The Washington Post’s big story on food stamps in Woonsocket shined a spotlight on the program’s importance to the struggling city, making the first day of the month – when benefits get paid – a huge one for grocery shopping. My colleague Andrew Adamson filed this report after yesterday’s rush:

• Related: You have to read today’s WashPo story on food stamps in RI (March 17)

Food stamps – or “SNAP,” the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, as it’s been renamed – has been getting a lot of attention in Rhode Island lately. That isn’t too surprising when you consider 17% of the state’s entire population – 179,127 Rhode Islanders – were enrolled in the program as of December, receiving a combined $25.1 million in benefits that month.

There are names, faces and stories behind those numbers, The Washington Post’s Eli Saslow vividly shows in a must-read story this morning that discusses how food stamps provide a vital economic lifeline for “the broke residents of a nearly bankrupt town” – Woonsocket:

The economy of Woonsocket was about to stir to life. Delivery trucks were moving down river roads, and stores were extending their hours. The bus company was warning riders to anticipate “heavy traffic.” A community bank, soon to experience a surge in deposits, was rolling a message across its electronic marquee on the night of Feb. 28: “Happy shopping! Enjoy the 1st.”

In the heart of downtown, Miguel Pichardo, 53, watched three trucks jockey for position at the loading dock of his family-run International Meat Market. For most of the month, his business operated as a humble milk-and-eggs corner store, but now 3,000 pounds of product were scheduled for delivery in the next few hours. He wiped the front counter and smoothed the edges of a sign posted near his register. “Yes! We take Food Stamps, SNAP, EBT!”

“Today, we fill the store up with everything,” he said. “Tomorrow, we sell it all.”

At precisely one second after midnight, on March 1, Woonsocket would experience its monthly financial windfall — nearly $2 million from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as food stamps.

It’s a gripping piece. Read the whole article here.

Rhode Island used to lag other states in getting eligible residents to actually sign up for the food stamp program, but a push by the Bush and Carcieri administrations in the mid-2000s changed that significantly, as I reported in this 2010 WPRI.com story (when less than 14% of residents were enrolled).

In Rhode Island, SNAP is run by the Department of Human Services, which came under fire last week for its payment-error rate of 7.56%, more than double its target of 3%. The benefits themselves are federally funded – and thus they’re effectively a cross-border subsidy from more prosperous states to struggling Rhode Island.

​By Ted Nesi

WOONSOCKET, R.I. (WPRI) – Officials in Woonsocket on Monday asked the cash-strapped city’s retirees to agree to give up annual increases in their city-managed pensions and move to Medicare or else risk pushing the city into bankruptcy.

Read the rest of this story »

• Related: Woonsocket’s problems include debt, botched 2002 pension fix​ (June 14)

By Dan McGowan

WOONSOCKET, R.I. (WPRI) – The California-based hospital attempting to purchase Landmark Medical Center is the target of a U.S. Department of Justice investigation into its billing practices, according to a WPRI.com review of the for-profit company’s application filed with the state Department of Health.

Read the rest of this story »

Brissette

By Tim White

Since Target 12 broke the story on the pending release of convicted “thrill” killer Alfred Brissette, questions have emerged as to why a murderer was getting an early release, particularly in the wake of the Michael Woodmansee controversy.

It’s important to note the two cases are different in terms of how each inmate was awarded an early release from prison.

Woodmansee was convicted of killing 5-year-old Jason Foreman in South Kingstown in 1975. He completed his prison sentence at the Adult Correctional Institutions after earning more than 12 years of time off for good behavior. After outrage erupted over his release, Woodmansee agreed to voluntarily commit himself to the Eleanor Slater Hospital, a state psychiatric institution.

Brissette was convicted of killing Jeannette Descoteaux of Woonsocket in 1999. He and co-conspirator Marc Girard had been planning to kill a woman at random for months before they lured the 38-year-old to the woods of Burrillville and beating her to death with a lug wrench, shovel and their fists, according to prosecutors and investigators.

(more…)

By Tim White

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) – The Rhode Island Parole Board has backed off its decision to grant early release to a man convicted of a brutal 1999 “thrill kill” and will take another look at the case following a series of Target 12 investigative reports this week.

