PROVIDENCE — It’s an old tradition on Smith Hill: the stickier the political topic, the more likely state lawmakers are to duck a tough vote by creating a “study commission.”

This year at the General Assembly was no exception. Budget woes didn’t stop lawmakers from studying –– or promising to study –– an odd collection of political issues.

Price tags for public art? Study it.

What to name the new Sakonnet River Bridge? Study it.

By the close of this year’s legislative session, lawmakers had created no less than 15 study commissions and voted to extend the life of nearly a dozen others.

That brings the state’s total to almost 80 commissions, studying everything from “the taxicab industry” to “animal euthanasia” to “toxic mold,” according to the Assembly’s Web site.

New additions this year included plans to study “flooding in West Warwick” and something called “the underground economy,” which even legislators admitted they didn’t quite grasp.

They voted to study it anyway.

Investigating a particular topic, lawmakers say, can help them learn more before voting.

But not all commissions are created equal.

“Some study commissions are valid, some are a total waste of time,” said Rep. Thomas C. Slater, D-Providence.

“The majority of them are a way of deflecting an issue that has no immediate remedy or to postpone making decisions for one reason or another,” said University of Rhode Island political science professor Maureen Moakley. That’s true here in Rhode Island and across the country, she said.

When Slater saw his plan to create marijuana dispensaries for patients in the state’s medical marijuana program faltering, he made a late-session substitute, persuading fellow lawmakers to instead vote in favor of a study commission that would research the idea. (The governor has since vetoed the legislation that would have created that commission.)

The same went for Warwick Rep. Eileen S. Naughton, who, recognizing in the final hours of the session that her plan to eliminate written patient consent for HIV testing wasn’t moving, went to plan B.

“I have a study commission [proposal] ready to go in my desk,” Naughton promised on the final morning of the session.

That day, Naughton introduced a commission whose job it will be to evaluate the written consent issue. The bill passed hours later. The doctors who had pushed for the change were pleased it remained alive, while critics, including the Rhode Island Affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union, expressed relief that the law didn’t change.

Some commissions eventually produce enough evidence on a given topic to quell critics and help pass legislation. Such was the case with the Sakonnet River Bridge. Lawmakers eventually voted to name it after Anne Hutchinson. (That bill, too, was vetoed by the governor.)

The most significant of the commissions created this session may have been a House leadership-backed group that’s studying ways to revamp the state’s pension system. The commission has met almost weekly since its creation in January. It hasn’t issued a final report yet, but its minutes are available on the commission’s Web site for those who want to follow its progress.

The pension group may be something of an exception. Like the General Assembly itself, the study commissions maintain that they are exempt from the state’s Open Meetings Law and are not required to keep minutes.

That’s if they meet at all.

House spokesman Larry Berman yesterday cited roughly 10 commissions of the 80 –– some of them joint legislative groups–– that meet regularly.

Moakley said a commission’s meeting schedule, as well as its willingness to produce a final report, is a good indication of whether it is “doing actual work” or is merely symbolic.

The symbolic ones tend to end up on a growing list of dormant commissions. Berman said the state has no established process for dissolving aging groups.

After enough time elapses, if no report has been issued, Moakley said lawmakers simply lose interest. “In most cases, the topics just go away,” she said.

cneedham@projo.com