Nothing like some end of the session political bickering. On Monday morning GOP Chairman Brandon Bell claimed that Speaker of the House Nick Mattiello was slanting the state’s budget for his car tax elimination plan.
"[The] General Assembly is seeking to increase its own budget for fiscal year 2018 to $44 million, a 17% spike, from last fiscal year. In response, Mattiello told WPRI he had no idea about this hike and said it's ‘news to me,’” charged the GOP in their press release.
"House Speaker Mattiello doesn't even know how much the General Assembly is asking for in next year's budget but thinks he can find the money to pay for a $220 million tax cut. The Speaker seems a bit clueless and needs some help,” said Bell.
The Press Secretary for the Speaker, however, says Bell has his facts wrong.
“The majority of the increase cited in the annual budget is due to the re-appropriation of unexpended funds from previous years. These unused funds automatically roll to the next year’s budget for the Legislature,” says Larry Berman, Mattiello’s spokesperson.
Other than the judiciary, Berman could not identify another department that was rolling over any unspent funds. With revenue shorts falls of an estimated $140 million, all aspects of state government are being reviewed for cuts.
“In the Fiscal Year 2016, there was $6.2 million that was unexpended. Of that amount, $1.3 million has been returned to the state budget, and the reminder was rolled into the Fiscal Year 2017 budget. All aspects of state government, including the legislature’s budget, is being looked at,” said Berman.
The Budget Office’s closing report that shows the $6.2 million in unexpended funding. There was a budget of $44.1 million, but only $37.6 was expended.
"The General Assembly's budget is bloated. New Hampshire's state legislature, which has 424 members, only spends about $18 million on itself but still somehow has figured out a way to make their state the 7th best business tax climate in the nation. If Speaker Mattiello is looking for waste in the budget he should walk around the third floor of the State House for a while and then sit down and start cutting the General Assembly's budget to pay for our car tax phase-out,” said Bell.
Related Slideshow: 1-on-1 With Speaker Mattiello: Ten Issues Facing 2017
GoLocal's Kate Nagle sat down with Speaker Nicholas Mattiello on December 15, 2016, to discuss issues facing the Assembly in 017.
Questions posed to Mattiello are in italics, followed by Mattiello's responses.
The House Fiscal Office predicts a $112M budget deficit next year. How do you broach that?
We’ve got a standing structural deficit. That’s not a surprise. That was predicted, projected — and something unfortunately we’re forced to deal with every year, and we deal with it effectively.
Our expenses increase faster than our revenues - and a lot are them are expenses that benefit needy folks, elderly folks, and people with disabilities, and those costs tend to rise faster than your revenues, and as a result we end up with a structural deficit every year. But we’ll address it, and we’ll balance it, and we’ll put forth a budget the public can be very proud of, that serves their interests.
Can a car tax repeal be done -- or started -- in light of the above -- the projected budget deficit?
It's a municipal tax, and the sum total of all the communities tax on that is about $215M. I’ve indicated we’ll phase it out over 5 years — that’s roughly $40 million dollars a year, some years it will be plus a little and some years minus a little — depending on our revenues and expenses.
We’ll be raising the exemption as we provide the revenue to the cities and towns so we can hold the harmless, until we’re able to finally phase it out and eradicate the car tax and prohibit them from imposing it in the future.
And that will serve multiple interests — the interest of our citizens and taxpayers, and eliminating what I call the "stone in the shoe" - it’s just a tax that irritates people. It will be better for the economy and folks will be more prone to buy a new buy if they don’t have to pay a high municipal tax each year - and our municipal taxes are generally too high compared to other states, so that makes us non competitive in national rankings, so the elimination of the car car tax will make us more competitive, and then we have to look at other taxes and see how we can continue to make our municipalities more competitive. But we have a constitutional mandate the we have to balance our budget — so you can’t do everything at once, we have to prioritize each year.
You said there are a lot of things you "want to do" this session -- can you explain further?
We have to see what we can do, but our number one priority is going to be the car tax. I’d like to give retirees a little more tax relief.