Read the rest of this story »

By Tim White

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) – The ex-wife of a convicted murderer set to be released from prison decades early says she was never notified that the so-called “thrill” killer was up for parole.

Read the rest of this story »

By Tim White

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) – A Woonsocket man convicted in the “thrill” killing of a woman at random has been granted parole and is set to be released from prison in December, decades early.

Read the rest of this story »

By Ted Nesi

WOONSOCKET, R.I. (WPRI) – Struggling Landmark Medical Center’s would-be buyer is apparently backing out of the deal for good.

The lawyer overseeing Landmark revealed on Tuesday that he no longer expects Boston-based Steward Health Care System, which has been in talks to buy the cash-strapped hospital since 2009, to go through with the transaction.

Read the rest of this story »

• Related: Steward’s CEO slams AG Kilmartin over Landmark (Aug. 20)

The leaked letters WPRI.com has published documenting the tension between Steward Health Care System, Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island and Attorney General Peter Kilmartin are just the latest evidence of how much difficulty Steward has had in actually setting up shop here.

Steward CEO Ralph de la Torre has wanted to buy Landmark for many years, and his company – a for-profit, private-equity-backed successor to Caritas Christi Health Care – appears to be the last hope for the struggling Woonsocket hospital. What’s less appreciated is how a deal would put Landmark at the leading edge of a health care revolution.

To understand why, look no further than the influential New Yorker medical writer Atul Gawande’s fascinating Aug. 13 article “Big Med,” which suggests that in order to contain soaring health care costs hospitals may need to become more like, well, highly efficient Cheesecake Factory restaurants. An excerpt:

Steward was launched in late 2010, when Cerberus — the multibillion-dollar private-investment firm — bought a group of six failing Catholic hospitals in the Boston area for $900 million. … Cerberus is one of those firms which specialize in turning around distressed businesses. …

When it looked at the Catholic hospitals, it saw another opportunity to create profit through size and efficiency. … It’s trying to create what some have called the Southwest Airlines of health care — a network of high-quality hospitals that would appeal to a more cost-conscious public.

Steward’s aggressive growth has made local doctors like me nervous. But many health systems, for-profit and not-for-profit, share its goal: large-scale, production-line medicine. The way medical care is organized is changing — because the way we pay for it is changing.

Gawande goes on to describe his experience in Steward’s “tele-ICU,” a remote command center where a doctor monitors and directs the intensive care units as Steward’s various hospitals, including St. Anne’s in Fall River – a sign of what’s to come if Steward does indeed take over Landmark. Read the whole article here.

• Related: New doubts on Landmark deal after Steward CEO’s harsh letter (Aug. 20)

By Ted Nesi

WOONSOCKET, R.I. (WPRI) – Attorney General Peter Kilmartin is brushing off a scathing letter he received from the would-be buyer of struggling Landmark Medical Center that accuses the state’s top prosecutor of “behavior below your status as a prominent elected leader.”

The war of words raises new concerns about the status of behind-the-scenes negotiations to save Landmark, with the attorney general’s Aug. 31 deadline for Steward to close on its purchase of the hospital now less than two weeks away.

Read the rest of this story »

Could House District 49 be one of the sleeper races of this cycle?

State Rep. Lisa Baldelli-Hunt, D-Woonsocket, who’s made headlines and sometimes bucked leadership during her three House terms, is getting outspent in her primary race by Michael Morin, a city firefighter and union leader.

Baldelli-Hunt spent just $590 on her campaign between July 1 and Aug. 13, all of it with an otherwise unidentified vendor listed as “Lamar” (likely the advertising company). She finished with only $769 in her campaign account after receiving one donation: $200 from Sandrina Baldelli.

Morin spent $2,073 during the same period, much of it on food and fundraising. His campaign still had $2,361 on hand – three times more than Baldelli-Hunt – after collecting $4,435. Morin’s campaign contributions included $1,000 from the Providence firefighters’ political action committee.

Baldelli-Hunt won the seat in 2006 and comes from a well-known Woonsocket political family. A third candidate in the primary, Dr. Stuart Gitlow, had not reported his campaign finances as of early Tuesday evening; he had $244 on June 30. The Valley Breeze’s Sandy Phaneuf profiled all three candidates last week.

