PROVIDENCE – At a noon press conference, Gov. Donald L. Carcieri announced he has vetoed the R.I. General Assembly’s $6.98 billion state budget for fiscal 2008.
He previously had pledged to veto the budget, which was approved Tuesday afternoon by the state Senate and early Saturday by the House.
“Instead of agreeing to my plan to solve the budget problem by reducing personnel costs, the General Assembly has decided instead to balance the budget on the backs of Rhode Island families,” Carcieri had said in a statement on Tuesday. “In particular, the General Assembly cut school aid, raised taxes and squandered one-time tobacco settlement funds.
“Cutting school aid hurts children, local communities, and property tax payers,” the governor said. “Raising taxes injures families and businesses, thereby undermining job growth. And by squandering the tobacco money,” which Carcieri had designated for highway projects that would bring the state more money, in federal matching funds, “the General Assembly is robbing future generations to pay today’s bills.”
Lawmakers, he added, “actually included a provision in the budget designed to halt any potential progress in the future. The anti-privatization measure – which was added to the budget at 11:30 on Friday night – is a clear giveaway to the state employee unions.” His own budget plan calls for privatizing any services that might be provided more cheaply by outside contractors. (READ MORE) “But this budget would make that impossible.”
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The state Senate has expressed a different view of both the budget it approved this week by a vote of 29 to 9 and the governor’s alternative budget plan.
The Assembly budget “closes a deficit of more than $400 million and restores services while still spending $32.6 million less than the governor’s original proposal and relying on fewer dollars from one-time fixes,” the Senate said in its Tuesday announcement.
Carcieri’s veto was denounced today by Bill Lynch, chairman of the state Democratic Party, who said the governor “seems more concerned with spinning empty rhetoric than with delivering results.”
Despite the governor’s statement that “the spending problem’s getting worse,” Lynch said, “The budget approved by the General Assembly is $32.6 million less than the budget Carcieri proposed.”
He said the Assembly budget “does not cut school aid to local cities and towns, it provides funding at the same level that was allocated last fiscal year.”
The budget’s ban on privatization of services drew fire from Carcieri today for “impeding the executive branch from implementing savings [and] the state’s ability to reduce future costs.”
But Lynch countered that “The only thing this budget would undermine would be the governor’s ability to award sweetheart, no-bid deals and contracts to private staffing and law firms,” and followed up with a jab at the administration for recent revelations that some outside services had been “subject to mark-up fees upwards of 201 percent and costing the taxpayers tens of millions of dollars.”
“The fact is, Democrats in the House and Senate held the line on spending in this difficult budget year,” Lynch said, concluding that “The governor has proven himself to be a poor steward of the people’s money and is now either unwilling or unable to bring people together.”
The R.I. Senate’s statement regarding the budget it approved on Tuesday can be seen at www.riln.state.ri.us. The governor’s statement is at www.ri.gov.
