Projo 7 to 7 News Blog

If a state has 39 cities and towns, should it also have 39 snow-plowing contracts?

As communities throughout Rhode Island face deep budget cuts, the concept of streamlining services sounds like a no-brainer. (Corporations have done this for years through mergers and consolidations.) Yet the term "consolidation" often gets could shoulder from communities which fear that any regionalization means losing their local identity.

Yesterday, a panel of experts tried to reassure a room full of city and town managers from around the nation's smallest state that there is less to fear _ and a lot to save _ with "shared services.''

The roundtable discussion, hosted by the Rhode Island League of Cities and Towns, included four panelists who talked about the potential and pitfalls of savings through sharing.

Panelists suggested starting with more politically palatable services such as purchasing, wastewater management and snowplowing. Some towns, such as East Greenwich, already have tried it. East Greenwich now has one contractor providing landscaping and snowplowing services for the town and the schools, said East Greenwich Town Manager, William Sequino Jr.

The harder sell, the panelists said, is the notion of cutting costs by merging services such as police, fire or schools.

So many homeless people have decended on Crossroads Rhode Island in Providence that staff there had to run out last weekend and buy 60 air mattresses to accommodate all the guests.

"We had 30 people sleeping on the floor over the weekend, and over 100 people sleeping in beds,'' the organization's president, Anne Nolan, told housing agency board members during this morning's monthly meeting. "We bought every imagineable air mattress in Rhode Island."

The mattresses were purchased at Target and Wal-Mart for $10 each, said Michelle Wilcox, Crossroads' chief operating officer.

Crossroads offices, at 160 Broad St., Providence, has 70 to 80 beds, including 15 pull-out futon couches.

"For a place that was never planned to be a shelter," Nolan said, "we've got 110 to 120 people." .

The House Committee on Finance will begin hearings at 10 a.m. tomorrow on an agreement between Governor Carcieri and the Bush Administration to revamp the state Medicaid system which provides health care for the elderly, poor and disabled.

The hearing on the Medicaid "waiver," to be held in Room 35 of the State House, is open to the public and is expected to be well attended, said House spokesman Larry Berman.

Governor Carcieri will testify in favor of the waiver, which would grant him what has been described as unprecedented authority to change how the state provides health care coverage to the 180,000 Rhode Islanders covered by Medicaid. The plan requires that the state keep its Medicaid costs within a five-year cap.

Opponents of the plan, including advocates for children and the poor, have said that the spending restrictions, especially during an economic recession, will require the state to deny needed services in order to stay within the cap.

Representatives from nursing homes and other health-care providers, as well as advocates for the poor and disabled are expected to testify against the plan.

Gary Alexander, director of the state Department of Human Services, will provide more details about the waiver plan at the hearing.

The hearing is expected to run through the day.

Are you trying to find work at a shopping mall or store to make extra money for the holidays?

If you're a Rhode Islander looking for a seasonal retail job and are willing to talk about what you're finding -- or not finding -- this season please contact Providence Journal reporter Lynn Arditi at larditi@projo.com or call (401)277-7335. (If you call, please leave a daytime phone number.)

Rhode Islanders who can't find a job in their home state may have better luck in nearby Boston.

The Boston metro area is ranked as having the fourth-highest job growth nationally, tied with Washington, D.C., according to a report released today by the federal Department of Labor Statistics.

In April, jobs in the Boston metro area rose by 24,400 from the same month last year, a one-percent increase, the data shows.

Nationally, job growth was slower at 0.3 percent.

In the Boston area, education and health services in April gained 11,400 jobs compared to April of last year, the highest growth rate of any sector, the agency reported. Education and health services accounted for nearly half of the total job gains recorded in the Boston area. The second largest job growth sector during the period was professional and business services, which added 6,900 jobs.

Rhode Island last month shed another 700 jobs, the fourth consecutive monthly decline, and the state unemployment rate remained unchanged at 6.1 percent, a government jobs report released today shows.

During the first four months of this year, Rhode Island has lost lost 6,300 jobs, and its payroll employment has fallen to its lowest level since June 2003, according to the state Department of Labor and Training.

-- Journal staff writer Lynn Arditi