Carcieri seeks opinion from state’s high court on the use of vendors

PROVIDENCE – Gov. Donald L. Carcieri has asked the Rhode Island Supreme Court to issue an advisory opinion on a law approved last year aimed at preventing the governor’s office from using outside vendors to perform state services.
The “anti-privatization” law was created last year when the General Assembly enacted the Fiscal Year 2008 budget as Carcieri was attempting to lay off a number of state workers, partially through privatizing some state services.
Introduced as an amendment to this year’s budget in the closing hours of the legislative session, the law effectively prevents the governor from signing new contracts with private companies, as well as blocking the renewal of existing contracts in a number of areas, including bridge repair and welfare-check processing.
Carcieri, who wants the court to deem the law unconstitutional, is opposed to the amendment because it allows unions, individual employees and some state-program recipients to appeal privatization decisions.
“The law’s applicability to renewal of contracts threatens to paralyze the state and disrupt existing services being rendered in that many of the contracts involved are annual in nature and the long and arduous process outlined in the law will take well in excess of a year to complete,” Carcieri said last week in his letter to Chief Justice Frank Williams. &#8226