Here’s an interesting email I got recently from a reader who says he’s a veteran state worker, offering his perspective on all the changes to his retirement benefits made in recent years (I’ve redacted his name):

Dear Mr Nesi,

My name is [X], I am a Correctional Officer with the RI Dept of Corrections, and have been employed there since 1988. At the time of my application I was a young ambitious man with hopes of making a better life for my family and I; that being said, I also knew that this would involve sacrifice, hard work, and dedication.

Today, I am older, wiser, and left to “play a game” in which the rules have been changed “in the middle”.

In my initial interview, I was informed that if I were fortunate enough to attain a position in the academy I would be paid $150.00 per week throughout the academy…and if I graduated, my starting salary would be +/-$21,000.00, would receive a full benefit package of life insurance and dental FOR LIFE, also, at 50 years of age I would be eligible to retire with a retirement package of 50% of my current salary. Also if I attended college and graduated in Administration of Justice I would receive a stipend of 15% of my pay for as long as I was employed.

This was not my only opportunity! I had other opportunities, Prov Police, State Police, Deputy Marshal, however, based on these promises I turned down the other opportunities for the opportunities availed by RIDOC. Now all these promises have been changed, IS THAT LEGAL! My college incentive cut to $2500.00 per year; my retirement age increased to 59, my percentage reduced significantly, my healthcare costs increased significantly. How is this possible?

Not through negotiation but through legislation!

24 years later, I know I am only a mere middle class guy, but I feel if there has ever been oppression and prejudice laid upon anyone, it is against me…the regular “joe” that works and does what he must for his family.

I do not think that the founders of this state or country intended that the working guys/gals were the ones that would be oppressed.

Your Thoughts,
Respectfully,
[X]

• Related: Mediation to continue in RI pension suit after judge gets update (Feb. 28)

Ted Nesi is on assignment.

By Jason P. Becker

At the center of Woonsocket’s spiral into fiscal uncertainty is a massive deficit at its public schools that seemingly emerged from the ether this winter. The school system wound up short almost $10 million over the last two years despite having a business manager repeatedly declare that the schools were running a surplus.

Faced with a massive deficit and the demise of a supplemental tax increase at the hands of the city’s legislative delegation, an already underfunded school system is looking to cut even further. Some in Woonsocket have been asserting that a lack of state support for the Woonsocket Public Schools has led to its precarious budget situation. Indeed, the city has joined Pawtucket in a lawsuit seeking to force the state to accelerate the planned funding increases to Woonsocket as part of a new education aid funding formula enacted in June 2010.

Is it true that Woonsocket schools can blame a lack of state support for its insufficient revenues?

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Ted Nesi is traveling on assignment.

By Carroll Andrew Morse

If you are interested in understanding the eternal wisdom of the conservative viewpoint towards government, here are two questions to ask yourself: Do we really think that people are smarter now than they were in medieval times? Are we really sure we know more about governing ourselves than did our ancestors?

Governments of the medieval past were headed by kings, nobles and/or local warlords. The common folk didn’t have much say in who the leaders were who might demand taxes from them or start a war with the neighboring clan. Rulers ruled, they didn’t change often, and everyone else obeyed. People went along with this system because – well, truth be told, we can’t be fully sure why people went along with this system. There were theoretical justifications, like the king having a direct connection to God that allowed him to know best, but we don’t know the degree to which the medieval man-on-the-street bought into this versus just going along with the governing system that was there, because that was the easiest thing to do.

Fast-forward to the present. At least in this part of the world, kings (with real power) aren’t around anymore. Representative democracy has taken their place. People get an opportunity to select their leaders. Instead of kings and warlords, we have presidents, governors and mayors; instead of royal courts, we have legislatures.

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Ted Nesi is off. He’ll return on Friday.

By Samuel G. Howard

A reading of an old newspaper article (or a history book) can often provide insight into present circumstances. It’s enlightening, and a bit frustrating, to discover that the same battles tend to be fought decade after decade. So it is with Rhode Island. Take this accounting of Rhode Island’s problems:

• Unemployment is high, at 11%.
• State investment in education isn’t pretty; the governor balked at raising URI faculty pay by 3% while costs are increasing. Their union said most of the raise would pay health insurance premiums.
• Highways aren’t much better: Rhode Island has the fourth-highest rate of structurally deficient bridges in the United States.
• Income taxes are down; the highest bracket pays 5.99% on earnings over $129,900. The other tax brackets are 4.75% for earnings more than $57,150 and 3.75% on the rest of wage-earners [pdf]. Combined, state and local taxes take 11.9% from the 20% of taxpayers with the lowest incomes while reducing the incomes of the top 1% by a mere 5.6% [pdf].
• Observers are suggesting that the state should essentially fail to pay the loan guarantee it made for 38 Studios by fulfilling only the moral obligation. It might take a hit on its borrowing costs, but it’d be better than paying roughly $100 million to bondholders.

