect important testimony from the Save RIPTA Coalition, which tried valiantly last year to persuade the General Assembly to avoid the budget reductions that have resulted in harmful service reductions.
B. Bills To Close RIPTA’s Funding Gap
In addition to reviewing the agency budgets, the Committee will hear several bills containing funding proposals to close RIPTA’s budget gap. You can review the bills by clicking on the Finance Committee’s Agenda and then clicking on any of the bill numbers that are scheduled for hearing and/or consideration.
1.Using General Revenues
One proposal, as noted in a recent Boston Globe op-ed written by Representative Alzate and Senator McKenney, which would commit $5 million of additional general revenue to RIPTA.
2.Redirecting RIDOT Funds
While I support their bill, I believe it would be even better to close RIPTA’s budget deficit by reallocating to RIPTA some of the revenue streams (such as the motor fuel tax and license/registration fees that are collected in the “highway maintenance account”) that currently are directed to RIDOT. I base my opinion on two basic considerations.
a. Inefficiencies in RIDOT’s Budget
The first is that RIDOT is not using its budgeted funds efficiently. As noted in my March 8 letter and in WPRI’s Road Woes report, RIDOT’s road program leads the country in the dubious category of combining poor quality with high cost. (For that reason, I filed bill S-2124 to commission an efficiency study of RIDOT’s road and bridges program, which is pending before the Housing and Municipal Government Committee.) And, as noted in my March 22 letter, RIDOT’s budgeting practices, such as its tardy execution of the return of the truck toll program, also leave much to be desired. As a result, I believe there is plenty of room in RIDOT’s $1 billion annual budget to find $10 million (1%) to close RIPTA’s funding gap. For that matter, if the General Assembly agrees to commission an efficiency audit of RIDOT, there is every possibility that the audit will find savings in its budget of 1% or greater, in effect “paying for” the restoration of RIPTA services without the loss of RIDOT’s capacity.
b. Limited Availability of General Funds
My second consideration is the extraordinary stress our State’s general fund budget will face this year. As noted in my January 18 letter, the federal budget passed as HR-1 in 2025 drastically reduces federal aid in such “safety net” programs as food stamps and Medicaid. The State budget lacks the capacity to restore these vital programs completely; instead, the General Assembly will need to make difficult choices from among a new set of competing priorities.
C. How You Can Share Your Views
I encourage you to share your views on these budgets with the Senate Finance Committee. You can submit written comments at this address: SenateFinance@rilegislature.gov . Please include your name, address and subject (such as the name of the budget or budgets you wish to comment on, and/or the bill number(s) that are important to you).
Thank you for your interest and engagement.