PROVIDENCE -- An apparent miscommunication between the governor's office and the General Assembly has resulted in fewer fire inspectors in the new state budget.
The new budget calls for filling vacancies in the fire marshal's office and adding six new jobs, bringing the staff to 27 positions, said Jeff Neal, spokesman for Governor Carcieri.
Neal maintains that Carcieri had requested 10.5 additional full-time positions to help enforce the state's new fire laws, for a total staffing level of 31.5 people.
Not so, say Assembly leaders, who claim they gave the governor everything he asked for -- six positions.
The discrepancy seems to date back to a June 2 memo from the governor's budget office to the House and Senate finance committees. The memo outlines a number of amendments Carcieri was proposing to the state budget. Among them is six positions for the state fire marshal, which would increase general revenue spending for the marshal from $1.34 million to $1.74 million.
The memo also states that the Department of Administration was "developing a comprehensive plan that identifies staffing needs, therefore, this request is subject to change."
The figure of six positions was intended to be a "placeholder," given to the General Assembly while the staffing analysis was under way, Neal said. That analysis later determined that the fire marshal needed 10.5 additional positions, according to a summary of the findings provided by Neal.
By the time the analysis was complete, "the deadline had passed, so we referred it to the people who were dealing with fire marshal issues" -- a special legislative commission rewriting the fire code in the wake of The Station nightclub disaster -- "on the assumption it would be transmitted to the appropriate members of the House and Senate," Neal said.
It apparently never made it to the appropriate people.
Sen. John Celona, D-North Providence, a co-chair of the special commission, said yesterday he never received such a memo.
Celona called back after "triple checking" his papers to confirm he did not have it. Regardless, Celona said, the special commission was not the right place to send it. "The budget originates in the House, not the special commission."
House fiscal adviser Michael O'Keefe said he never saw it.
The other special commission co-chair, Rep. Peter Ginaitt, D-Warwick, said his impression was that the fire marshal wanted 10.5 new people, but he couldn't pinpoint where he first saw that number. He said House leadership advised him to concentrate on fire-safety policy on the special commission, and leave the financial issues to the budget experts.
It was unclear yesterday whether Carcieri would ask lawmakers to amend the fire marshal's budget.