The capital city isn’t getting snubbed by Amtrak’s proposed high-speed rail project after all.

This week Amtrak released its updated Next-Generation High-Speed Rail plan for the Northeast Corridor [pdf], and one of the notable changes from its May 2010 master plan is the relocation of the proposed Rhode Island stop from Woonsocket to a station around Providence. Here’s how:

A new dedicated HSR [high-speed rail] platform would be added north of the existing [Providence] station, with station enhancements added to support high-speed services. Some tunneling would be required west of the existing station, given current development around Providence.

The NextGen HSR alignment would then follow the higher-speed, current 150 mph (241 kph), NEC north of Providence, improved as part of the Northeast High-Speed Rail Improvement Program in the 1990s. The NEC capacity improvements planned through NextGen HSR would also benefit both intercity and commuter rail users, such as the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA), which presently runs service along this section of the Corridor (Figure 8). Five existing commuter stations would need to be modified to separate local platforms from the NextGen HSR express tracks. While this alteration increased the projected capital costs, it would increase ridership and revenues and strengthen connectivity between services of the new alignment and those on the existing NEC.

The change was made “in order to serve the state’s major population and business center,” Amtrak explained. “While this alteration increased the projected capital costs, it had a positive impact on ridership and revenue and strengthened connectivity between services on the new alignment and existing [Northeast Corridor].”

Amtrak estimates its entire Northeast high-speed rail plan would cost $151 billion to build through 2040. Trains would travel at up to 220 mph, going from Boston to Washington in a little more than three hours.

Not everyone is enthusiastic. Alon Levy, a Providence mathematician who writes the transportation blog Pedestrian Observations, counters that “it is possible to achieve comparable travel times for about one tenth the cost” by undertaking a number of more modest steps such as speeding up MBTA commuter rail service:

In Switzerland, trains run as fast as necessary, not as fast as possible. In this context, this means running just fast enough to meet a good clockface schedule. Boston-Providence travel time on the MBTA today is about 1:10; for a good takt, this should be cut to about 55 minutes, allowing hourly service with two trainsets and half-hourly service with four.

Slate’s Matthew Yglesias agrees: “Projects of the scale Levy is talking about would be expensive, but genuinely within the fiscal capacity of the local jurisdictions to undertake whether or not trains happen to be in vogue in congress next year.”

(rendering: Amtrak)

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?

(more…)

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.

(more…)

The 2012-13 state budget Governor Chafee signed into law last week will help Rhode Island municipalities and school districts by providing $34 million in new education funding, Moody’s Investors Service says.

The nearly 4% hike in state aid for K-12 schools is the third annual increase in a row and “a credit positive for both school districts and for cities and towns,” Moody’s analysts wrote in a research note Tuesday. “State funding for education now stands at over $900 million, well above the pre-recession peak,” they said.

However, Moody’s said the impact isn’t uniform across the state because of the new school funding formula. Barrington will get the biggest increase in education aid in 2012-13 at 42%, while the Chariho school district will suffer the biggest drop, losing 14%. Non-education aid will be flat after plunging since 2007.

Moody’s also noted lawmakers’ $2.6 million appropriation to offset some of the deep cuts in Central Falls’ pension benefits will help that city emerge from bankruptcy, but expressed concern about the failure of a proposed supplemental tax sought by cash-strapped Woonsocket.

The failure to enact any laws to stabilize the 36 locally run pension plans also drew concern. “Members of the legislature have publicly stated that they intend to take up local pension reform, but the delay into the next legislative year highlights the significant political hurdles they’ll have to surmount,” Moody’s wrote.

(chart: Moody’s Investors Service)

By Tim White

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) – The Rhode Island Attorney General’s office has ruled the Woonsocket Police Department violated the state’s public records laws by refusing to give WPRI 12 the narrative portion of an arrest report, charging a fellow officer with drunk driving.

