From Ken Block <[email protected]>:
Everyone is concerned about the state of Rhode Island’s finances. Areas of concern include a large budget deficit, unfunded pension liabilities in the multiple billions of dollars, and funding for programs as diverse as our state education funding formula to fixing our disintegrating roads and bridges.
I have a suggestion for our legislature which will substantially help out with Rhode Island’s infrastructure crisis. Suspend the Legislative Grant program for 2 years.
Every year, between $2 and $3 million dollars is budgeted for a pool of money called Legislative Grants. These funds are allocated to legislators to spend in their districts on smallish projects. These projects are submitted as requests to legislative leadership, and legislative leadership alone decides which of these projects get funded in any given year.
Many of these projects are under $1,000 grants that are spent on projects for senior living centers around the state, many of which also happen to be polling places.
If the legislature chooses to implement my plan, they could repurpose the $3 million dollars in the upcoming budget year for Legislative Grants to the RI Department of Transportation (RI DOT). RI DOT could then get a 4:1 match of federal dollars against this money for road infrastructure projects.
Imagine – $3 million dollars currently targeted to a few Little League teams, senior centers and the like could instead be turned into $15 million annually to repair our decrepit roads, which are travelled by hundreds of thousands of voters every day.
I can’t think of a better way for the legislature to share the pain of our current financial situation.