Raimondo submits $9.4B state budget
PROVIDENCE – Gov. Gina Raimondo presented her proposed $9.4 billion budget to the General Assembly Thursday night and as expected it includes a major initiative for school improvement statewide. Raimondo’s plan includes seeking voter approval of a $250 million school improvement bond in November as the first step in an overall $1 billion plan to address Rhode Island school building deficiencies over the next five years.
The school improvement plan calls for $80 million in needed repair funding to be included in the 20182019 state budget beginning July 1 and the $250 million to be added to the projected school improvement spending through the November bond question.
Some school districts in the state such as Lincoln, which is building a new high school, Woonsocket, and Pawtucket and Central Falls, are looking for awards under the Governor’s improvement program to address repairs and building improvements.
Under a smaller budget item but one likely to be important to Rhode Island taxpayers, Raimondo’s budget also calls for a continuation of the six-year phase out of the state’s car tax, a plan sought by House Speaker Nicholas Mattiello, and which cuts the state car tax program by approximately $24.5 million this year. Raimondo’s spending plan calls for another $20 million cut in car excise taxes next year while also continuing the state aid support to communities for revenues loss under the tax rollback.
Raimondo is also seeking to continue last year’s creation of the R.I. Promise free tuition program for students attending state colleges with an award of $7 million for its second year. The program will eventually require state support for continuing to provided eligible students with tuition for their third year of college at Rhode Island College or URI the following year and also a fourth year at the schools after that as it completes a four-year start up.
The Governor is proposing a budget that increases revenues by just 1.7 percent while also addressing a projected $204 million structural deficit in state budgeting.
The gap would be closed by new revenues projected to come in from sports betting at Twin River’s two casino operations if the federal government allows such an expansion in legal gambling, and also from pending state revenue enhancements such as the activation of truck tolling later this year, and a further in the tax on cigarettes.
The state’s cigarette tax would go up 25 cent under the Governor’s proposal for a total of $4.50 per pack, and Raimondo is also look- ing for new taxes on specific services and new technologies such as “cloud” based software.
Truck tolling, approved in 2016, is projected as bringing in $41 million for next year’s budget and Twin River sports betting in Lincoln and Tiverton another $23.5 million in new state revenue.
Raimondo also proposing cuts in state spending, again in Health and Human Services, with state Medicaid support and related programs being reduced by $100 million. The budget hopes to realize a $28.5 children’s healthcare savings through federal support and also another $18.2 million savings through a greater reliance on community-based and home care for the elderly.