Rhode Island Senate Majority Leader Michael McCaffrey (D-Warwick) and House Majority Leader (D-Warwick) wrapped up their first year as leaders when the legislative session ended this summer (and then officially ended in September with a special one-day session following the budget impasse).

The two Warwick natives are now looking ahead to the next session, which opens on Jan. 2 of the New Year, and stopped by the Beacon office to talk about a wide range of governmental topics and challenges that will arise in the coming months.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the most central topic on the mind of both leaders is an impending $200 million deficit for Fiscal Year 2019 (which begins in July of 2018) and more immediately a $60.2 million deficit in the current fiscal year.

The deficit was revealed in a memo to department heads from Thomas Mullaney, State Budget Officer, shortly after the most recent budget was passed on Aug. 21. The looming deficit stems from increasing costs of government functions and a reduction in revenue streams throughout the state.

While the formula for lowering a budget deficit is simple in theory – reduce spending throughout the departments and make cuts where possible while identifying possible new sources of revenue – the practice is going to be much less cut and dry.

Governor Gina Raimondo has asked departments to achieve 10 percent reductions in their budgets. To achieve this, as was described in the aforementioned memo, department heads “should prioritize programs to eliminate duplicative and underperforming programs; streamline and consolidate programs, offices and services; and reduce layers of management and administration.”

Additionally, Raimondo is hopeful that initiatives such as her early retirement incentive, where veteran government employees may take a severance package of up to $40,000 in the form of an early retirement bonus, may help reduce operating costs and shrink the state’s expenditures.

However the next budget will also need to take into consideration potential raises for state workers, rising healthcare costs amidst major uncertainty regarding the federal health care plan and the new federal tax plan, which was signed into law on Friday, Dec. 22.

All things considered, there is a lot of uncertainty at the federal level and not many answers at the state level on how to reduce the deficit yet.

“We’re monitoring the situation closely,” said Shekarchi. “Obviously $200 million is a significant amount of money but we have to see what [Raimondo’s] early retirement program brings…When we come back in January, both the House and Senate fiscal committees will be meeting to resolve that issue.”

Could marijuana legalization and taxation be a possible avenue for a revenue stream to help cut down that deficit? The leaders aren’t hitching their wagon to the idea as of yet.

“The legalization of marijuana from a revenue standpoint is not the panacea that some of the proponents do,” said Shekarchi. “There is a tax benefit and you certainly need to look at that, but there’s also a cost.”

“What are we going to get from Massachusetts?” added McCaffrey, referencing how Massachusetts’ recreational plan is set to go online in the summer of 2018. “We’re going to probably have people going over there to buy marijuana and coming back here and then we’re going to have the side effects of it.”

Shekarchi said that, while the governor has indicated she is curious into looking into the issue more, that is all that will be happening for now. A joint commission between the Senate and House is studying the potential benefits and drawbacks of marijuana legalization, but in the opinion of the two legislative leaders it does not appear that any measures will be taken at the state level this upcoming session.

On school rebuilding

While the subject has taken the spotlight statewide, the topic of school rebuilding is also hot on the mind of both legislators.

“Schools are a primary concern. We want to create an environment, which is the most beneficial for students to learn and teachers to work in. The question is the cost, and I think we need to take a hard look at it and see if we can afford it this year,” Shekarchi said. “Obviously the schools need work and we’re going to do that. I don’t know yet if this is the year yet. We’ll have to wait and see how the numbers work out.”

State treasurer Seth Magaziner, along with RIDE Commissioner Ken Wagner, chaired a task force set to provide recommendations on how to best implement a school rebuilding strategy statewide.

They came out with their recommendations on Dec. 13, which included initiating a program that would incentivize districts to conduct more rehabilitation projects on schools and for the state to leverage such projects with $500 million in general bonding over the next 10 years. The idea would be to provide cities and towns in Rhode Island with the state share of a project first, and then have the community bond for the remainder.

However, this ambitious task will require cooperation and approval from the state legislature, in addition to buy-in from the voters of Rhode Island to reinvest in the crumbling school infrastructure across the state.

“Even if it’s voter approved, you still have to pay for it,” Shekarchi said. “The question is how we take that cost and the affordability and who is going to be the bearer of these bonds. Is it going to be a big, statewide bond or is it going to be a statewide bond matched by local money? I don’t know the answer to that, and we’re going to look at that.”

Specifically in Warwick, both leaders say that the city is in a good position to rebuild their school infrastructure, and that they would be supportive of a bond request to help achieve such a goal.

“It’s a good time to do it while they’re downsizing and consolidating so they can focus the money on those schools that need it the most,” McCaffrey said.