In contrast, a 2002 article by Brian Jones in the Providence Phoenix said that under former Gov. Lincoln Almond the following happened:

• Unemployment down to 4% from 7% in 1995.
• Half a billion dollars invested in construction at state colleges, while health insurance was increasing among Rhode Islanders.
• Roads improved while the interest rates on state bonds fell.
• Taxes down 10%.

Well, at least taxes are down even more since 2002. That’ll come as a relief to the 11% of Rhode Islanders still unemployed, and the others who are underemployed or simply aren’t counted because they’ve given up looking for jobs.

It’s incredible how a decade can make a difference. Lincoln Almond seems like the most competent administrator in the entirety of Rhode Island’s history. And this was a man portrayed on the front page of The Journal in 2002 as chronically asleep.

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Ted Nesi is off. He’ll return on Friday.

By Maryellen Butke

“Education has to be the one issue that we put politics and ideology aside.”

Famous words spoken by U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan during the 2010 elections and certainly words that ring true in Rhode Island today. When I became the executive director of RI-CAN: The Rhode Island Campaign for Achievement Now, I had just left an eight-year tenure as a school administrator at The Met School in Providence. Known for its progressive approach to learning, The Met is where I first began my work in education. Before that, I was a parent and a professional whose daughter was struggling in her public school. When I walked my daughter into the Paul Cuffee Public Charter School in Providence, my passion for education reform was born.

I have never considered my views on education liberal or conservative. Though a lifelong progressive, it never occurred to me that teaching and learning in public schools was a partisan issue. At its core, education reform is about improving educational outcomes for kids. How could anyone – Democrat or Republican – disagree with that?

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Dean Baker is an economist – and an iconoclast.

Baker is co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington and famously warned about the housing bubble as early as 2002. Last winter, he released a study arguing that most states’ pension shortfalls “appear easily manageable.”

Over the weekend, Baker emailed me his thoughts on the pension changes Treasurer Raimondo outlined last week on WPRI 12′s “Newsmakers”:

This seems to me to be fairly harsh, especially to retirees.

Asking people to do without cost-of-living adjustments (COLAs) is actually a big cut. This really is a contractual obligation. I don’t know the specific wording in the workers’ contracts, but obviously everyone understood the COLA as part of their pay package. To say that retirees “won’t get a raise” is just a cynical effort at confusing the issue. This is a cut, since it means that the pension benefit will not go as far next year as it does this year, and there will be even further cuts for as long as the freeze is in effect.

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Josh Barro knows pensions.

Barro, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute in New York City, is an expert on state and local finances and the author of “Dodging the Pension Disaster.” We spoke in May about how Rhode Island’s leaders should approach pension reform; on Friday, Barro emailed his thoughts on the ideas Treasurer Raimondo outlined today:

Overall, the plan laid out by Treasurer Raimondo and Governor Chafee strikes me as a very good approach.

It is particularly important that the new system is for all accruals by workers in the future – not just for workers not yet vested or not yet hired. This is very important so that the state can start achieving real savings quickly and stop awarding pension benefits that are larger than necessary to attract and retain workers. As you note, this mirrors the process for changing pension benefits that is typical in the private sector (in compliance with ERISA), but it has not been typical in the public sector; most states, to their detriment, have been enacting pension benefit reforms that do not apply to the current workforce, meaning that meaningful savings will not be realized for years or decades.

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By Jef Nickerson

In the corners of Providence’s dark bistros, coffeehouses and martini bars, there is a whisper: “What about this streetcar business? Does it make any sense?”

I make my reputation writing about urban issues in Providence, so it is a fair question for me – except the question is often asked in hushed tones with averted eyes, as if I will have some secret, surprising answer; as if the questioner is letting me know it is safe for me to share my true secret feelings on the topic. I suspect that those askers are secretly hoping I will say, shaking my head sadly, “It costs too much.”

The projected $100 million cost of a streetcar line in Providence is not insignificant – and coincidentally, it is about the same as the projected cost of replacing the Pawtucket River Bridge (which as you may know has been limited for the last five years due to deferred maintenance).

It may indeed be possible that we could run buses along the same route and move the same amount of people for a smaller initial investment. Nevertheless, I’m all for bringing streetcars back to Providence.

