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June 08, 2007

Update: House panel reveals some budget remedies

PROVIDENCE -- The head of the House Finance Committee early this afternoon revealed some of the panel's proposals to deal with the state's budget crunch.

Chairman Steven M. Costantino announced the measures at a special briefing held before his committee was scheduled to take up the budget this afternoon.

Among them are:

* Proposed personnel savings across all state departments. No details are yet available.The governor yesterday proposed laying off 1,000 workers and freezing wages.

* "Level funding" the total amount of education aid to cities and towns, which means eliminating the 3 percent education-aid increase across the board that Carcieri's budget had called for.

* Allowing Sunday auto sales starting July 1 from noon to 6 p.m., which is expected to increase revenue to the state, but it was not yet clear how much.

* Would end Family Court jurisidiction over young offenders at age 19 instead of 21. The governor has proposed doing so at age 18. That means they could not be sentenced to the Rhode Island Training School, and would instead be slated for state prison.

* Would change eligibility for the Child-Care Assistance Program, now set by law at 225 percent of the federal poverty level, to 180 percent of those guidelines. The governor has proposed 150 percent.

To pass a balanced 2008 budget, as required by law, elected officials had to either cut an estimated $90 million from the governor's $7-billion spending proposal released this spring, find ways to raise new revenues, or devise some combination of the two.

Yesterday, the governor announced revisions to his proposal, which included what is believed to be the largest number of layoffs of state workers in state history.

-- With reports from Journal State House reporter Steve Peoples

Posted by Andrea Panciera  at 2:36 PM | Permalink

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