The Progressive’s Property Tax Comeuppance

This made the rounds of conservative Web sites, yesterday — on Instapundit, for one — but it’s too telling not to share:

“I’m at the breaking point,” said Gretchen Gardner, an Austin artist who bought a 1930s bungalow in the Bouldin neighborhood just south of downtown in 1991 and has watched her property tax bill soar to $8,500 this year.

“It’s not because I don’t like paying taxes,” said Gardner, who attended both meetings. “I have voted for every park, every library, all the school improvements, for light rail, for anything that will make this city better. But now I can’t afford to live here anymore. I’ll protest my appraisal notice, but that’s not enough. Someone needs to step in and address the big picture.”

To be fair, Ms. Gardner doesn’t appear to be incensed as much about the total taxes the city is collecting; she thinks the government should have all that it wants (and maybe more)… just not from her.  That is, it appears that, in their protest, such residents are not learning a lesson, but reinforcing their ideology.  The culprit, in the article, is that the commercial property tax rate is too low.

There are no statements from advocates on the other side, so readers should expect that the article is not the whole story.  It’s possible, for example, that the zoning restrictions or other regulations often favored by the same folks who vote for every public expenditure that comes their way have constrained the commercial market in Austin, so the prices for such properties haven’t kept pace with residential prices.

It certainly wouldn’t be unusual for progressive residents to push for government projects that simultaneously increase the cost of taxes and make the area more aesthetically pleasing, which drives up the value of residential property, while also tightening the reins on commercial property. That could create a perfect storm to wallop well-meaning residents who didn’t consider the hidden costs of their votes.

The tragedy, which is easy to find in Rhode Island, is that there are a whole lot of people who either vote against all of those projects that attract the support of Ms. Gardners or don’t vote at all and who have already been steamrolled by the mounting tax bill by the time the big spenders feel the pinch.  In local parlance, around here, those taxpayers who feel the strain before the progressives are the “one percenters” who want to “destroy the community” and “hurt children.”

UPDATED: East Greenwich Doesn’t Get That Clearing a Bar Isn’t Barring People

Emails an out-of-state friend, when he came across this story, “What is going on up there in the Ocean State?”

Honors Night at Cole Middle School is no more.

Parents got an email from Principal Alexis Meyer over the weekend saying some members of the school community “have long expressed concerns related to the exclusive nature of Honors Night.” The email goes on to say students will be recognized in other ways.

One student whom ABC6 goes on to quote illustrates the truth that too many people are apparently unable to understand, these days:  It’s not “exclusive” in the sense that it bars anybody from every participating.  Rather, it sets a bar, and students who want to be included can work toward the achievement, at which point, attendance will really mean something.

Something tells me this isn’t a good omen for the East Greenwich school district.

 

UPDATE (5/20/14 3:54 p.m.):

Well, that was fast.  John DeLuca tweets: “just found out from @MikeLaCrosse that EG School Administrators r reversing the decision on honors night. Will be held in June.”

I guess the people of East Greenwich also didn’t think it was a good omen for their much-lauded school district.

Explaining the Holes in the Road

If only every city and town had at least one person motivated to make videos like this one, about Warwick potholes:

My only suggestion would be to make the comparison between the reduced funding for infrastructure and the city’s exploding employee benefits budget earlier in the video and more frequently.  That really is a core reality that Rhode Islanders need to learn.

Government does everything backwards.  Officials negotiating contracts seem to start with what employees deserve.  Budgets are built based on what the government says it needs.  The money has to come from somewhere, of course, and taxpayers revolt if it all comes from them.  So… potholes.

Another core reality that Rhode Islanders need to learn is that a healthier two-party system — with two parties that actually are different, not just shades of the same ideology — would go a long way toward ensuring that every city and town (and the state) had an opposition with incentive to shine a light on what the people in power are doing badly, and voters would have an option upon discovery of those problems.

Changing Central Falls… for Whom?

Yesterday brought another article (Zachary Malinowski in the Providence Journal) about the “innovative ideas” finding purchase with the “very young government” (as in officials’ ages) of Central Falls.  This time, it’s a “Comprehensive Master Plan” developed by students at the Rhode Island School of Design and Brown University.