My reasons for wanting streetcars are pragmatic, not romantic. While streetcars are a means of transportation, and will move people from one point to another, their biggest benefit will be as a spur to economic development and a tool for RIPTA, the city and the state to prove that they are committed to a robust transit system for the metropolitan area.

From Portland to Salt Lake City to New Orleans to Washington, cities across the country either already have streetcar systems or are planning to build or expand them. These cities are realizing the fiscal value of public transportation as an economic development tool and a means of improving their urban centers, and are making a commitment to 21st-century development.

Businesses and, perhaps more importantly, the talent they are looking to attract are looking for well-built cities that are easy to navigate. Employees want to avoid spending the bulk of their annual salaries on gas and parking and all their free time on a horrendous commute, and employers are looking for the same.

Providence’s proposed streetcar route will traverse the Jewelry District and the land made available by the removal of the old Interstate 195 – land that we can’t let sit fallow; land that we need to quickly develop to boost the economy.

Time and again, rail tracks on the roadbed have proven to be a strong draw for development. The Pearl District in Portland, Ore., is an example analogous to our Jewelry District – a rundown warehouse and factory district on the edge of downtown was transformed by the development that followed the streetcar tracks.

With alternate means of transportation in place, the city will be able to reduce or eliminate parking minimums for new developments. Reduced parking minimums mean fewer surface lots and more buildings with productive uses for us, the citizens of Providence. For the developer, it means spending less of their money storing cars, leaving more to be spent on amenities for people – because we all know that cars don’t spend money, people spend money.

Streetcar infrastructure signals a commitment to transit, a long-term commitment that buses cannot convey. While bus routes can come and go at the whim of a transit director or the first sign of a budget crunch, the infrastructure that comes with streetcars is much harder to abandon.

While rising gas prices are already sending commuters to RIPTA, there is still a stigma attached to public transit, particularly buses. People who do not ordinarily utilize public transit are more willing to hop on a streetcar; they often see them as better, fancier, more elegant. When these riders find that RIPTA is operating a well run streetcar that’s easy, enjoyable and convenient to ride, they may become more willing to commit to other forms of transit.

As RIPTA continues to work internally and with the General Assembly to figure out the best source of reliable funding for the agency, it will need more “friends” to speak in its favor. A visit to the comments section of the local paper of record when a story hits the media about RIPTA’s budget problems shows the need for the agency to have more positive and enthusiastic backers. Higher gas prices are here to stay; more people are going to need the services RIPTA provides going forward.

While the public relations and economic development components are important, there is of course a transit benefit.

I’ve heard it said that the proposed streetcar route from College Hill to Rhode Island Hospital via the Jewelry District is nothing more than a school bus for Brown University. While Brown will indeed benefit, it cannot be ignored that those two end points are among the largest employers in Rhode Island – employers that have managed better than others to resist the ravages of recession. Those two points will provide a ready customer base for the streetcar as it works its economic development magic on the Jewelry District and Downcity.

The streetcar route is also well-situated to fill the “last mile” gap in Rhode Island’s transit system – the “last mile” referring to the gap in an individual’s journey between where her transit trip ends and her ultimate destination.

Many eschew transit because of this “last mile” gap. Most buses in Rhode Island end their journeys in Kennedy Plaza, which was fine when the adjacent Financial District was the economic engine of the state. Now, though, the city’s jobs are spreading out like spokes of a bicycle from the plaza. The streetcar removes the need to go all the way into the plaza, and back out again on another mode of transport. People coming into the city from all directions can make their needed connections to their end points along the streetcar route.

The Core Connector Study, which is assessing the streetcar proposal, is also looking to make a connection to Providence’s train station. This connection could take the form of a streetcar spur from Kennedy Plaza; a shuttle bus between the plaza and station; or perhaps some other form. With strong commuter-rail service north of the city, and expanding commuter-rail service south of the city, this would create a vast customer shadow for the streetcar that covers two states.

The streetcar will fill in the “last mile” for commuter rail riders, as well. By providing alternative mobility options through the urban core and by getting new commuters onto commuter rail and buses, the streetcar will reduce automobile usage, decreasing our fossil-fuel consumption, reducing the need to provide parking in the city center, creating opportunities for vibrant new development, and relieving individuals and families of the costs of automobile commuting.

Yes, a streetcar line will cost us money. But when examining those cities building or planning streetcar systems, Providence is among the best suited structurally in the country to make such a line successful.

Our streetcar line will tick the boxes of serving existing employment areas, spurring economic development on under- or un-utilized land, and expanding transit ridership in the state and region. The investment is worth it, and the city and state should do all they can to support and promote it. •

Jef Nickerson runs the website Greater City: Providence, which promotes urban growth and regional development, and served on a transition committee that advised Mayor Angel Taveras.