Read the rest of this story »

Cate Long, the sharp analyst who writes Reuters’ Muniland blog, added her voice Wednesday to the chorus criticizing New York Times columnist Joe Nocera for misleading readers about Woonsocket’s problems:

Maybe it’s true that Brien was primarily motivated by ideology, but if Nocera had taken even a cursory glance at the financial statement for Woonsocket, he would see Brien’s position has some merit. Spending on retiree benefits and municipal debt are drowning Woonsocket. The city is in a death spiral. …

The real deficit sinkhole for the town lies in its Other Post Employment Benefits (OPEBs) and expenses for its debt service. OPEBs, or health and dental benefits provided to city retirees, cost the city $4.5 million, or 3.2 percent of the budget. That amounts to $10,135 for each of Woonsocket’s 450 retirees. Debt service cost the city $16.9 million in 2011, or 12.2 percent of its $139 million annual budget. Those costs will jump to $21 million for 2012 and remain at that level through 2016.

Long – who also opposes Rhode Island’s 2010 bondholders-first law – builds on the critique made by Bloomberg View’s Josh Barro, who on Wednesday explained why Woonsocket’s decision to sell $90 million in bonds to fund its pension plan now looks like a major mistake. Read Long’s entire post here.

Stepping back from this week’s ALEC controversy, the posts by Barro and Long (plus this one here on WPRI.com) illustrate the huge challenge facing Woonsocket’s new budget commission as it tries to put the city’s finances in order. As Long notes, about 15% of Woonsocket’s city budget can’t be adjusted at all because it’s debt service, and less than 80% of it “goes to tangible public services for Woonsocket residents.”

Perhaps a different way to look at the issue is by asking this question: What percentage of a municipal budget should be spent on employee retirement benefits and payments to bondholders?

• Related: Lots of pushback to Joe Nocera’s ALEC-in-Woonsocket column (June 19)

Rhode Islanders who picked up their New York Times this morning probably did a double take when they reached the op-ed page and saw Providence native Joe Nocera’s column blaming the American Legislative Exchange Council – ALEC – for Woonsocket’s plight. Nocera picked up the theme from former WPRO reporter Bob Plain, who’s been covering Woonsocket for liberal blog Rhode Island’s Future.

But as Plain admitted Tuesday, his case for linking ALEC and Woonsocket is based solely on “enough circumstantial evidence to at least raise the question.” And Providence Phoenix editor David Scharfenberg, who previously looked into whether ALEC was behind Rhode Island’s voter ID law, is unconvinced:

[P]laying the ALEC card seems a bit cheap here. Brien is an unabashed conservative, with or without ALEC. And while the group may provide the legislator with a bit of intellectual succor, there’s no evidence to suggest it had anything to do with Brien’s decisionmaking on Woonsocket’s finances.

Josh Barro, now writing for Bloomberg View, says Nocera hasn’t done his homework:

The truth is that Woonsocket is the most indebted municipality in Rhode Island, relative to its property tax base, and a majority of its debts are related to pension and health benefits for municipal retirees. …

Whatever happens in Woonsocket, there will be a lot of hard choices made and pain experienced. Defenders of the public employee compensation status quo desperately wish that weren’t the case, and that Woonsocket’s troubles were simply invented or created by ideologically-driven conservatives. As actual lawmakers in Rhode Island — most of them Democrats – are learning, the situation isn’t nearly that simple.

Substance aside, Rhode Island Public Radio’s Ian Donnis adds a shrewd meta observation from the media-critic perspective: “This is further evidence that Plain has energized the liberal blog in a way not seen since the era of its founder, Matt Jerzyk.”

• Related: Q&A with NYT’s Nocera on paywalls, Providence and CEO pay (April 11, 2011)

Woonsocket’s financial turmoil has led to much discussion about the example of Central Falls, which first entered receivership in May 2010 and filed for bankruptcy in August 2011. One lesson from the tiny city – there’s probably no way Woonsocket residents avoid a big increase in their tax bills over the coming years.

This chart shows total property taxes levied in Central Falls from 2008-09 through 2015-16, the last year projected in its court-ordered restructuring plan. Taxes will jump nearly 35% citywide before inflation:

Taxes are already high in Woonsocket when compared with other cities, though.

Another chart included in Central Falls’ bankruptcy filing shows effective tax rates for six distressed communities in 2010-11, adjusted for income; Woonsocket is the most-taxed by that measurement:

There are many reasons Woonsocket is facing financial collapse, including a sluggish economy and a declining population. Another key problem, though, is the city’s heavy, self-imposed debt burden.