RISD landscape architecture professor Elizabeth Dean Hermann says the administration of Central Falls is mainly “learning through doing” and is very open to the suggestions of college students.  That should make one wonder what sort of urban area young folks at high-end colleges would design.

What’s their point of reference?  The people who actually live in Central Falls — with their own cultural habits, their own living circumstances, and their own income levels?  Or is the redesign going to be based on things that college students and some other young adults who find themselves in control of a city would think are cool?

I’ve wondered this before.  What I find interesting in this latest episode is that it comes with artists’ sketches.  Notice anything about the folks enjoying the “beautification” of Central Falls.

The Antagonists in the Coventry Fire District Dispute

Granted, I haven’t been following the situation as closely as some, but something feels odd about John Hill’s Providence Journal article, yesterday, about the Central Coventry Fire District collapse:

Until Governor Chafee ordered a state takeover last week, the district’s governing board and its firefighters union were locked in what looked like a fiscal battle to the death. A Superior Court judge had ordered the district’s property be sold and its employees laid off by May 16 in an effort to pay off its debts. The state police financial crimes unit was even called in to find out if the collapse was due to criminality or incompetence.

From the article, a reader would have no idea that events are the culmination of citizen activism — the fruits of an engaged electorate.  When I liveblogged a meeting back in 2012, the story wasn’t board versus union.  It was government (i.e., board and union) versus taxpayers.

It’s a small thing, maybe, but it seems important to me.  Democracy, even representative democracy, starts with and relies heavily upon the engagement of the people.  Yet, from standard reporting (at least in blue states), taxpayers never get to be the heroes.  Unions can be the heroes.  Government officials can be the heroes.  People demanding handouts from the government — or more generally that government take some action — can be the heroes.

Private citizens who take time out of their lives to understand government budgets, finding errors or simple poor management, and then who brave hostile meetings at which the officials in charge literally snatch the microphones from their hands while people on whom they might rely for safety or to teach their children shout and glare from around the auditorium?  Not so heroic.

This is a problem not just to the extent that a society will limit its number of heroes if it treats them like non-entities, or even selfish villains, but also because of its effect on general attentiveness.  The story of Central Coventry Fire as told in the Providence Journal is of a battle between a local government unit and a government union, now set to be arbitrated by the state government.

If government’s got it all handled, why do private citizens need to pay attention in the first place?

Defending a Property Tax Decrease

Video and reports from Tiverton’s financial town hearing show that one side wants to increase taxes when it doesn’t need to and the other side believes the people need a break.

North Providence Economic Development as Another Government Boondoggle

A North Providence gym that was invited in and then shut down by local government illustrates the wisdom of avoiding economic activity where government’s role is overly strong.

10 News Conference Wingmen, Episode 27 (Central Coventry Fire District)

On NBC 10 Wingmen, Bob Plain and I discussed the General Assembly’s entry into the Central Coventry Fire District controversy; in this post, I add some points that I should have inserted into the segment.

No Tax Increase in Tiverton, and the Mysterious Influence of Wall Street

Assertions by tax-increase advocates that Tiverton needs a large reserve fund for debt reasons don’t match the numbers for other RI cities and towns and, anyway, have priorities out of whack.

What Rhode Islanders Need To Know About the Crisis in Central Coventry, Part 2

What is important to keep in mind here is that, unlike the mayors and city councils of cities like Central Falls and Woonsocket, fire districts do not start out from a position, under the general laws of Rhode Island, of being able to tax without direct voter approval. Fire-district levies still have to go to the voters, and it should not be assumed that empaneling a budget commission automatically negates this. A budget commission should have to submit a budget it formulates to the same voters who recently rejected the others, and re-modifying the fiscal stability act to say in effect that the union is permanent while the voters can be relegated to an advisory role (at best) is not a satisfactory solution here.

This means that the final stage built into the fiscal stability act, receivership aimed at an official bankruptcy proceeding, where everything is put on the table including the entirety of existing contracts, will be a real possibility once the state steps in. And rightly or wrongly, the realities of political pressures and “financial market forces” are that it will be much easier to send a fire district into full-blown bankruptcy than sending municipal governments has been.