For more information on the Providence streetcar proposal, visit the Providence Core Connector Study website. Ted Nesi will return on Friday.

By Ken Block

Among the many shocking facts that I learned on the campaign trail last year was the fact that there are more than 100,000 illiterate adults in Rhode Island (data from The Poverty Institute).

Rhode Island desperately needs manufacturing jobs to provide employment to our seriously undereducated work force. Governor Chafee’s proposed tax scheme is certain to cause our already decimated manufacturing base to shrink further as some of our remaining manufacturing businesses bolt for less expensive locales.

It is important to remember that Rhode Island’s once vibrant manufacturing industry has withered away due to competition from other regions of our country, and competition from around the world.

Governor Chafee’s tax increases will further deteriorate our already decimated manufacturing industry. To illustrate how the Chafee tax scheme will hurt manufacturing businesses, I will use my traffic-signal manufacturing business as an example.

For starters, Governor Chafee is proposing a 1% tax on “purchases for manufacturing purposes.” Everything that goes into my traffic signals is sourced from other companies. My business assembles the final product and ships the signals out around the country. So, my margins will now shrink by 1% – a huge competitive disadvantage in a highly competitive market.

This 1% tax has a more sinister aspect to it. I source the printed circuit boards for my traffic signals from a Rhode Island-based company. This company has to buy a lot of small electronic components then mounts those components on a circuit board – they are manufacturing my boards for me.

So, the cost of my in-state-purchased, made-to-order circuit boards will go up by 1% because the manufacturer will pass the cost of the 1% materials on to me – and then I will have to pay a 1% tax on the finished circuit board because my business integrates the board into a larger assembly.

I now have a powerful incentive to look for a manufacturer for my circuit boards outside of Rhode Island. I can save 1% on the cost of my boards by doing so and I can save 2% on the boards by moving my manufacturing business out of the state!

The majority of states do not tax the raw materials used in manufacturing. More importantly – our immediate neighbors do not have this tax.

If Rhode Island has a stated goal to increase the number of manufacturing jobs in the state, the proposed Chafee tax scheme takes the entire industry in the opposite direction.

We know that consumer behavior can be modified through tax policy. Witness the existing tobacco taxes and the proposed tax on sugary drinks for prime examples. We aren’t going to get new manufacturing businesses to locate in Rhode Island by increasing the cost of doing business in the state. We have already witnessed a mass exodus of vital manufacturing businesses to lower cost regions. Why can’t our leaders see that by increasing costs further that we will only cause more of these businesses to leave our state?

Additionally, other elements of Governor Chafee’s tax plan will result in a significant increase in the cost and headache attached to doing business in Rhode Island.

For example, the governor proposes taxing a whole range of goods and services used by businesses. Some of these goods and services are provided by Rhode Island-based companies, and some not. Where the company providing the good or the service is not based in the state, it would be up to the purchasing Rhode Island-based company to track, file paperwork and pay a “use tax.”  This is a substantial new regulatory burden to place on Rhode Island businesses (although it may stimulate some additional spending on accounting services).

Business owners have a choice on where to locate their businesses. Ultimately, most owners will choose a location that provides their business with the best chance of achieving long-term success. Rhode Island, which has for years been suffering from not being competitive in terms of the cost of doing business, will become substantially less competitive with the Chafee tax scheme.

Tax policy and regulatory burdens absolutely drive business decisions regarding where to locate a business.

Governor Chafee has to decide if he wants to encourage the creation of manufacturing jobs or the destruction of manufacturing jobs in Rhode Island. In the same way that you cannot lose weight while gobbling every sweet and fatty food in sight, you cannot encourage the creation of manufacturing jobs in Rhode Island while making Rhode Island’s manufacturing industry even less cost competitive than it is today. •

Ken Block is founder of the Moderate Party of Rhode Island and a former candidate for governor.

Ted Nesi will return on Friday.

Lincoln Chafee’s maiden budget address Tuesday night was the first one a new governor has given in decades without retired Providence Journal political columnist M. Charles Bakst on hand to offer his take for the paper of record.

Bakst retired in 2008 after spending a long career at the Projo. Over the years, he covered every governor from Frank Licht (1969-73) to Don Carcieri (2003-11).

While Charlie backed Chafee in last year’s election, he’s also a seasoned observer of Rhode Island politics, so I e-mailed him to get his take on the speech. Here’s Bakst:

I thought it was an excellent speech in that it distanced itself from ideology and divisiveness and sought to get all Rhode Islanders pulling in the same direction. Not that everyone will be happy. Labor, for one, will grumble. But no one can say he is trying to balance the budget on the backs of just one segment of society.