I’d like to eliminate the tax on the tax for leased vehicles - when you pay your property tax through a lease you actually end up paying a sales tax on the property tax and that’s a tax that annoys folks and I’d like to eliminate that.
I’d like to raise the exemption on the estate tax, so that we are better able to keep successful folks in the state of Rhode Island for their job creation, for their philanthropy, the general economic activity that they create.
Right now we’re at $1.5 million. I’d like to go $2 million, $2.5 million — I don’t know what the financial impact will be. And that’s a tax we’re not competitive with comparative to a lot of states, so as I’ve indicated you can only do so much in any year but that’s a tax we have to look at long term, with the goal of increasing that, because what you don’t want to do is to have successful folks to leave the state — generally they stay in Rhode Island until they get older and more vulnerable. The closer folks get to their morality, when they’re successful, the more likely they leave the state and that’s not something you want to occur because all of their job creation and spending leaves with them.
Over the last two and a half years, we’ve eliminated about $75M worth of taxes out of each year’s budget. As we’re cutting taxes, our revenues seem to be going up. Rhode Island becoming more competitive is actually good for our budget and better for society, so we’ll continue moving in that direction and continue our slow march towards better economic competitiveness.
First, we have limits, caps on what any one project can receive in terms of tax credits and it's $15M per project, I believe. I was very mindful when the original request was made for that - quite frankly, the Administration wanted no cap so they could do bigger deals. I’m mindful of mistakes of the past. No one person should have ultimate authority to spend the taxpayers’ dollars - there always has to be checks and balances, so we put that cap on.
Relative the Wexford deal — I’ve not personally vetted that deal, I’ve asked the Commerce Secretary to come in. We’ll take a look at the deal, and I’ll personally look at it. I have an ongoing dialogue with Commerce, but ultimately they work for the administration, and the Governor’s ultimately responsible for the oversight.
How are you going to address the call for the line item veto? How do you balance your tempered views on it, versus those advocates strongly calling for it?
The way you have to look at it — I just want to do what’s in the state’s best interest. It's easy to call for it, because the natural instinct of a citizen who has not spent a lot of time studying it or not familiar with the system and the process - and I would not expect the average person to be, I was not before I was involved in it. Your average inclination is your going to save money, and therefor we should do it. And I’m not sure that that’s the case. I think it could actually cost us additional spending.
So what I’ve indicated on the campaign trail — I want to put smart folks in a room, whether it’s a commission, or some other means of accomplishing that, getting academics, constitutional scholars together to get a more educated and more professional view of it, rather than political view, and let’s see where it goes.
The framers of our Constitution originally wanted to put a checks on the Governor. The Governor of the state walks around with one or two troopers by their side at any given point, you can’t generally speak to them — that’s not an indictment, that’s just the reality. I’m in the community each and every day talking to folks, getting the pulse of folks — you have different elected positions that serve different interests. Originally, we didn’t want to give so much power in the Governor, you wanted to withhold it in the people — and right now people are being told they’re should take the power away from themselves and give it back to the Executive Branch.
I can tell you that the Governor proposed a lot of jobs in the last budget — almost 100 of them that didn’t pass our legislative process, we actually saved a lot of money. So I pose the question -- if the Governor had a line time veto, would the House have been as inclined to pull 70-100 jobs that she was creating out of the budget, if some of the House priorities could have been pulled out at the back end? I think the answer is maybe not — so although folks might think its would save money, it could actually cost more money because you put in different intersections where money could be spent.
Legalized marijuana just went online in Massachusetts -- how soon are you going to look at the example and make a decision for RI?
I don’t know. I have traditionally been opposed to marijuana legalization for recreational use — and I start out from the policy position, "What value does it add to the state?" Having said that, there are strong advocates and strong opponents in the House, there are strongly advocates and strong opponents in society at large. I expect a bill to be introduced. I think the most important part is the public testimony and input and I look forward to that, so I don’t know what the ultimate conclusion of that hearing process the ultimate judgment will be.
