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RIPR is a (paper) newsletter that looks at local, state and federal policy issues that affect life here in the Ocean State. Each issue focuses on particular policy areas of interest. Future issues will examine controversial aspects of environmental policy, health care, state tax reform, and education spending. The intention is to look at action rather than talk. RIPR also issues a weekly column about public policy, carried by ten of Rhode Island's finer newspapers. See here for an archive of recent columns. If you'd like to help, please contribute an item, suggest an issue topic, or buy a subscription. If you can, buy two or three (subscribe here). Search this siteAvailable Back Issues:
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Contact:For those of you who can read english and understand it, the following is an email address you are welcome to use. If you are a web bot, we hope you can't understand it, and that's the point of writing it this way. editor at whatcheer dot net Archive:
Links:Links pageRSSRIPR is primarily a print publication (yikes! how 20th century!), and the work it represents is supported by its subscribers. Feel free to use this link to an RSS feed for the blog, but the real meat is in the newsletter, so come back and subscribe when you have a chance. Responsibility: Tom Sgouros
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Fri, 29 Jun 2007
A column (by me) about DOT appeared in today's Woonsocket Call and Pawtucket Times. Let those papers know what you think.
15:11 - 29 Jun 2007 [/y7/jn] link
Thu, 28 Jun 2007
A new report is out from the Sierra Club about sensible ways to improve our bus system. The first thing we have to do isn't offer more money, but to find a way to stop making things worse. (The second thing to do is to provide it more money.)
You can also find it at www.ri.sierraclub.org/Here to There.pdf.
The report is filled with rare insight and wit, invaluable policy suggestions and surprising critiques. It contains a breadth of vision unmatched by any similar effort, and will be a document of astonishing value to policymakers in our state for years to come. Did I mention who wrote it?
16:28 - 28 Jun 2007 [/y7/jn] link
Fri, 15 Jun 2007
While I'm gratified to see coverage of the fiscal disaster of DOT in the news, the troubling part is that the Journal seems not to want to ask why there are so many contractors at DOT and why they lack people qualified to do bridge inspections, for example. As has been covered in our pages extensively, DOT has been irresponsibly borrowing for years. Roughly it goes like this:
- DOT has to match federal funds 80/20 or 90/10 in order to receive them.
- The state routinely borrows to make that match, $30-40 million every year, no matter what.
- DOT used to borrow for employee salaries (!) but were told ten years ago to stop. But they weren't given the money they needed to both stop the practice and keep building roads. So they didn't.
- Contractors, you see, can be allocated to individual construction projects, and therefore are considered construction costs, not personnel costs. Same amount of money, just in a different accounting category.
- So many personnel were laid off and rehired as contractors. Presto! No salaries are being paid with debt, but lots of contractors are being paid that way.
Remember, you heard it here first. Actually, if you were a subscriber, you read it here two-and-a-half years ago. We even wrote a bit about it in issue 1, in May 2003.
Of course, there's nothing really remarkable about that. James Capaldi, who retired as the DOT director a few months ago, and Ed Parker, who was put on administrative leave yesterday explained it all to me in 1998, in a meeting in Capaldi's office. (He wasn't director yet.) In other words, this story has been available and obvious for years.
Maybe you should subscribe?
15:46 - 15 Jun 2007 [/y7/jn] link
The Woonsocket Call has invited me to contribute a regular column to their fine journal. Find the first edition here.
09:39 - 15 Jun 2007 [/y7/jn] link
For evidence that the insane press coverage of John Kerry in 2004, Al Gore in 2000 and Bill Clinton had little or nothing to do with those candidates' personal qualities, read here.
08:42 - 15 Jun 2007 [/y7/jn] link
Thu, 14 Jun 2007
A proposal has surfaced in the legislature (with some help from the RIPR editorial staff) to re-amortize the state pension fund's unfunded liability in order to avoid cuts to education in cities and towns around the state. The proposal may manifest itself in a floor amendment during the budget debate this coming Friday. This issue is covered extensively in issue 9, but here's a short summation of the situation, and a FAQ list.
First, a definition: The "unfunded liability" of a pension system is the difference between what we expect our pension fund will grow to, given reasonable assumptions about our investments, and what our pension obligations will grow to, given reasonable assumptions about our employees and the rate at which they retire.
Rhode Island is currently on year 7 of a 30-year program to retire the unfunded liability of our public employee pension system. The proposal is to restart the clock at 30 years, pushing back the final date from 2029 to 2037.
That's all, but it will save the state and cities and towns more than $35 million this year.
Find the FAQ list after the jump.
15:41 - 14 Jun 2007 [/y7/jn] link
Do you know why photo-voltaic cells still cost a lot? Here's one reason.
15:41 - 14 Jun 2007 [/y7/jn] link
Wed, 13 Jun 2007
America's Progressive Majority?
10:47 - 13 Jun 2007 [/y7/jn] link
Who knew that this was how the military would keep us safe? As one commenter put it: "The good news is that we've found plenty of WMD. The bad news is the weapons are ours and we found them dumped in the sea."
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