As Scott MacKay pointed out on WRNI, [the speech showed] two things about Chafee: This we’re-all-in-it-together streak plus – in contrast to the flaming liberal rap he often gets – he can be very conservative fiscally. And in Chafee’s mind, a willingness to raise taxes, or redistribute the burden, is part of that. I thought it interesting that, in a general sense, Chafee kept to his campaign promise to suggest new sales taxes but also – again, as Scott pointed out – was pragmatic enough to avoid some of the hottest-button issues he earlier was eying, like food.

I thought it refreshing and reassuring that he wants to go ahead with the education formula and strengthening support for the state colleges, all too often treated as orphans.

I liked the speech. But even if it were perfect, it would still be only a speech. A governor still has to work with the legislature to put the program across. The fact that Chafee is an independent heightens the mystery as to how he will fare.

The General Assembly’s long-awaited online tool for tracking members’ votes debuted to much fanfare earlier this month. I’m not an expert on the latest in tech-aided transparency, so I asked for a review from someone who is: John Speck, a consultant who specializes in Web 2.0 and advised the Taveras campaign on technology issues. Here’s his take.

If you go to the General Assembly’s new vote tracking system, be sure to bring your Internet superpowers with you. To successfully find a vote, the site expects you to know much more than a more-or-less normal person would.

Specifically, you need to know:

• House or Senate
• Date of the vote
• Bill number

At no point will you find something as basic as a listing of votes by bill title. When you eventually get all the way down to the “details” of a vote – and that’s a minimum of four clicks, assuming you make zero errors – you won’t find a single word about the bill itself. There’s a big disclaimer, but no text about the bill. Not even the title.

In short, even by the almost unbeatable hunt-and-peck, trial-and-error method, it is physically impossible to locate a vote without the bill number. Those two pieces of information – the content of the bill and the vote on the bill – never appear together. EVER!

To successfully put the two together, you have to be a Smith Hill wonk or possess Internet superpowers like me.

In the world of computers, I’m what’s known as a super-user; a user who learns very quickly and pushes systems to their limits. Because I have superpowers, I was able to find a bill, read its contents, then go look at the vote on that bill.

Yet even finding the bill text was unnecessarily difficult. As in the vote tracker, there was no listing by bill title, and the text search function required many clicks and correct decisions before I could get useful results.

With the help of my superpowers, I was able to fight my way into the belly of the beast and rip out its, um, PDF files.

Here’s the thing – should it really take superpowers? Shouldn’t more-or-less normal people expect to go to their state legislature’s website and actually see some legislation on the page called “Legislation”? Not the whole bill, but just the title and maybe a short description. I don’t think it’s a lot to ask of the General Assembly considering that we’re, you know, paying for them AND the website.

We can only hope that some legislator has a kid in high school who visits the site, pulls his father aside and says: “Dad, we need to talk about using the Internet responsibly.”

By way of conclusion, let my superpowers save you the aggravation of following the marriage equality legislation. Rep. Art Handy’s bill is H 5012. Write that down. The bill is in the House. Write that down, too. Eventually, there will be a vote. Note the date and write that down with the bill number.

Once you do all that, you’ll be ready to use the vote tracker. •

On Tuesday, Lincoln Chafee will be inaugurated as Rhode Island’s 58th governor. What should he do when he takes office? To get some ideas, I asked five of the state’s smartest citizens what advice they would offer the new governor. Last week we heard from Tom Sgouros, Mary-Kim Arnold, Justin Katz and John Marion.

The final essay comes from Allan Tear, a technology consultant who is co-founder and managing partner at Betaspring, a startup incubator in Providence.

As the first independent Governor of Rhode Island, you have a unique opportunity to forge a new path of leadership that not only challenges old assumptions, but discards them all together. I suggest you start with our outdated language about the economy. Language is important because it shapes the conversation about what we as a state will prioritize, strive for, and compromise on.

Until now we’ve echoed the national economic conversation, with terms like “Small Business vs. Big Business,” “Brain Drain vs. Student Retention,” “Traditional vs. Innovation Economy,” and “Employees vs. Contractors.” This language is reflected in our economic metrics, our rankings and how we compare ourselves to other states. But it reflects where we’ve been, not where we need to go.

Here is some independent language about the economy that breaks the current false choices and illuminates a way forward:

• Startups. A recent Kauffman Foundation study shows that firms less than five years old – startups – have generated nearly all of the net job growth in the U.S. over the past 25 years, while established firms averaged near-zero growth in aggregate. It matters less if the startups are what we think of as “old economy,” “Main Street” or “innovation economy” businesses. What matters is that we start talking about new startups and entrepreneurship as the primary engine of job creation in Rhode Island. Remember: our economic stalwarts of today – Hasbro, APC, GTECH and FM Global – were all Rhode Island startups once.

