As the General Assembly brought the 2017 session to a close, Rhode Island’s citizens were confronted once again with the last-minute introduction of legislation that had potential to cause great mischief.
The bill getting the most attention had to do with automatically extending contracts for municipal employees and teachers when the two parties involved have not been able to come to an agreement by the time the original contract expires.
This is a bad idea, in that it removes the incentive for either side in a contract dispute to finish the difficult and important work of coming to an agreement, with the potential for making worse municipal budget challenges.
Another bad idea concerned the loosening of qualifications for disability pensions. One piece of the proposal, for instance, would require that heart disease among firefighters would be presumed to be a line-of-duty injury, no matter the employee’s health background. Municipal balance sheets are already a disaster thanks to long-term health care costs for retirees. This would only make the situation worse.
And finally, a piece of legislation to set up cameras all over the state to determine if vehicles are insured or not seems a little over the top. And without confidence that the data gathered would be used for other purposes, it seems like this is state overreach.
The solution to all these problematic pieces of legislation is simple. Introduce them earlier in the session and set aside enough time for sufficient hearings and debate. Any other path is just a way to guarantee poor legislation becomes law.