What Rhode Islanders Need To Know About the Crisis in Central Coventry, Part 1

Superior Court Judge Brian Stern’s order liquidating the Central Coventry Fire District describes the crisis the district is in very succinctly…

The yearly operating expenses of the fire district were far in excess of the amount of funds that was being generated by taxes and other fees. The board had created what can only be described as an elaborate Ponzi scheme to hide this from the taxpayers, which resulted in a multimillion dollar structural deficit. A twenty, thirty, or even a fifty percent increase in taxes would not even resolve the entire structural deficit the board had created at the time.
Full detail on how the district got into this position, is in the main post.

The Plan is to Let Councilman Brien Stay on the Woonsocket Budget Commission but Step Down as Council President

2B. H7943: Replaces the town/city council president on a budget commission of a town/city that’s under one, with a member chosen by a vote of the town/city council. (H Municipal Government; Thu, Apr 10) This bill could also be described as “replaces Albert Brien on the Woonsocket Budget Commission with someone yet to be determined (at least as far as the public knows)”. People have a better case for taking to the streets shouting “It’s a coup! It’s a coup!” in response to this bill (though it would still be a stretch) than they do in response to Gordon Fox’s resignation.

A knowledgeable and trustworthy Woonsocket source heard an interview on WNRI (1380 AM) this morning with Woonsocket City Councilman Albert Brien, where this bill was explained. According to the interview, the purpose of this bill is not to move Councilman Brien off of the budget commission, it’s to allow him to keep his seat on the budget commission, while relinquishing the City Council presidency. Councilman Brien, apparently, doesn’t really want to be council president. Councilman Robert Moreau, on the other hand, does, but because he is a retired police officer, and there is a retiree lawsuit underway against the budget commission, his taking of the budget-commission seat would create a conflict-of-interest. By splitting the jobs apart, Councilmen Brien and Moreau are allowed to take on roles they’d prefer to have.

Possible Spotlight on Spending Error Makes the Point Better

Randal Edgar’s Providence Journal front-page article on the RI Center for Freedom & Prosperity’s Spotlight on Spending report (which is much better than the article featured on the paper’s Web site, last night) raises another small-dollar item from another year that we used as an example:

Preserve Rhode Island questioned the assertion that a $3,000 Certified Local Government Grant to the town of Bristol to “produce a smart-phone application to guide visitors” through the town’s historic areas had led to downloads by only about 100 people.

“The Bristol Walking Tour project is only in the planning stage; no walking tour smart-phone application has been developed,” the group said.

As we wrote in the introduction to the report, government spending is so massive and difficult to trace that it would be impossible for interested citizens to assess it without a little margin for error, and in this case, we may have been incorrect to think that the Bristol community app featuring a “historic walking tour” released at the end of the 2013 fiscal year was the one for which taxpayers paid during the 2013 fiscal year.

If it was an error, though, I wish we hadn’t made it mostly because the reality serves our point even better, for three reasons:

  1. We paid $3,000 in FY13 for an app, and as we approach the end of FY14 (and the tourist season), it isn’t even in development, yet, but still in planning? I’d say that’s clearly “non-essential spending.”
  2. If the app that we highlighted in the report was entirely funded by private organizations, why is the government (much less the state government) getting involved at all (much less to produce a duplicate product)?
  3. As phrased, Preserve RI was contesting our characterization of the number of users of the app. Does anybody really think that an app produced by the government and with a much narrower scope than the one we described would actually do better?

The Consequences of Bad Government, Tiverton Edition

So, the Tiverton Youth Soccer league — an independent community group in our town that works with networks in Rhode Island and Massachusetts to provide (not-for-free) year-round soccer programs for interested children in the town — has sent out an interesting request by email:

Dear Parents,

Every year the town has rolled our fields at the beginning of each season. With the recent departure of our Town Maintenance Person and helper the DPW said it is too busy to do it at this time.

If you have a roller or access to a roller and could possibly complete such a task please reply to this email ASAP.