• Export Businesses. Rhode Island must bring dollars from outside our borders to drive our economy. More important than posturing about “being a state of small business” or the “importance of large employers” is a recognition that businesses that make their dollars by selling Rhode Island goods, services, talent and experiences to non-Rhode Islanders are the fuel that primes our state economic pump. These “Export Businesses” – boat builders in Bristol, artists in Pawtucket, defense contractors in Middletown, software developers in Providence and many others – cut across our old buckets of economic language. Whether it’s to Massachusetts or Manila, our goal should be to be an export powerhouse.

• Talent Flow. As a state that feels like we’ve lost much in the past few decades, we are obsessed with holding onto what’s left, and that is doubly true when it comes to conversations about our college graduates leaving, or Brain Drain. But the most vibrant economic hotspots have a flow of talent coming and going; learning, studying, starting companies, creating art, doing research, treating patients – and, yes, often moving on. This flow benefits us immensely as a state, bringing new ideas and global expertise, and imparting an affection for and connection with the Ocean State. When we shift from talking about Brain Drain to Talent Flow, we can begin to engage the energetic and smart folks that already flow through our state, get the most from our time with them, leverage them as Ocean State alumni if they move, and create new reasons for them to stay. The 21st century economic challenge is not to attract companies, but to attract talent.

We’ve proven that Rhode Island cannot win by playing someone else’s game, so it is left to us to forge a new economic path on which our state can thrive. The guideposts to that new path start with language; clear-eyed and supported by data, but unafraid to break from truisms that don’t serve the future well. I look forward to your leadership in starting, framing and driving this crucial conversation, and I think it will be a happy surprise to see the previously underleveraged talent that will respond to a change in language, stepping forward to help us compete on a different field. •

(photo: Betaspring)

Next Tuesday, Lincoln Chafee will be inaugurated as Rhode Island’s 58th governor. What should he do when he takes office? To get some ideas, I asked five of the state’s smartest citizens what advice they would offer the new governor. So far we’ve heard from Tom Sgouros, Mary-Kim Arnold and Justin Katz.

Today’s essay comes from John Marion, executive director of Common Cause Rhode Island, a nonprofit organization which promotes “open, ethical, accountable, effective government.”

If I could give one piece of advice to Gov.-elect Chafee – just one piece of advice – it would be to convince Larry Ellison that Rhode Island is not only a wonderful place for a sailboat race, but also the perfect spot for Oracle to moves its headquarters. Jewelry District, anyone?

That may not be the most useful advice, though, so let me offer something else. I would suggest that when Gov.-elect Chafee makes most of his decisions, he should use a 25-year time horizon.

Why 25 years? Because that is the approximate length of a generation in the United States, as measured by the OECD. Using that time horizon, any decisions the governor makes will impact the next generation directly.

This will not be easy advice to heed because our political system is designed with short time horizons, specifically the electoral cycle, in mind. For Gov.-elect Chafee that means 2014, the next time he will have to face the voters. Not so long ago, during Gov. John Chafee’s generation, that meant an even shorter two-year time horizon.

The electoral cycle is short because we insist on accountability through the ballot box. If our leaders had generation-long terms of office we could not send them signals about whether we approve or disapprove of their actions frequently enough. But a four- (and for members of the General Assembly, two-) year electoral cycle creates an incentive for politicians to be shortsighted in their policymaking.

The most notable example of this shortsightedness is the political business cycle, where politicians use fiscal and monetary policy to boost the economy before an election. These responses to electoral incentives offer near-term political benefits at the cost of long-term financial problems.

Gov.-elect Chafee will face two areas of concern to Common Cause Rhode Island where using a 25-year time horizon will serve us well.

The first involves fully implementing separation of powers. That principle was absent from our constitution for over 10 generations, and remains in its infancy since voters added it in 2004. By thinking about he and future governors should use separation of powers, Chafee can help shape the institution of the executive unlike any of his predecessors.

The second area of concern to Common Cause is judicial selection. The outgoing governor publicly expressed indifference to putting people on the bench. But judges often sit for several decades, helping to interpret the policies elected officials work so hard to establish. By making good appointments, and not succumbing to the temptation to trade judgeships for short-term political gains, Gov.-elect Chafee can affect the shape of the law – and his policies – for a generation.

