Abraham Glazer: Various Ideas to Improve Rhode Island Government and Life
- Implement a two-tier pay system for administrative versus in-the-field police and firemen.
- Consolidate all Rhode Island municipal, college, state, and environmental police and fire departments into one or two police and fire departments.
- Any police or fire fighters retired on disability can go back to work in an administrative capacity with no loss of or accumulation of additional pension.
- No bond can be placed on a ballot until the government agency proposing the bond has notified the public of all outstanding bonds with a total amount to pay off all of them.
- Any roadwork projects that could possible obstruct or delay traffic can only be done between 7:00 p.m. and 5:00 a.m.
- All state construction or consulting contracts must have performance milestones with bonuses for being early and penalties for being late.
- All state construction or consulting contracts must have bonuses for being under budget and penalties for being over budget.
- No use of police officers and vehicles at construction sites unless the chief of police considers it necessary. Contractors will be responsible for posting at least one flagman.
- Limit all state and municipal pensions to no more than $100,000, with a COLA adjustment up or down every two years.
- Begin the legal work to claim eminent domain over the unfunded pension liabilities in government worker contracts.
- Pension and disability payments can only be made to residents of Rhode Island. Short of that, pension and disability payments can only be made to Rhode Island–based bank accounts.
- People convicted of felonies need to apply to have their voting rights restored after their sentences are complete.
- Work or training of at least 30 hours a weeks needs to be provided to all ACI inmates. Should they choose not to participate, they will be locked in their cells except for meals and one hour outdoor time per day.
- Trash will only be collected on one side of the street in residential neighborhoods. On automated truck routes, this will cut the route up to 50%.
- Trash collection day will advance one day for the rest of the year for any week during which there is a legal holiday.
- Residents are only entitled to one large trash bin unless they choose to pay an annual fee.
- Towns like Warwick with free large item collection by the city need to sell that service to a private company.
- School bus stops will be set up so that they are at least one mile apart. School bus stops will be no closer than one mile to any school.
- The Rhode Island Public Transit Authority will contract a study of shifting to “on call” group service (like Uberpool) from bus routes and moving to 12–18 passenger vans from large buses.
- Implement a 10-year lifetime limit on serving in the state legislature and/or any elected office.
- Enforce a 30-day residency car registration requirement. Especially for students.
- All state employees, including union officials, are not to work on union activities while being paid as state employees.
- Tollgate High School assigns at least two janitors to every football game including the Thanksgiving game, which may also be done in other school districts. They are paid at least time and a half, and there is probably a rule that after a certain number of hours, they are paid for the full day. I suggest that the cleaning up of trash in the field be the responsibility of the football teams and their fans so that the janitors’ responsibility is only to open and lock up the school. This should reduce their hours to no more than two and eliminate the need for two janitors.