In general, I’m energized by the idea of people in the community coming together to accomplish things for each other without having to make people who aren’t interested pay the bill. But here’s the thing: The fields are town property, and maintenance is factored in to our tax bills. This is a service for which we’re paying.

So, what were the circumstances of “the recent departure of our Town Maintenance Person”? Well, Channel 10 filmed him stealing time from the town, doing work on his own rental properties while on the clock.

And what were the circumstances of the departure of his “helper”? Well, the (now-former) town administrator fired him for being a whistleblower, which is explicitly against the law, and for which the town is now being sued.

The Tiverton Town Council allowed both the maintenance foreman and the administrator to retire gracefully (while being dishonest about the background of their decision). In fact, Maintenance Foreman Bob Martin is technically still employed by the town, until his retirement on April 22.

The local political action committee Tiverton 1st, which promoted the current town council and worked closely with Democrat state Representative John “Jay” Edwards, ran on assertions that they were the real supporters of community and alternatives were evil interlopers trying to “destroy the town.” Somehow, I don’t think the folks who voted for them thought they meant that they’d build our sense of community by forcing us to do volunteer labor because corrupt town employees were busy enjoying early retirements.

Another Indication Government Can Shrink

Michael Barone reports the findings of Canadian economist Livio De Matteo, who says that the optimal size of government — in terms of economic growth — is 26% of GDP. Having not investigated how De Matteo gets to that number, I can’t say whether it’s unreasonably high or even too low, but out of curiosity: How do we stack up in Rhode Island?

Given available data, 2011 is a good year to check, and it looks like the following:

  • Rhode Islanders’ portion of federal spending: $12.75 billion
  • State general revenue spending: $2.96 billion
  • State restricted receipt spending: $0.16 billion
  • Total municipal tax levy: $2.25 billion

That list misses some stuff, such as fire district taxes and municipal revenue not included in the levy. (I went with levy rather than budget because much of the additional spending would double-count federal dollars.)

Duly noting the minor tweaks, that list totals to $18.12 billion, or 37% of the state’s $49.42 billion GDP that year. Government is 41% to big in Rhode Island. Put differently, optimal economic growth would require the three tiers of government to cut their Rhode Island–related budgets by $5.27 billion.

That’s a big number that nobody would expect to realize, but it kind of puts in context the few hundred million dollars that the RI Center for Freedom & Prosperity projects to be the cost of eliminating the sales tax, doesn’t it?

Giving Aid Because It’s Not Needed

Allowing a rare moment of agreement, Bob Plain’s got a great catch on RI Future:

Governor Chafee’s proposed budget would give $341,488 [in library aid] to Barrington and $17,569 to Central Falls. That’s because state library aid is appropriated based on a library’s budget rather than its need.

Put differently, because a community is able and willing to use more local money for its library, the state gives it more assistance. I join Bob in thinking that’s not really the way tax dollars should be apportioned.

Of course, if we take the next step and ask what ought to be done about it, we’d probably be back to disagreement. I suspect the position of Bob and the Progressives would be that the state ought to bring poorer communities’ total library budgets up to the amount that wealthier communities are able to support. If Barrington’s library operates with $1.5 million and Central Falls’ library operates with $165,000, one can almost hear them thinking that the state should give Central Falls another $1.3 million.

I’d go the other way. Clearly, a town that can come up with over $1 million for its library (and it really is a nice library) doesn’t need help from state-level taxpayers. The total amount of state library aid, in other words, ought to be cut.

What Happens When Employees Pick Their Own Bosses

The other day, Glenn Reynolds linked to this article about the predicament of San Jose, in which paying for the government’s workforce, especially its pensions, is eating up an ever growing amount of the budget:

“This is one of the dichotomies of California: I am cutting services to my low- and moderate-income people . . . to pay really generous benefits for public employees who make a good living and have an even better retirement,” [Democrat Mayor Chuck Reed] said in an interview in his office overlooking downtown.

This outcome is probably inevitable once we allow the people employed in government to bring in union organizers whose primary service is to keep employees’ remuneration growing. The employees get a vote at the negotiating table, and they get a vote at the ballot box. They can create an atmosphere of great reward for politicians who’ll be pliant as they represent taxpayers in contract negotiations.