As the Moody’s chart at right shows, Woonsocket’s bond obligations and pension liabilities are equal to nearly 20% of its total property value, more than any other municipality in Rhode Island including Central Falls.

Woonsocket’s debt burden is “high” at $3,265 per capita or 7.6% of property value, Fitch Ratings said in March. The city spent $17 million on debt service in 2010-11, which was 12% of all government spending; Providence, by comparison, spent 9%.

Woonsocket’s bonded debt totaled $210.5 million on June 30, 2011, and its most recent audit lists more than a dozen times the city has borrowed since 1996, including $90 million in 30-year pension obligation bonds sold in 2002 and $11.5 million in deficit bonds sold last year at a 7.125% interest rate.

(more…)

Considering Woonsocket’s proposed supplemental tax died in the House last night, this seems like an opportune time to revisit Revenue Directory Rosemary Booth Gallogly’s comments about the city’s situation last Friday on WPRI 12′s Newsmakers:

Governor Chafee’s office and the Woonsocket House delegation are still at loggerheads over the lawmakers’ undisclosed demands in exchange for approval of a supplemental tax the state says is necessary to keep the city solvent. Speculation has swirled about what role, if any, Rep. Lisa Baldelli-Hunt’s political ambitions are playing in the machinations. I asked her about that outside the House chamber on Tuesday; here’s what she said:

NESI: Rep, how much of this is about your relationship with Mayor Fontaine?

BALDELLI-HUNT: Excuse me?

NESI: I said, how much of this is about your relationship with Leo Fontaine? He’s the mayor.

BALDELLI-HUNT: I know he’s the mayor. I’ve lived in the city for 50 years. But I don’t understand what you mean, is this about -

NESI: Well, you’re known to have a strained relationship, it’s often said how you want to run for mayor in the future, and certainly it would look pretty bad if he -

BALDELLI-HUNT: Quite frankly – are you Ted Nesi?

NESI: Yeah.

BALDELLI-HUNT: Quite frankly, if I want to run for mayor, I’m not intimidated by anyone, and I would run for mayor. So you implying that it’s politics? You’re totally off base. So get your facts straight before you imply anything.

NESI: So you’re not running for mayor or you might?

BALDELLI-HUNT: I said, if I ever want to run for mayor in the city of Woonsocket I would run for mayor, no matter who runs for mayor.

NESI: And are you interested in doing so?

BALDELLI-HUNT: If I’m interested in doing so, you’ll know when I declare.

NESI: While they’re in bankruptcy court? So you can be the savior?

BALDELLI-HUNT: You know what? You’re very cute.

And with that, she walked into the chamber. The governor’s office has yet to comment on the latest proposal from the lawmakers, which they discussed for hours on Monday night. With the House moving to adjourn by the end of Tuesday’s business, the clock is ticking for Woonsocket.

Update: Revenue Director Rosemary Booth Gallogly just confirmed the Woonsocket delegation has demanded that she support amending the Fiscal Stability Act to remove Mayor Leo Fontaine and City Council President John Ward from the city’s new budget commission in exchange for approval of the supplemental tax. The proposed change in state law would only apply to Woonsocket, Gallogly said.

(more…)

The city of Woonsocket sent forth some good news for a change this morning, with local drugstore giant CVS Caremark trumpeting a 9% spike in its first-quarter profit that has its stock price near a 52-week high at this writing. Here are some highlights from the coverage.

• John Kell, Dow Jones: “The drugstore-chain raised its full-year adjusted-earnings guidance for the second time this year on a greater-than-expected benefit from business being driven away from rival Walgreen Co., which left pharmacy-benefits manager Express Scripts Holding Co.’s network at the beginning of the year due to a contract rate dispute. … Same-store sales increased 8.4% over the prior-year period, with pharmacy same-store sales rising 9.8% as CVS outperformed all main competitors even more so than in prior quarters, according to Merlo. The overall 8.4% jump was the largest increase CVS has reported since late 2006, before it acquired Caremark. The increase contrasts with Walgreen, which has reported slumping same-store sales since the beginning of the year.”