This prescription for good government will not be easy to fill. Many of these choices will be made out of the public eye, and will not gain the future governor votes in four years. However, making the long-term decision at the expense of short-term political gain will eventually pay great dividends, both to the state and to the legacy of the second Governor Chafee. •

(Photo: Common Cause Rhode Island)

Next Tuesday, Lincoln Chafee will be inaugurated as Rhode Island’s 58th governor. What should he do when he takes office? To get some ideas, I asked five of the state’s smartest citizens what advice they would offer the new governor. Previously we heard from Tom Sgouros and Mary-Kim Arnold.

Today’s essay comes from Justin Katz, who writes at the blog Anchor Rising and is a featured essayist in the new book “Proud to Be Right.”

Everybody’s heard the clichéd relationship advice to set free the ones we love, because if they do not return, they were never ours in the first place. There should be a political corollary: Listen to those with whom you disagree.

As he ambles into office, Gov.-elect Lincoln Chafee should be deliberately aware that what he sees as resolute independence many of his new constituents see as refractory dogmatism.

As a U.S. Senator, his opposition to the Iraq war didn’t strike us as principled, but as knee-jerk leftism, an impression bolstered when he bragged that he’d written in President George W. Bush’s father’s name on his ballot in 2004. Even The Providence Journal’s former political columnist, M. Charles Bakst, described the senator as “the picture of indecision,” whose “dithering has been a distraction.”

Similarly, that Chafee reciprocated the aid that Sen. John McCain and the national GOP had offered during his Senate primary battle against Stephen Laffey in 2006 by publicly supporting Barack Obama in 2008 didn’t persuade us that the politician is independent-minded, but that McCain and the GOP had deserved their late-decade losses.

In short, those of us who’ve watched Linc transition out of his father’s party (and, truth be told, helped to usher him on his way) don’t interpret the consistent behavior of Mr. Trust Chafee as considered so much as petulant and defiant – and radical in just about every way.

In the weeks since the election, Chafee has seemed determined to cement our impression. When Chris Plante, executive director of National Organization for Marriage Rhode Island, requested a meeting, Chafee spokesman Michael Trainor explained that the governor-elect’s “long-established position” supporting same-sex marriage suggested that discussion would “not be productive.” Similarly, Terry Gorman, leader of Rhode Islanders for Immigration Law Enforcement, heard from a Chafee staffer that “the governor-elect had already conducted all the meetings he would with constituents on matters such as these.” Again Trainor’s plea was “not productive.”

Mr. Chafee should consider how eminently reasonable it is of his opposition to wonder whether his supposed meetings and deliberations are entirely fictitious – at least to the extent that they are implied to include those not of like mind. And this doesn’t even begin to delve into justified suspicion that the new governor will have a dedicated (and peremptory) ringtone on his cell phone for organized labor.

For a column that details some of the differences between the incoming governor and current Gov. Don Carcieri, Trainor told Bakst’s replacement, Ed Fitzpatrick, that “the point that [Carcieri] is missing is Linc’s ability to bring people and factions together.” Without giving any indication that he sees the contradiction, Fitzpatrick went on to reference Chafee’s threat that board members of the state Economic Development Corporation might be personally liable for money lent to 38 Studios and his suggestion that the company’s founder, Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling, had faked his famous bloody-sock injury. Threats and insults don’t tend to be unitive strategies.

Cynical political observers might suggest that Chafee should take a lesson from Politics 101 and host short, pointless meetings with his issue-by-issue opposition in order to deflate their claims of exclusion. The governor-elect’s problem goes deeper than that, though.

His doubters don’t want evidence that he has the patience to listen to the hum of their voices; they want evidence that he has, indeed, considered their points. He will be a proven independent only when they emerge from their meetings feeling as if he could accurately paraphrase their positions, and they will “come together” only when they trust that he is intellectually capable of independence, even though surrounded by left-wingers, labor leaders, and political insiders.

So, at every opportunity, Mr. Chafee should sit down across from people with whom he disagrees and ask his own political advisers to leave the room. He should then set free his cherished ideas and trust that the discussion will lead him back to them; otherwise, he may find that they were never plausible in the first place.

This assumes, of course, that Lincoln Chafee is able to frame political subject matter in this reasonable, rational fashion. If he is not, well then, that’s something the rest of us should know as soon as possible. •

(Photo credit: Jonathan Beller)

Next Tuesday, Lincoln Chafee will be inaugurated as Rhode Island’s 58th governor. What should he do when he takes office? To get some ideas, I asked five of the state’s smartest citizens what advice they would offer the new governor. Yesterday we heard from Tom Sgouros.

Today’s essay comes from Mary-Kim Arnold, executive director of the Rhode Island Council for the Humanities, the nonprofit state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

The size of Rhode Island’s economy places us 46th in the nation. We have the fifth-highest rate of unemployment; we are 10th in health care rankings, second-highest in expenditures for public education. What do these numbers mean in terms of how much we love where we live?