Then, when the labor organizations merge into national behemoths, they become a shadow government, able to shift resources around the country and stick with (or oppose) politicians throughout every layer of government.

Of course, public sector unions gain other advantages. Because they’re negotiating with government, whose cards must be open to public review, their negotiations can become something more akin to demands. And because the employees ultimately perform the work that elected officials manage, they’re in a position to make them look good or bad. (Think the Cranston parking ticket scandal.)

It isn’t at all surprising that, under these circumstances, the central focus of government becomes supporting its employees, even as all of the things its supposed to be doing (they’re supposed to be doing) fall by the wayside for lack of resources.

RI Housing, Another Mirror of the RI Way

Two parcels of Providence land for which Rhode Island Housing appears to have paid a hefty sum open up a peep hole into the operations of the state’s ruling class.

Liabilities Revisited

Fans of government data have been cynical and despondent over the failure of the state’s Division of Municipal Finance to update its online data for most of Governor Chafee’s term. Happily, the division appears to have updated the data and made it more interactive.

One of the first things this provides is an opportunity to explain, once again, how dire the municipalities’ unfunded liabilities are. I’ll use Tiverton as an example.

As of 2012, Tiverton’s police pension was only 50.6% funded, with an unfunded liability of $6.5 million. Per the latest data posted (I think 2013), our “other post employment benefits” (such as healthcare) are 0.0% funded, with an unfunded liability of $24.5 million.

What “unfunded liability” means is that we would have to have that much money in the bank in order for regular payments and investment returns to be enough to cover the promised expenses. (If memory serves, Tiverton currently assumes 7.5% investment returns.) That is not the amount that Tiverton has promised to pay, which is probably in the high tens or hundreds of millions.

In other words, if we had $37.7 million in the bank, were making our regular contributions every year, and investment returns were bringing in $2.8 million every year, that would be enough to keep the program going forever. (It’s actually a scam that doesn’t work that way, but we’re talking the theory, here.)

But we don’t have that. We have $6.7 million in the bank. That means we would have to put in $31 million right now to have what we need. Every year that we don’t do that, the liability grows, because investments are only bringing in around $500,000 (long term, in theory).

(The biggest problem, other than not having money in there, is that assuming 7.5% returns on long-term investments is crazy.)

In general, this would make it tough for local taxpayers to demand low or no tax increases, but since local governments aren’t funding the liabilities in the first place (or demanding less lucrative contracts), we’re only compounding the problem by taxing people more and taking properties off the tax rolls, as Tiverton just did. If our cities and towns aren’t going to protect us from the coming catastrophe, people should be allowed to keep their money and make their own financial decisions in order to be able to pay for the catastrophe when it happens (or afford to escape!).

UPDATED: Another Fine Example of RI Government Ruling Rather than Representing

At first look, it mightn’t concern Rhode Islanders from elsewhere that the Tiverton Town Council just spent a half-million dollars buying a waterfront gas station that will now not only pay no taxes, but will be part of a renovation project costing taxpayers an estimated “$2.3 million [for] renovation over the next few years.” But look again:

On the funding side, [Town Solicitor Andrew Teitz] said, $200,000 would be coming from RIDOT, and $208,000 from RIDEM.

Yes, that’s the same Department of Transportation whose director was recently making news whining about a lack of resources. Let me refresh your memory:

Rhode Island Department of Transportation Director Michael Lewis has a message for those traversing the state’s shoddy and weatherworn roads: Get used to it.

Crumbling roads and bridges across the state, Lewis told The Breeze, aren’t likely to get fixed anytime soon because the department’s funding sources are drying up …

Here, once again, we see the pattern of officials’ taking your money at the state level (where they’ve got such a lock on the electoral system that even extreme displeasure can’t unseat them) and giving it to local governments so they can commit local taxpayers to projects without anybody’s ever getting a vote. In the recent national discussion over Russia and the Ukraine, I heard one analyst note that, while the West was wringing its hands, Vladamir Putin was changing facts on the ground.

That’s the strategy, here. It’s not difficult to slip through purchases and programs when people don’t think they’re paying. Once they own it, though, it’s their responsibility to pay for renovation and maintenance. Welcome to the facts on the ground.