I’ve been speaking with folks from Colorado — I potentially may consider a trip there, the came here already. I forgot what the specific percentages were, of the revenues that come in from marijuana legalization, but a large percentage ends up going to treatment, let’s say 40%, and a large percentage — maybe 30% — goes to prevention programs.
So out of all the resources you bring in, the overwhelming majority of the resources go to prevention or treatment of the policy initiative you put in place, and maybe 20-30% goes to your general revenues. There’s a legitimate debate as to whether that’s appropriate and productive to serve society’s needs. Having said that, you have to look to the north and the legalization in Massachusetts. My concern is that you’ll end up with a lot of the social problems. They’ll filter through into Rhode Island — and we’ll have more social problems without the revenues to address the problems. It’s a very complicated issue. We have to look at it. My opinion is not the controlling opinion - in this case it’s a collective, collaborative opinion I’m looking for — and that will filter in from the general public.
What needs to be tackled at the state level this year regarding charter schools, as Providence is battling over Achievement First?
I don’t know, we’ll see what spins off from that. I’ve always said its inefficient to create two parallel education systems — one that serves 4% and one that serves 96%. I’ve always believed that it’s inequitable to pull too much money out of the system that serves the 96% to create a better system for the four percent. Ultimately you’re going to leave the 96 percent in worse shape - our focus shouldn’t be on creating two parallel systems where they both suffer — our focus should be on creating one good system that we can all be proud of, and most importantly serves the needs of our students, because you’re going to have to be better educated and better trained in the future -- and the kids that are growing up and graduating are going to have to reinvent themselves several times in the new economy over the course of their lifetime and you have to be well-educated well trained in order to do that. I take that responsibility very seriously. We collaborate with RIDE and we have to see what the best way is to educate our children.
The best example I can give you is if you have a leaky roof and it needs a little bit of work — you don’t keep that house and get another house because now you have two house to maintain. And ultimately one of them is going to be as good as it should be. Either fix your first house so that you’re comfortable living in it and it serves your needs or sell it and get another house that meets your needs appropriately. Having two makes it both worse — that’s exactly what we’re doing— we’re creating two parallel systems. Nobody on day one would create that type of system, it’s inefficient and I’m concerned about growing a natural inefficient system. I’m more concerned with creating one system that best serves the needs of all of our students
Driver licenses or identification for undocumented immigrants: Do you expect this to get much traction or momentum once again this year?
I expect it to come up, it's come up in the past. I think statewide most people are not in favor of it, from what I hear informally from people. I believe that my community is not in support of that. So I would expect if the reps all come from different communities, and my suspicion is right - most communities don’t support that, it will face its natural challenges and that’s a reflection of what the opinion is of the citizens in Rhode Island right now.
What, if anything, do you have concerns about coming from the Trump administration?
President-elect Trump is the President-elect — the citizens of the country have have elected him. The citizens have elected a Congress and a Senate — and I expect that they want the most successful US that they can achieve and whether we might agree or not with any given policy decision, their ultimate goal is improve the economic conditions and quality of life of all Americans and Rhode Islanders.
So we’ll see what benefits are created and what challenge are created and we’ll address them then — I’ve taken a position that I’m not going to speculate as to what might happen and consider addressing any of those speculative contingencies. And I don’t think it’s appropriate. So let’s see what happens and hope for the best. I'm rooting for the country and hoping for the best for the country and the state of Rhode Island and I expect we’ll probably be fine — I know there are a lot folks who are nervous and speculating and so forth and there are probably better uses for our time.
If the State funding for Obamacare is repealed, if Title I education is eliminated — I believe it would be a $22M hit to Providence. What happens then?
Without addressing specifics, if there’s any negative impact relative to any policy consideration - and by the way over the years, we’ve had negative impacts on Rhode Island from some of President Obama's well intentioned policies — what ever negative impacts there could be would always concern me. Obviously we want the most robust economy and having the needs of our constituents taken care of the best we can. We’d look at whatever is creating that and seeing if anything is appropriate. But to go beyond that is just to speculate.