Not as much as you might think, it turns out.

The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, a national philanthropic organization focused on “informed and engaged communities,” undertook a three-year study to identify how and to what extent emotional factors kept residents attached to their communities, and what impact that connection had to the area’s economic growth and well-being.

The study, which involved interviews with nearly 43,000 individuals across 26 cities, found that strong community attachment was correlated with local GDP growth, which measures not only economic success, but also a community’s ability to grow and meet the needs of its population.

What mattered most?

Surprisingly, the most important factors to most residents were not economic. From city to city, the top three factors that people identified were:

1. the availability of social offerings – places to meet, arts and cultural opportunities and the sense that people care about each other;
2. a sense of openness – how welcoming the community is to different types of people, including families with young children, minorities, and talented college grads; and
3. aesthetics – the physical beauty of the community, including parks and green spaces.

Gov. Chafee, I know that you are taking office at a time when our state faces a range of serious and complicated issues that will require your vision, your leadership, and your unwavering commitment to the people of Rhode Island. As you face these challenges, I urge you to consider factors beyond the state’s rankings and beyond the immediate economic data.

Consider also the basic questions of what it means to live with each other in a free society: How do we make meaning in our lives? How do we provide opportunities to understand each other? How do we care for each other, how do we demonstrate that care? How welcoming are we to newcomers? How do we value what is beautiful around us? How do we make beauty, even in times of cynicism and uncertainty?

You have the opportunity to show us your vision for our state. Remind us that there is a common good. Show us what that common good looks like from where you stand.

Congratulations on your election, and thank you for your willingness to serve the state at this challenging moment. •

(Photo credit: Rhode Island Council for the Humanities)

Next Tuesday, Lincoln Chafee will be inaugurated as Rhode Island’s 58th governor. What should he do when he takes office? To get some ideas, I asked five of the state’s smartest citizens what advice they would offer the new governor.

Today’s essay comes from Tom Sgouros, author of “Ten Things You Don’t Know About Rhode Island” and a former Democratic candidate for treasurer.

In conversations with people about the ills facing our state, the litany of woes is long, and fairly familiar. People complain about property taxes, the car tax, pension woes, the state budget, and more. Central Falls gets a special shout-out these days (and how anyone thinks they’re going to be able to hire good teachers now is beyond me), but it wasn’t so long ago that West Warwick was considered the state’s basket case. Our new governor can ask 100 people what’s the matter, and for 90 of them, he’ll get the same answer.

But lurking under most of these issues is one big issue: the relationship between the state and the cities and towns. Our governments exist to provide a set of services we all need. The strange thing is how we think that having governments constantly at odds with each other is the most efficient way to deliver those services.

Take education, for example. The state sets requirements and standards, and even some curricula. It provides some of the money, too, though much less than it used to. But towns hire the teachers and run the schools. There is only one service here, provided by two different governments. So how can we expect the service to be provided efficiently if the governments are always skirmishing with each other about whose responsibility is what?

Most other services are shared in the same way: roads, public safety, public health, planning and much more are all provided partly by the state and partly by the city or town you live in, and for most of them there are very similar conflicts – which ones are the state roads, how many state requirements are on the police force or the water supply.

The state has all the power in the relationship, but it hasn’t always wielded it to our advantage. State tax cuts which benefited a small number of (wealthy) people have resulted in hikes in property taxes, which hurt a large number of the rest of us. But when you go talk to legislators, they always sound like the aggrieved party. I heard the chair of the Senate Finance Committee say last year that there was no evidence that increasing state aid reduces property taxes. But the reason there’s no such evidence is that no one has tried it. The state might claim state aid went up during the last decade, but the claim requires you to redefine the accounting to make it look that way. And over the past two years, even the pretense is gone, and state aid has plummeted.

It would be foolish to imagine that all the offense is on the state’s side. As we see in Central Falls, local governments are quite capable of making a big mess, too. But again, would the mayor have made the bad decisions he made without seeing the state as a separate party able to bail him out, as they’d bailed out the Central Falls school system almost two decades ago?

What we need in Rhode Island is an understanding that there is one set of services and must be just one system to deliver them. This doesn’t mean doing away with towns, but it does mean recognizing that cooperation, not conflict, is the best way forward. It also means that the forms of cooperation have to become part of the government, since a “system” that depends on the good will of this mayor or that governor isn’t a system at all.

This is a big challenge, but it’s the central one facing our governments. •

(Photo credit: Ephram Bromberg/Light Publications)