Even worse, this entire deal appears to have happened in closed executive session. Many of us were waiting for the public debate of how the Town Council could possibly have the authority to make such a purchase. Oh, well.

I don’t know what to call this outrage, but it’s not democracy.

I also don’t know how many people actually stand to benefit from this. I’d wager mere hundreds of Tiverton’s 15,000 residents even pass by this spot on a regular basis, let alone stop by to rent kayaks, or whatever. And now you, no matter where you live in the state, have helped to pay for the feel-good shopping spree of my town’s little tyrants.

(Click “Continue reading” for addenda.)

Newsflash: Poll Shows Rhode Island Voters Don’t Like Other Guys’ Politicians

The poll results put out by the Hassenfeld Institute at Bryant University are unsurprising and really don’t tell us anything new.

Passing the Brett Smiley Gun Tax Bill Requires Two-Thirds Majorities

The Brett Smiley 10%-tax-on-firearms bill has been introduced at the Rhode Island Senate, with Providence State Senator Gayle Goldin as the lead sponsor. Money collected from the tax will be used as follows:

(b) All sums received by the division of taxation under this section as taxes, penalties or forfeitures, interest, costs of suit and fines shall be distributed at least quarterly, credited and paid by the state treasurer into a special fund designated for allocation to the various police departments throughout the state. If a city or town does not have a municipal police department, disbursements pursuant to this section shall be made to the highest ranking municipal official.

(c) Allocation of the funds to the various police departments or city or town officials pursuant to subsection (b) shall be made yearly and based proportionally on the number of “total offenses” occurring in said city or town as set forth in the prior year’s uniform crime report published by the Rhode Island state police.

(d) Any money distributed to the various police departments or city or town officials shall be used only for grants to nonprofit organizations whose mission includes a commitment to the reduction of crime and violence in the community. The local police chief and/or highest ranking municipal official of each city or town shall have discretion as to the amount of money allocated and the groups who shall receive said funds.

Since funds collected through this tax will be used exclusively to make local appropriations to private organizations, in accordance with Article VI section 11 of the Rhode Island Constitution, this bill cannot become law without the approval of a 2/3 majority of both houses of the Rhode Island General Assembly…

Vote required to pass local or private appropriations. — The assent of two-thirds of the members elected to each house of the general assembly shall be required to every bill appropriating the public money or property for local or private purposes.

If You’re Going to Bribe State or Local Officials, Make Sure You Have a Solid Retainer Arrangement

Former Central Falls mayor Charles Moreau is about to be set free “after serving half his two-year sentence” on corruption charges (background available from Michelle Smith of the Associated Press, here), as a result of a First Circuit Court of Appeals opinion from June of last year. Two key factors made the decision in USA vs. Fernandez directly relevant to the Moreau case.

1. Moreau was apparently convicted of accepting not a “bribe” but a “gratuity”. What’s the difference? The First Circuit quotes a 1999 Supreme Court opinion to explain…

[F]or bribery there must be a quid pro quo — a specific intent to give or receive something of value in exchange for an official act. An illegal gratuity, on the other hand, may constitute merely a reward for some future act that the public official will take (and may already have determined to take), or for a past act that he has already taken.

2. The court then notes the structure of Federal statute…

§ 201(b) targets (primarily) federal officials, while § 666 targets non-federal officials who happen to have a connection to federal funds. It is reasonable to assume that the federal government viewed corrupt federal officials involved in the receipt of bribes as more culpable.

…where § 201(b) makes “bribes” and “gratuities” illegal, while § 666 (yes, that’s really the number) makes only “bribes” illegal.

According to Ms. Smith’s report, with the gratuity conviction no longer valid in the First Circuit because Moreau was a local and not a Federal official, Moreau and the prosecutors have made a deal where he will plead guilty to a bribery charge, in return for a sentence of time served.

If you need one sentence to explain to your friends and neighbors the law that led to this outcome, this should do: While it’s illegal to engage in a la carte bribery of state or local officials in the US, you’re OK under Federal law if you’re able to buy them off on a retainer basis.

