As Rhode Island plows through another COVID surge, Gov. Dan McKee is preparing to lay out his policy vision for the year ahead, including a small-business centered economic plan and blueprint for spending a trove of federal cash.
In a wide-ranging interview on the year ahead, McKee on Wednesday offered a few glimpses into the state budget he plans to unveil Jan. 20 — expected to include another tranche of school construction money and funding for ports to serve offshore wind farms — and how he will help stabilize the creaking health-care system.
Hospitals
McKee acknowledges that the pandemic threatens to overshadow his agenda and derail the economy if hospitals are overwhelmed or schools are forced to close. To prevent that, he’s promoting vaccine booster shots and working with hospitals to manage their staffing shortfalls.
More: McKee gives RI’s hospitals protection from lawsuits during pandemic
More: What’s the solution to RI’s hospital staffing crisis?
But, at least for the moment, he is not planning to use any public money on bonuses to recruit or retain hospital staff, something his 2022 campaign rivals are promoting.
Hospital executives, he said Wednesday, have not asked for them.
“We have to get to the root of the problem. We have hospitals that gave as much as $20,000 bonuses and that didn’t change the workforce,” McKee said at the State House, referring to signing bonuses he said Lifespan had offered nurses. “So you are not going to throw money at a situation unless you think it is going to have some positive outcomes.”
What he does plan to do is entice health-care workers graduating from college to stay in Rhode Island by helping them pay off some of their student debt, something Senate President Dominick Ruggerio said he supports.
The state’s “Wavemaker” program currently provides refundable tax credits to graduates in the science and technology fields who agree to stay in Rhode Island.
McKee would like to extend similar incentives to nursing students who stay in Rhode Island, although he did not have details on how it would work or the size of the incentives.
Eleanor Slater Hospital
In the new year, McKee promises to unveil a multiyear funding strategy that addresses a number of the long-identified problems at the state-run hospital.
He said the scope and the price tag may change from his bid to construct a newly licensed “long-term care facility” on the Zambarano campus in Burrillville at an estimated cost of $64.9 million, to be financed with a form of borrowing that does not require voter approval.
Without going into the details of what he will unveil in the budget he will propose to lawmakers next month, he promised “a substantial investment” in the troubled hospital for close to 200 medical and psychiatric patients, across campuses in Cranston and Burrillville.
“It’s about the health and safety of the patients. It’s the families. It’s the workforce,” he said.
More: Troubled Eleanor Slater hospital secures accreditation after officials cite ‘progress’
“We are going to be constructing and rehabbing facilities,” he said, and moving ahead with a previously announced effort to redesignate one of the buildings on the Cranston campus as a standalone psychiatric hospital.
On the new-construction front, McKee also gave a thumbs-up to two items high on Ruggerio’s agenda: building a new psychiatric facility for “lost girls” in the care of the state’s Department of Children, Youth and Families so they don’t have to be shipped out of state; and removing and replacing lead water pipes, in Providence especially. He said replacing the pipes “has been a front-and-center issue” for use of some of the state’s federal windfall dollars.
Driver’s licenses for undocumented immigrants
McKee needs no persuading from lawmakers intent on giving driving privileges to immigrants who cannot prove they are in the country legally.
“I have supported it for multiple years,” he said, as long as the creation of the special permit cards is “cost-neutral” — meaning the fees are sufficient to cover any cost incurred by the DMV.
More: Lawmakers could OK driver’s licenses for undocumented immigrants in RI next year
“I looked at it as an economic issue,” he said, “Getting people to work in a way that can help our small business(es)” and potentially help ease the health-care staffing shortage.
Small-business relief
Again, McKee was reluctant to provide too many details. But he said his budget proposal will contain “significant relief” for small businesses.
As an example, he mentioned a reduction in the current double-barreled hit on late tax payments “to bring [it] more in line with other states.”
The current penalty for late payment of sales and use taxes, as an example, is 10% of the total tax due plus interest, which can run between 18% and 21% per year.
He noted that earlier this month he allowed the Department of Labor and Training to effectively freeze unemployment insurance tax rates next year. Without the freeze rates would have risen to replenish the unemployment insurance trust fund, costing employers $60 million in 2022, the DLT estimated.
Marijuana legalization
The sticking point in the months-long negotiations has been: who will control the award of the licenses that will allow entry into this new, billion-dollar industry in Rhode Island?
Will it be the executive branch or an appointed cannabis commission, subject to confirmation by the Senate?
More: What’s next for pot in New England in 2022? VT sales starting, MA equity issues and more.
Asked about the latest details to emerge from months of negotiations, McKee said: “Nothing has been shared with me.”
But he said remains convinced the state’s Department of Business Regulation is best positioned to regulate the new industry.
“Layering on more government … only adds costs,” he said.
Bonuses for state workers
The $3,000 bonuses the McKee administration initially promised to vaccinated state workers within Council 94 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees will be offered to all of the state’s unionized employees regardless of their vaccination status.
More: RI Gov. Dan McKee calls $3,000 vaccination bonuses for state workers a ‘misstep’
Some of the state employee unions are still negotiating their contracts, so the terms have not been locked down.
McKee said nonunion employees will not get the $3,000 one-time bonuses, though they will likely get the same 2.5% a year annual raises provided union-affiliated employees.
Spending COVID aid
The General Assembly plans to approve $119 million of spending from the state’s $1.1-billion share of the American Rescue Plan Act money on its first legislative day in 2022.
McKee said he will lay out a plan for spending the remainder of the cash in a separate section of his coming budget.
More: There’s a deal. Here’s what we know about the plan to begin spending COVID relief in RI
“It is going to have housing in it,” McKee said of his plan for the federal dollars, plus investments in the “green economy,” “blue economy,” “supply-chain areas” and life sciences.
Expanding on what the “blue economy” spending will include, McKee said “wind turbine stuff,” including plans for port expansion in Providence and East Providence.
The driving theme of his Rescue Plan investments: “How are we going to increase per-capita income in Rhode Island?”
Rhode Island public schools
McKee said he intends to propose a new school-construction bond “consistent” with the last school bond, which voters approved in 20 and borrowed $250 million.
He said he supports Ruggerio’s plan to speed up the expansion of free pre-kindergarten classes but is waiting on President Joe Biden’s proposed federal preschool package.
More: Environmental and labor groups call on RI to invest in greener schools
This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: RI McKee looks to 2022: COVID, driver’s licenses for undocumented, more
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