Discussion on dozens of proposed amendments is expected today, including those submitted by legislators seeking to blunt proposed changes in the pension system.

01:10 PM EDT on Monday, June 27, 2005

BY KATHERINE GREGG and SCOTT MAYEROWITZ
Journal State House Bureau

PROVIDENCE -- The House of Representatives is slated to vote today on a new $6.3-billion state budget that all the major players seem to be in agreement with.

But -- like everything else on Smith Hill -- nothing is set in stone until the final vote is cast.

Dozens of proposed amendments to the budget crafted by Republican Governor Carcieri and Democratic Assembly leaders were submitted late Friday afternoon. They ranged from tax cuts to proposed revisions in the state pension package currently on the table.

House leaders refused to make public copies of the proposed amendments on Friday because, they said, some of them may never be introduced, and those that are introduced will be available for viewing when the House takes them up.

Debate on the budget, which would raise state government spending by 6.5 percent during the fiscal year that begins Friday, is scheduled to start at 1 p.m.

For the first time, House and Senate leaders have invited Carcieri to the negotiating table and given him just about everything he wanted, including a major overhaul of the state's pension-benefit structure and a reduction in the car tax.

One or more of the Democrats at odds with House Speaker William J. Murphy -- former House Majority Whip Rene Menard, for example -- may introduce amendments aimed at drawing attention to issues that they believe got short shrift.

For example, Menard, D-Lincoln, said he will seek to redirect $5 million of the $7.5 million earmarked for the construction of affordable housing to new programs to help the owners of multifamily houses and businesses pay for the cleanup of lead paint and the installation of fire-alarm systems.

Menard plans to argue that channeling the money in these directions will provide more places to live, in less time, than pumping the money into new construction. He also wants the state to provide a tax credit of up to $1,000 a year, for five years, for the installation of fire-alarm systems.

In addition, Menard said he has submitted proposals to cap the growth in the heavily state-subsidized health-insurance program, known as RIte Care, for parents with children. At this point, Menard said, the program "provides better benefits than most people in my district pay for," at taxpayer expense.

But another of the dissidents, Rep. David A. Caprio, D-Narragansett, said that the budget "includes many issues that were important to the reform-minded Democrats. I'm pleased to see that."

And, while the small band of House Republicans may still seek some eleventh-hour changes, the governor's support will probably blunt the length, volume and tone of their objections.

"Governor Carcieri plans to sign the budget into law if it reaches his desk in its current form," his spokesman, Jeff Neal, said Friday. "The governor has worked hard to convince legislators that pension reform and tax relief are two of the most important issues facing Rhode Island. He's very enthusiastic about the possibility that we might make some serious headway on those issues this year."

On Friday, House Finance Committee Chairman Steven M. Costantino, D-Providence, said that "everything is in play," even at this late hour.

"Things can still change," he said. "There is still some tweaking of the budget. There might be some minor adds, some minor reductions."

Costantino would not say what those changes might be, but regarding pensions -- the centerpiece of the budget, he said Friday: "nothing has changed at this point."

By late Friday, about 50 proposed amendments had been submitted to the legislature's bill-drafting office.

As the 4 p.m. deadline for the introduction of budget amendments approached, union leaders were still shopping for a lawmaker to introduce their more-modest version of the current budget plan's pension rollbacks. Late in the day, Marcia Reback, president of the Rhode Island Federation of Teachers, said a legislator she would not identify had agreed.

Their proposal, aired at a news conference late last week, would reinstate a minimum retirement age, but the state workers affected would not have to work as long as they would under the lawmakers' proposal, and they could still count on 3-percent annual cost-of-living increases in retirement.

The lawmakers' plan, by contrast, would tie the COLAs to inflation, and cap them at 3 percent.

"A couple of them did approach me," acknowledged one undecided freshman, Rep. Raymond J. Sullivan Jr., who won a tough election fight last fall, with union help.

"My guess is they are talking to everybody," said Sullivan, D-Coventry, who received at least $3,775 from the political money-giving arms of the state's labor community, including the National Education Association and the Rhode Island Federation of Teachers.

"I haven't committed to putting in any amendments," Sullivan said Friday afternoon, because "I just got the proposal."

But others have promised to liven up the debate with proposals that never made it into the budget -- among them one of the most-outspoken Republicans, Rep. Nicholas Gorham of Coventry.

Though he says there are a lot of good things in the budget, Gorham said he will push for an income-tax cut for all Rhode Islanders, no matter how much money they make, along the lines proposed by the Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council.

The Assembly already has before it a Fidelity Investments-backed bill to provide tax breaks on the stock options and performance bonuses given high-end workers at large companies that add employees, and a bill giving tax breaks to movie companies who film here.

"We haven't done anything for small business this year, or just the average taxpayer," Gorham said. "I don't think we should have stopped at Fidelity and Hollywood."

Unlike past years, when he voted against the Democratic leadership's budget, Gorham said this year he is undecided how he will vote.

"I like to go into the budget session with an open mind," he said. "Because of the pension reform, I'm leaning toward it."

"It's a very good start," Gorham added. "The governor got a lot of the things he wanted, but we're still a very high taxed state."

Regarding the pension deal, Gorham said he is not "convinced, 100 percent," that it will stay together. He said he will introduce Carcieri's original and more far-reaching plan as an amendment, if the leadership's proposal falls apart.

"I think the speaker is under tremendous pressure from all angles," Gorham said, including from organized labor.

House Minority Leader Robert A. Watson, R-East Greenwich, said that in contrast to the last two years -- when Carcieri was not consulted -- this year, the governor rolled up his sleeves and crafted the budget along with the Democrats.

"I think mission accomplished for Republicans this year," Watson said. "We did what we set out to do. Mission accomplished. We're very happy about that."