The Bills, the Buzz, and the Big Decisions: RI’s
Legislative Year in Review
Join State Senator Victoria Gu and Representative Tina
Spears for a lively discussion on what bills passed in the State House, what
stalled, how the new laws could impact our community, and give your feedback on
priorities for next year.
Topics include: environment & shoreline access,
healthcare, housing, education & technology
Date: Monday July
7th
Time: 6-7:30pm
Location:
Quonochontaug Grange Hall, 5662 Post Road, Charlestown, RI, 02813
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Keep in mind, across several categories of funding, we
had to close a $100 million deficit this year, and that involves making
hard tradeoffs. This is a pared-down summary with a focus on South County:
Environment and Healthcare Budget- Wins for South County
- Sen. Gu supported a budget amendment (and it passed) to provide $5 million in
funding for the Charlestown Breachway repairs and dredging (through
shifting money from other projects in the state capital improvement
plan)
- Increased reimbursement
rates for primary care and federally qualified health centers (such as
Wood River Health) and new funding for 12 family
medicine residency positions at Thundermist Health Centers
Additional Revenue Streams Impacting South County
- Closed
the loophole on whole-home short-term rentals: Previously
they had not been paying the 5% hotel tax; under the new budget they
are, and the funds will be split 50% to state homelessness services,
25% to the regional tourism district, 25% to the city/town
- 0.5%
Tax on Non-Owner-Occupied Homes Over $1 Million: This has
been considered for many years and was incorporated into the state
budget we passed this year. The funding will go towards affordable
housing development.
Education and Transportation Budget:
- State
aid for public schools: Overall education aid to school districts
increased by $59.2 million. We also increased aid for special
education by $2.4 million spread across all districts
- A
sustainable funding source for RIPTA and Paratransit:
RIPTA is receiving $15 million which is about half of what it needed. Sen. Gu supported a budget amendment introduced by Senator Zurier to fully
fund RIPTA by redirecting some funding from RIDOT to RIPTA in a
budget-neutral way, but it failed by small margin. There will be some
service cuts and public meetings in advance of those service cuts. For
now, we expect the RIde Anywhere Paratransit program, which serves
people with disabilities throughout the entire state, to continue
running.
Bill Updates
- CRMC
reform (S-775 is what Save the Bay and vast majority of other
organizations and advocates are supporting but S-998A is what ended up passing)
- The
Bottle Bill (a pared down version to conduct the statewide
needs assessment passed the House & Senate)
- Assault
weapons ban (S-0359 was amended to only address sale &
manufacturing and then passed the House & Senate. It bans the
sale or manufacture of assault weapons in Rhode Island; it does not
require anyone who owns these weapons already to do anything)
- The
Senate’s healthcare package
- Speaker
of the House’s housing package
- Restricting
cell phone use by students during the school day: Currently,
15 states have passed laws or enacted policies that ban or restrict
cell phone use in the classroom and some of the largest school
districts in the country have implemented similar policies. Read more here
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