One Year Since the Election - What Has Raimondo Accomplished?
Thursday, November 12, 2015
Rhode Island’s first female Governor was elected one year ago and hit the ground running with promises of reinventing the state.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTWhile she only received 40% of the popular vote, there was enthusiasm about her youth, outsider perspective, and her success in pension reform as General Treasurer. “It is time to stop our decline, and to ignite a Rhode Island comeback,” said Gina Raimondo in her inauguration speech.
Raimondo’s resume differentiated her from traditional politicians. She was a venture capitalist, a Rhodes Scholar and had a global perspective from her education and business experience.
“Her biggest accomplishments are that she is a leader and the best ambassador for the state in recent memory,” said Edward Mazze, former Dean of the School of Business at the University of Rhode Island and a leading business consultant.
Now, one year after the election and a quarter of the way through her term, GoLocal looks at her promises and the challenges she asked Rhode Islanders to help her find solutions to. Specifically in her inaugural address and reiterated in her budget address two months late, Raimondo focused on three critical challenges for Rhode Island - improving education, attract entrepreneurs and innovate state government.
First Take
Rhode Island College Professor Kay Israel identifies Raimondo’s biggest success as the perception of leadership. “Most importantly it's been provide the state with a sense of executive leadership. The previous administration as it ended seem to accept a lame duck role very early on and seemed to cede most major decisions to the legislative branch,” said Israel. “The Governor appears to have shown initiative and appears to be an equal partner in policy effecting the state economy.”
Similarly, Raimondo got credit for bringing stakeholders to develop policy consensus on a range of issues.
“The Governor’s approach to policy-making deserves praise. She has taken a measured, careful approach to major public policy problems by creating task forces of experts from across the state, and across many sectors, to generate evidence-based recommendations to guide policy proposals - from cybersecurity to lean government to healthcare innovation and overdose prevention,” said Roger Williams University Political Science Professor June Speakman. “These working groups should provide a solid basis for her legislative agenda in the coming year.”
Victor Profughi of the University of Rhode Island and veteran political pollster gave Raimondo solid grades for attracting some fresh faces to states government, but also expressed concern.
“On the cautionary note -- she has such a lengthy challenging agenda that one thinks she might be advised to prioritize a bit more, and I think she needs to focus more,” said Profughi. “She's gotten a lot of things out there, and made a lot of promises, I'm not sure what she'll accomplish. She's got so many balls in the air, at this point I'm not sure I could point to anything anywhere need beyond being.”
Early Action - Mixed Bag
The Governor came out of the box with some solid wins including her handling of the winter storms, but also some major errors.
GoLocal unveiled that the women on her staff made significantly less than their male counterparts.
As GoLocal reported, “Despite campaigning on the issue of pay equity for women as a candidate for Governor in Rhode Island, Gina Raimondo’s staff is top heavy with highly paid men, who on average make significantly more than women. Four of the top five highest paid members of the Governor’s staff are men and the only woman in the top five was a Republican appointee. According to data obtained by GoLocalProv through an Access to Public Records Act (APRA) request, of the 30 staff appointments made directly by the Governor to her personal staff, 17 are female and 13 are male, but men on average make 14% more in annual salary.”
Driving Business Growth
As Raimondo announced in her inaugural budget address, she was targeting the attraction of entrepreneurs. “Rhode Island has developed a reputation as a tough place to do business,” she said. “So to get companies to invest and create jobs here, we need to be proactive. This is especially true because so many other states offer incentives and have much more robust economic development efforts. If we want to compete...if we want companies to add jobs here, we can't put ourselves at such a disadvantage relative to our neighbors.”
However, her first year track record has had a lot of bumps. One of the hottest and fastest growing companies in the country, Teespring, left Rhode Island for California and Kentucky. As a GoLocal investigation uncovered, the Governor’s office and her Commerce Corporation made no effort to retain the company that has been tagged by Fortune and Forbes magazines as one of the fastest growing companies in the country.