Mayor Angel Taveras’ Office Neither Confirms Nor Denies that He is Contemplating Giving a City Building to a Private Organization

Ocean State Current-Anchor Rising contacted the office of Providence Mayor Angel Taveras with regard to the prospect of the City of Providence giving a city building (246 Prairie Avenue) to a private organization …

Mayor Taveras, Please Do Not Give Away a City Building to a Non-Profit

Big H/T to John Loughlin for spotting and vigorously denouncing this yesterday on WPRO.

‘Nuff Said in Woonsocket

One of Rhode Island’s problems in a nutshell (emphasis added):

Democrat primary winner Michael Morin has a strong grasp on the District 49 House seat, but to become a lawmaker he must defeat any write-in candidate who attempts to edge him out in a special election Tuesday.

Last month, Morin, a president of the Woonsocket firefighters’ union, defeated two other Democrats, Douglas T. Brown and Mark Chenot.

Giving Local Government the Power to Take Without Permission

Scheduling prevented a Wingmen this week, but Justin did appear on the nightly news Wednesday, talking about allowing municipalities to borrow money without asking voters first.

Another Step in Dismantling Rhode Island Self Governance

It’s becoming a regular theme of Rhode Island government that when the rules don’t produce the outcome that the politically powerful want (even if only not efficiently enough), they change the rules. Another step in that direction is coming in the name of the “Municipal Road and Bridge Revolving Fund”:

Rhode Island cities and towns would not have to seek voter approval for certain projects financed through the state’s newly created “Municipal Road and Bridge Revolving Fund,” under legislation the state House of Representatives is set to vote on next Tuesday. …

[House spokesman Larry] Berman stressed that the measure, if approved, would only affect projects financed through the road and bridge fund and that cities and towns would be limited to borrowing only up to 5 percent of their most recent budgets before they’d have to seek voter approval.

As always, it’s helpful to rephrase the bill in direct, descriptive terms of what it does: It will allow agents inside town and city governments to commit taxpayers to paying up to 5% of their annual budgets, plus interest, in additional debt. This just isn’t right, and it shouldn’t be allowed (and it wouldn’t be allowed if Rhode Islanders were paying any attention).

What’s more, legislators know it. That’s why they’re already planning to amend the bill so that it applies only to loans taken out this fiscal year… for now. This nod to the notion that town and city governments shouldn’t be allowed to take money out of people’s pockets is insufficient; it would be a minor matter — difficult to catch — when the legislature returns in the future to amend the law to include another year, and then another, and then to take the time limit out entirely.

Channel 10 on the Robert Martin Affair

With public officials at both the town and state levels pointing fingers at Channel 10 as the reason Tiverton Maintenance Foreman Robert Martin got away with apparently working on his own projects during the workday, as well as utilizing town resources and employees, I asked the news network for a comment. The following is from Chris Lanni, News Director:

No Tiverton town official has ever reached out NBC 10 News regarding the I-Team investigation into the former Tiverton maintenance manager’s misuse of town time and resources. If they had, they would have been granted access to the same information we shared with our viewers and with Rhode Island State Police. Our role as journalists is to be a watchdog for the communities we serve. In this capacity, we shed light on a clear abuse of taxpayer dollars and helped save Tiverton residents from future financial waste. While we will always be an advocate for our viewers, we can never become an agent of government. We are not here to do their jobs. We are here to make sure they are doing theirs.

It bears additional mention that the town and the state police are not without options if there were information they desired, but that Channel 10 wouldn’t share. Ten years ago, Channel 10 reporter Jim Taricani defied a court order to reveal an anonymous source, but it’s very likely that the network would comply with requests and subpoenas for information short of revealing sources, like time records of when reporter Parker Gavigan was tracking Martin, to check against Martin’s employment records.

As I’ve already written, though, it isn’t the journalists’ job to do the work of the police. Nobody has yet explained why investigators for the town or the state couldn’t put the pieces together independently of Channel 10, especially with the assistance of a known whistleblower.

Rhode Island’s Problem: Lack of Vision, Lack of Responsibility

The two most disturbing aspects of the Town Council meeting in Tiverton, last night, speak directly to the corruption of Rhode Island, more generally.

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