“We can afford it in Warwick. That’s the good news,” Shekarchi said, adding that S&P recently upgraded Warwick’s bond rating status. “They can sell Christopher Rhodes, they can sell Aldrich. Warwick has surplus property where, if those properties are sold, it can go into new construction. We in Warwick are, comparatively speaking for the rest of the state, in a very good fiscal situation for education funding.”

Shekarchi and McCaffrey said they would be vocal in support of a bond referendum for Warwick, even if a decision to bond didn’t earn a unanimous vote from the Warwick City Council, and that to their knowledge Warwick had never been turned down for a bond request from the General Assembly.

On the PawSox proposal

The new proposal from the Pawtucket PawSox to build a new stadium in Pawtucket with a mix of primarily private dollars and leveraging funds from the state and city will be another hot-button issue to go before the legislature in the next session.

The proposal has already been the topic of around 30 hours of hearings and debate within the Rhode Island Senate, and now it will come over to the House in some iteration, where Shekarchi said it would be treated like any other issue to come before the body.

“We’re waiting to see what the final product is that comes out of the Senate,” he said. “I believe it may come over to the House in January and we’ll give it an honest, fair hearing, but it’s hard to comment on something we don’t know the final product yet. It’s changed in even just the last two weeks.”

Both Shekarchi and McCaffrey said that they believe it would be in the best interest of the state for the PawSox to stay in Rhode Island, and that the situation has been different from the 38 Studios debacle.

“I think the process has been very transparent and very thorough,” Shekarchi said. “This wasn’t a 38 Studios vote that got pushed through in one night in the General Assembly. It’s been a very fair, open process and it will continue to be so.”

On IT problems in the state

Especially considering it came on the heels of the UHIP transition – perhaps the most heavily criticized governmental decision made during Raimondo’s first term in office – the recent report which revealed that the Rhode Island government has (at least temporarily) lost access to millions of emails prior to 2015 in their transition between computer systems was not well received by the public.

Shekarchi said that perhaps the state should start revising the way in which it chooses vendors to conduct computer work, and that they should implement performance guarantee policies and penalty clauses as done in the private sector to prevent such issues – or at least provide some insurance should errors occur.

“It seems like we do have an IT problem in the state,” he said. “I don’t know the actual root or cause of it. Some of these problems go way back and it seems that any time we use an outside vendor, there’s a problem. Maybe we have to do a little better in the selection process of outside vendors.”

At the same time, Shekarchi complimented the work done at the Registry of Motor Vehicles this summer, which upgraded from a computer system that was nearly 50 years old without virtually any negative impacts or glitches in its transition.

“It seems hopefully the newer people here [in charge of departments] are learning from the mistakes,” Shekarchi said, praising Bud Craddock, director of the Registry of Motor Vehicles.

On accomplishments and moving forward

Both Shekarchi and McCaffrey are proud of legislation that they helped pass through the legislature last session.

Shekarchi mentioned working with progressives in the House to pass new sick time policy, which he called “business-friendly.” Additionally, Shekarchi said they were able to raise the minimum wage and reinstated free bus passes for seniors and low-income individuals.

“Those are all progressive agendas but they’re also good governmental and Democratic agendas,” he said.

For McCaffrey, getting the justice reinvestment package – which was a collection of 13 bills involving different aspects of the criminal justice system – was the culmination of years of work. It is a package, he said, that will save the state money in the long run and go towards lessening the prison population and creating a healthier and less criminal populace.

“At the front end, when someone gets arrested, they’re going to do evaluations and hopefully be able to address some of those issues right on,” he said. “They’re going to have a pretrial report that’s going to find out why did this happen. Was it a mental health issue? Was it a drug issue?”

Should the issue be found to be drug-related, programs will be made available to the perpetrator, with possible incentives to get them to take the program seriously and strive towards improvement rather than simply incarcerating people and forgetting about them, which merely prolongs their ailments. At the same time, McCaffrey said, the bills do not necessitate any softening on serious crimes.

“The judges have a lot of authority to be able to say, ‘I’m going to give you the deal of a lifetime. If you complete this program, your charges may be dismissed or carry less of a sentence,’” McCaffrey explained. “Now, if the charges are lessened or dismissed, that’s good. But if that person gets clean and stays clean for the rest of their life, that’s even more important.”

While the two leaders intend on running again for office, they also understand that there is much work to be done in the months ahead before worrying about campaigning or counting votes.

“It’ll be an interesting year,” said Shekarchi. “It’s an election year and we have a budget to put together and pass so we’ll see what happens. We hope we can work hard and do a good job and we’re proud of what we did last year. It was an ultimately balanced budget so we hope we can continue and do that this year.”