It’s About a Fair Deal: IGT Chair Vincent LIVE Ahead of Hearings
Friday, September 13, 2019
IGT Chairman Bob Vincent joined GoLocalProv News Editor Kate Nagle on GoLocal LIVE, ahead of the hearings scheduled at the General Assembly next week to consider IGT's proposed twenty-year contract extension — which Vincent said he believes will be focused on showing lawmakers why it is a “fair deal."
Vincent addressed how the proposed contract was drafted — following opponents questioning Governor Gina Raimondo’s relationship with the company.
“There was no drama, it was perfectly routine, business-type negotiations,” said Vincent. “Necessarily, it was conducted privately, we met with the Governor back in January, told her of our concerns, of what we’d like to do. She was great, she said let’s take a month, month and a half and go through these negotiations. We named a team — it was Jay Gendron and Mike Mello [at IGT] who did it, the Governor named her team and they met and we left them alone for a while.”
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLAST“They had what was the outline and the framework of a deal — at least in principle, there’s no contract written,” added Vincent. “It’s simply what was enough to say as a company we could agree to the term sheet we jointly developed. We brought it to the Speaker of the House. The Speaker looked at it, he made some improvements he thought were necessary to get his members to support it, and we were open to his suggestions and discussions and that let up to the June 30th announcement where both the Speaker and the Senate President were willing to put their names to a news release endorsing it and submitting legislation — and now here we are.”
With hearings scheduled for the Senate next week, Vincent said he anticipates the House will consider the measure the following week — and spoke to the information that IGT has provided to lawmakers to date, and what questions he expects.
Hearings on Tap
“We gave them a very good insight into the top of employees we have — there are a lot of good-paying jobs. There are a lot of entry-level jobs as well — I think we’ve talked about this — you don’t have to be a computer scientist to work at IGT. Like any company, we have all kinds of people,” said Vincent, of the more than 1,000 jobs currently in Rhode Island with an average pay of over $100,000 — of which only 65 are needed specifically for the company’s Rhode Island operations he said.
“I think people need to understand…that Rhode Island the only place in the world where we guarantee a level of employment that’s beyond what’s necessary to service the contract in Rhode Island,” said Vincent. “I think it’s fairly fundamental. No one is against the jobs, everyone wants to keep the jobs. I haven’t heard any legislator or of any person in the administration say, oh, we don’t care about the jobs. They care deeply about the jobs, they care about the economic impact that those jobs have on Rhode Island.”
“But as a public official — and I used to run procurement here — bidding is sort of a given right in public life, you to go bid for almost every service. We as a company for commodities — we go to bid. But there are certain times you look at something — and in 2003, the state attached the thousand job commitment to these contracts — then you have to look at that and say we can’t really take that to bid,” said Vincent. “You have to understand whether or not you’re getting fair value, and that’s complicated, and I think that’s where the questioning from legislators is likely to come.”
“I think we can successfully make them understand the contract — and services that are contained in this agreement — are market-driven, they’re fair, and I think once you come to that conclusion, and the only other conclusion you have is we want the jobs, then why not enter the agreement — but I think the first hurdle is definitely convincing them that there’s fair value. This isn’t jobs at any cost,” he added.
The segment is sponsored content from IGT.
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