Found within Governor Dan McKee’s nearly $14 billion budget were plenty of items and priorities to be encouraged by, including an unprecedented investment in the creation of housing and a higher-than-anticipated investment in public education that is sorely needed as the clock runs out on one-time federal Covid dollars.

Our friends in the East Bay received confirmation that the state found a creative means to allot money to fund its responsibility of the estimated $400 million needed to fix the Washington Bridge, although only time will tell how that number fluctuates once work begins.

Of course, within any state budget there is bound to be things that just don’t make the cut. But one omission within the budget stings a bit more than others, particularly for history-loving folks like us — like Rhode Island’s Secretary of State, Gregg Amore.

Amore had been trying his hardest over the past year to sell the state decision makers on the need to construct a dedicated archival building for Rhode Island’s mountain of historical records, documents, artifacts, and assorted oddities. As the state reportedly spends over $280,000 each year leasing space from real estate developer and former Providence Mayor Joe Paolino Jr., figuring out a long-term plan for storage of these documents is a wise move not only financially, but also to increase the esteem and respect with which Rhode Island carries its long and storied cultural heritage.
We have written in support of the archives in the past, and we will once again state that such an investment is worthwhile. However we are also not blind to the fact that amidst so many other priorities that legislators had to consider, putting aside $60 million to fund a bond to only partially cover the estimated $100 million price tag of building of this space — especially while the current accommodations for the archives are not causing a threat to the documents — was a long shot without any additional funding sources becoming apparent.
We hope that Secretary Amore will continue in his quest, as it is a worthy one. We likewise hope that federal, state, or perhaps even private funding sources will become available in the next year to make this dream a more reasonable and achievable reality, so that future generations of Rhode Islanders will have a dedicated, beautiful space to soak up the intriguing history that led us to where we are today.

There are many original, historical items currently on display in government buildings (like paintings at the State House) that should be secured within a humidity- and temperature-controlled, museum-quality archive building, rather than out in the open air slowly succumbing to time and the elements.
We hold out hope that the circumstances of the future will be kinder, to enable us to properly honor our past.