Similarly, Nabsys, which had taken millions in investment from the State of Rhode Island and Raimondo’s former venture capital firm Point Judith Capital, lost millions when the genome mapping biotech collapsed. In addition, Rhode Island tech innovation program Betaspring which received funding from both the City of Providence and Commerce Corporation has all but left the state for Boston and New York.
“Losing high-profile tech and start-up firms like Nabsys and Teespring certainly doesn’t help the ‘jobs and economy’ focus of the Governor’s plans and public statements,” said Speakman.
Much of the economic development oxygen may have been wasted in Raimondo’s first year dealing with the PawSox request for $120 plus million in state subsidies and their corresponding threats to leave Rhode Island.
Raimondo’s short-term loses will hopefully be made up with some of the legislative and budgetary wins that she claimed coming out of this past session of the General Assembly.
“Governor Raimondo has taken very modest steps to move the state forward by improving the state's business climate. A great deal is left to be done, however, to improve what the governor herself acknowledged, which is we’ve been 49th among states where companies want to do business, and dead last in helping entrepreneurs,” said Monique Chartier with the group R.I. Taxpayers.
{image-5}Improving Education
While Raimondo has trumpeted the need to improve education, she has spent most of the first year reorganizing. S
Raimondo traded out Deborah Gist for Ken Wagner and appointed a new board to the Board of Education. However, there was no major overhaul in education this year during the legislative session. Rhode Island test scores continue to among the bottom especially compared to other school systems in New England and comparative per public spending.
In Education Week’s annual report, which grades states on their education performance. Rhode Island finished 13th among the 50 states and Washington DC, with an overall score of 78.5 out of 100 points and a grade of C+. The nation as a whole posts a grade of C.
Budget
As the Governor has identified, the budget process and the budget priorities need to be re-calibrated. The Governor’s first budget was passed much intact by the legislature and in the House was adopted unanimously.
“Her recognition that Medicaid is a run-away train and required a special working group to come up with a strategy to reign in the bloated costs, albeit virtually ignoring fraud and abuse. But it remains to be seen if she will actually be successful,” said Pam Gencarella of OSTPA.
While the budget passed with a number of reforms, the cost savings or revenue targets that some provisions contained fell short. Both the real estate tax and the cost saving of Medicaid missed their target numbers - badly.
“Her work in job creation, economic development and infrastructure must move forward and be supported in her budget. The Governor needs to get the buy-in of the general public and business community. Her office has to become more transparent. She needs to address those issues that affect all Rhode Islanders - lowering and eliminating some taxes, supporting education at all levels, reducing the size of government and setting an ethical tone for government service,” said Mazze.
“The governor needs to find a way to fund HealthSource RI and cut costs in Medicaid without sacrificing coverage. She also needs to find a way to fund infrastructure investment with or without a toll. And to allay municipalities’ concerns about the stability of the school funding formula. Finally, of course, keep up the job creation,” said Speakman.
Transparency
The Governor’s biggest weakness voiced consistently during her tenure is her lack of transparency. That failure is undermining her ability to create support for important programs. “To move the state forward - the Governor needs to continue to lead by example. Her office has to become more transparent,” said Dean Mazze.
The Governor must begin to articulate a clear set of priorities said a number of the political and academic experts.
“[Raimondo] must define and communicate her agenda. Present an image of a governor who can be effective when dealing with the legislature and whose decision making process shows that all matters have been considered,” said Israel.
The Governor’s lack of responsiveness and inability to work with the media has been a growing issue and attracted a number of groups challenging the lack of responsiveness of the new administration.
“The Governor has certainly struggled with her promises to be a transparent administration. The media and other good government groups have called her out on being less transparent than prior governors and cite the examples of requests for RIDOT records regarding the tolls,” said Gencarella.
The Future
Raimondo’s first year in office has been one of consistency, competency, but growing concerns about her ability to gain public support for important agenda items because of the decay of openness, said the range of experts.
“She faces the difficult task of finding ways to grow the state's economy and quality of life in a time when infrastructure costs are increasing and sources of tax revenue face possible declines,” said Israel.
Related Slideshow: Raimondo’s Budget - Winners and Losers
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