This campaign season, the state Board of Elections parceled out nearly $2 million in public money to political candidates.

As the last checks are issued, it’s time for newly elected officials and policy groups to take stock of Rhode Island’s public matching-funds program and start thinking about how they might tinker with it in the new legislative session.

The exact total given out through the program this year: $1,965,171. That’s nearly three times what was paid out in 2002, the last election for state general offices, and more than twice the amount the state budget included for the program this year.

While the state income-tax form does contain a check box to set aside $5 to finance the matching-funds program, the checkoffs don’t generate enough money to pay for the whole program. In fact, even the money set aside through the checkoff comes from the state, not from taxpayers who check the box. In other words, the program is financed through state general revenues, not through voluntary contributions by taxpayers.

Still, the program is “a good investment,” said Gary S. Sasse, executive director of the Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council.

“It’s an expenditure to open up the political process,” Sasse said. “In the long run, the more candidates participate in public funding, the less influence interest groups have on campaigns.”

Besides, Sasse said, “$2 million in a $3-billion budget is not significant.”

In Rhode Island, candidates for governor have the most to gain by the public-match program. Lt. Gov. Charles J. Fogarty, who challenged Governor Carcieri’s bid for a second term, got the maximum public match of $981,000.

In the governor’s race, for a candidate who participates in the matching-funds program, the spending limit is $1.96 million – but Fogarty spent roughly $100,000 more than that.

That’s because the spending limits apply only if all candidates in a race participate in the public-match program. In Fogarty’s case, his opponent — Carcieri — did not participate. Once Carcieri’s spending went beyond the limit for the matching-funds program, Fogarty was allowed to go over the limit as well, and keep up with Carcieri, who spent a total of $2.08 million.

However much Carcieri ultimately spent, Fogarty would have been allowed to keep up, as long as he could keep raising private money. The maximum amount of public money a candidate can get does not change, no matter how much an opponent spends.

Carcieri’s campaign has disparaged Fogarty for “forcing” taxpayers to finance his campaign. Fogarty has said the matching-funds program was what enabled him to pose a real challenge to Carcieri, a wealthy retired businessman who pumped more than $1 million of his own money into the 2002 campaign.

In Rhode Island this year, both major-party candidates participated in the matching-funds program in three races — for lieutenant governor, secretary of state and general treasurer. For each of those candidates, total spending was capped at $490,000, although again, there’s an exception: Candidates are allowed to spend more if they face a primary election as well as the general election.

State Sen. Elizabeth H. Roberts, who takes office as lieutenant governor Jan. 2, had both a Democratic primary and a general-election opponent. She spent $650,000 from her campaign fund between Jan. 1 and Dec. 4, the end of the last reporting period.

Roberts has said she participated in the public matching-funds program because she believes in the program in principle. However, Roberts’ campaign manager, Paul Tencher, said yesterday that Roberts would like to see the General Assembly change the formula for spending limits for candidates with a primary race. Right now, primary spending is capped at a third of the overall cap — or this year, $163,333 for candidates for any office except governor — no matter how much an opponent spends.

The current formula discourages candidates from participating in the matching-funds program if they anticipate a primary fight with a moneyed opponent, Tencher said.

Christine Lopes, executive director of Common Cause of Rhode Island, also has some suggestions for tweaking Rhode Island’s system.

Lopes said Common Cause will be supporting Clean Elections legislation similar to what’s on the books in Maine and Arizona. The key difference is that in those states, campaigns for the offices eligible for matching funds are financed completely with public money, totally independent of private contributions. Candidates qualify for the public money by receiving $5 donations from a certain number of eligible voters, then turn over that money to the public-match program and forgo raising further money from donors.

Rhode Island’s program depends on candidates raising private donations in order to qualify for the public money. The state matches donations according to a complex formula, but the basic match rate is either 2-for-1 or 1-for-1, depending on the amount of the private contribution.

In Rhode Island this year, besides Fogarty, three other candidates got the maximum public match (which, for down-ticket races, is $245,000): Roberts; her Republican opponent, Reginald A. Centracchio; and North Providence Mayor A. Ralph Mollis, the newly elected secretary of state.

Other candidates got smaller amounts. State Sen. Frank T. Caprio, the Democrat who was elected general treasurer, got $168,000. Sue Stenhouse, the Republican candidate for secretary of state, got $74,000. And Andrew M. Lyon, the Republican candidate for general treasurer, got $6,800.

A system with complete public financing of campaigns “effectively removes the influence of special-interest money from the political process” and more effectively helps candidates take on incumbents or well-connected opponents, said Lopes of Common Cause.

In Maine, the total amount of private money in campaigns decreased significantly between 1996, when the Clean Elections law was adopted, and 2002, according to a study by the Center for Public Policy & Administration in Massachusetts. However, Maine also strictly limited the maximum private contribution amount for candidates financing their campaigns through private contributions — from a previous limit of $1,000 down to $250.

Arizona’s program parceled out $4.3 million to candidates in 2004. Maine’s program distributed $2.1 million in public funds in 2002, the last year the report analyzed.

Arizona’s spending limits are lower than Rhode Island’s. For instance, the spending limit for the general election in the governor’s race in 2004 was $645,224 — less than the maximum public match in the Rhode Island governor’s race, and less than a third of the spending limit for a gubernatorial candidate in Rhode Island who takes public matching funds.

Maine’s spending limit for the governor’s race is closer to Rhode Island’s. Maine’s program gives each candidate up to $1.8 million in public funds, as long as an opponent spends that much. However, that cap is a true cap — no candidate gets more, no matter how much an opponent spends.

In the years since Rhode Island passed its public matching-funds law, the state has seen record-setting spending in governor’s races — in 1990, when Bruce Sundlun spent $4.3 million, and in 2002, when total spending in a five-way race surpassed $9 million.

The flexible nature of Rhode Island’s spending caps “doesn’t defeat the purpose” of the program, said Sasse, of RIPEC, “but it waters it down a little bit.”