Christopher Nichols of Ettem USA, Warwick, was among 150 small-business people attending the annual meeting of the Rhode Island Economic Summit at Johnson & Wales’ Harborside campus yesterday.

The Providence Journal / Mary Murphy

PROVIDENCE — Remarking about the weather seems as natural an inclination for Rhode Islanders as grumbling about taxes.

Yesterday, some higher being offered a 2-for-1 special worthy of Ocean State Job Lot to the dozens of business people splish-splashing their way to a gathering with state politicians at Johnson & Wales University.

About 150 small-business people turned out for the 2008 Rhode Island Economic Summit at the school’s Harborside campus where they hashed out their priorities for the current General Assembly session.

As if the deluge outside wasn’t enough to douse the spirits, talk at yesterday’s summit, sponsored by the U.S. Small Business Administration, quickly turned to Rhode Island’s underwater finances. The state faces projected deficits of $151 million this fiscal year and $450 million in the fiscal year that begins July 1.

“You don’t solve a problem in the state of Rhode Island by just raising taxes,” said Terrance S. Martiesian, the Rhode Island director for the National Federation of Independent Business.

The attendees described the financial situation in depressing terms; the state budget is in “crisis,” health-care policies and costs an “abyss,” the balancing act “daunting.”

Yet, both the businesspeople and the elected officials assembled in a meeting room at the university’s culinary museum spoke as if they all understood a “paradigm shift” is needed to get the state’s finances back in order.

“You can’t just sit back and say we’re going to keep doing it the same way we’ve always been doing it,” Governor Carcieri said. “That isn’t a formula for success.”

But Christopher Nichols, of Ettem USA, of Warwick, which develops underwater propulsion systems, asked whether the governor’s efforts to consolidate agencies wouldn’t simply create new bureaucracies.

Carcieri said that ultimately his efforts would result in the state employing fewer people.

“We will be down, by the end of this fiscal year, a thousand people,” Carcieri said.

Lt. Gov. Elizabeth Roberts added: “Tough budgets are an enormous opportunity. You can have conversations you don’t normally have. The politics of polarization, of name calling, finger-pointing are not going to work here.”

Carcieri and Roberts offered their comments during a question-and-answer period midway through the nearly six-hour summit. Earlier in the day, the businesspeople met with state legislators in group discussions centered on five broad policy topics, all but one a repeat of the debate from the first small-business summit held last year. The topics were: taxes and budget; regulations; health care; education/work force development; and the newest, energy.

In the sessions, attendees suggested initiatives or regulatory changes the state could implement to address the concerns.

“We’re still spending money,” said Tom Brassil, a computer systems integrator, in the tax and budget session. “A lot of these are just moving the problem a year out.”

By a wide margin, the 20 or so people in the session concurred with Brassil, saying limiting state expenditures are their top priority this year.

That group also suggested that legislators figure out a way to relieve property-tax burdens, reform entitlement programs and look at regionalizing state and local services.

“Do we need 39 police and fire districts?” asked Grafton H. “Cap” Willey IV, chairman of the Rhode Island chapter of the Small Business Association of New England.

The people debating education and work force issues supported regionalization efforts. But John Gregory, who led that session later cautioned, “Don’t think regionalization is the cure” to budget woes.

Ultimately, the businesspeople also decided they should press legislators on, among other issues:

•Notification rules for impended changes in state regulations;

•Tax relief for mandated fire-code compliance work;

•Revising insurance-pool ratings;

•Developing a health-insurance information exchange;

•Revamping the school-funding formula;

•Expanding the use of tax credits;

•Developing a renewable-energy policy.

But if last year is any indication, the businesspeople will have to temper their expectations for what they can get from the General Assembly.

Not one of the proposals that came out of last year’s summit, including revisions to the stringent new fire code, made it into law.

“A lot of them got discussed. None of them actually got enacted,” said Mark S. Hayward, district director of the U.S. Small Business Association. “It’s going to be critical for us to get these issues on the table.”

pgrimald@projo.com