• Tom Murphy, AP: “CVS Caremark Corp. gained millions of new prescriptions in the first quarter due to a contract impasse between two rivals, and now the drugstore chain wants to keep the growth going by ensuring that those customers stick around and use the rest of its store. … [T]he new customers CVS snared will likely stick around, analyst Dave Shove said in a research note. … ‘We suspect that sales will continue to benefit throughout the year, with or without a resolution by the companies,’ Shove wrote.”

• Bruce Japsen, Forbes: “While Walgreen Co. and Express Scripts remain at odds, rival CVS Caremark Corp. is taking their lunch money. … So far this year, the imbroglio in the market has been an unprecedented windfall to CVS. … But [CEO Larry] Merlo cautioned Wall Street analysts and investors this morning to take the financial benefit to CVS one quarter at a time.”

• Chris Burritt, Bloomberg: ”‘We didn’t know it was going to be this good,’ Judson Clark, an analyst with Edward Jones & Co. in Des Peres, Missouri, said today in a telephone interview. ‘The customers bringing over prescriptions from Walgreen are probably going to stay with CVS regardless of what happens between Express Scripts and Walgreen,’ said Clark, who recommends buying CVS shares.”

• Phil Wahba, Reuters: “CVS Chief Executive Larry Merlo told Reuters that the boost from his rivals’ fallout could be long lasting. ‘The longer the impasse lasts, the stickier that customer is going to be,’ Merlo said. ‘They’re going to have an opportunity to visit a CVS multiple times and begin to establish a relationship with the CVS pharmacists.’ … The only things that slowed down the company’s pharmacy sales were a weak flu season and new generic drugs, which carry lower prices than brand name drugs.”

(photo: CVS Caremark Corp.)

The health care system will still be in need of major changes even if the nation’s highest court throws out President Obama’s 2010 law, CVS Caremark CEO Larry Merlo told Barron’s magazine in a recent interview.

“No matter how Obamacare plays out, no matter how the Supreme Court rules, we have a health-care system that is weighed down by escalating costs, and that has to be addressed,” Merlo said. “Health-care represents about 18% of GDP. We are going to see some type of health-care reform that deals with three things: access, quality, and cost.”

Merlo’s comments were included in a glowing profile of the CVS CEO, who took the helm at Rhode Island’s largest company in March 2011. Barron’s reporter Lawrence C. Strauss, who’s written nice things about CVS and Hasbro before, describes CVS as “a $107 billion colossus” that’s now on an upswing and poised to keep growing.

(more…)

By Ted Nesi

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) – Former Mass. House Speaker Thomas Finneran, who pleaded guilty to a federal obstruction of justice charge in 2007, is now a registered lobbyist at the Rhode Island State House.

Finneran is lobbying state officials on behalf of Steward Health Care System, the for-profit Boston-based hospital group that’s trying to buy Landmark Medical Center in Woonsocket out of receivership.

Finneran and his consulting firm, Finneran Global Strategies of Boston, will earn $2,500 for pressing Steward’s case with legislators and executive-branch officials between Feb. 1 and June 30, according to the secretary of state’s office.

Finneran, a Democrat, was the powerful speaker on Beacon Hill from 1996 to 2004, when he resigned amid an investigation into whether he lied under oath about the state’s 2001 redistricting process. Finneran was indicted in 2005 and reached a plea deal in 2007. He now hosts a morning radio show on WRKO-AM in Boston.

(more…)

By Ted Nesi

WOONSOCKET, R.I. (WPRI) – CVS Caremark CEO Larry Merlo’s pay package totaled $12 million in 2011, up a third from the $9 million he got in 2010 before formally taking the top job, the company said Thursday in an SEC filing.

Merlo, who lives in East Greenwich, succeeded Tom Ryan as the Woonsocket-based drugstore giant’s chief executive last March. His 2011 pay package included a $1.2 million salary; a $3.8 million bonus (formally known as “non-equity incentive plan compensation”); $6.8 million in stock and stock option awards; and $211,144 in “other compensation.”

Merlo’s other compensation was made up of $51,319 for personal use of CVS’s corporate jet; $13,225 for financial planning services; $883 for home security; $8,800 for the CVS Caremark Charity Classic; and $74,227 in additional retirement contributions.

(more…)

Josh Barro of Forbes argues Chafee’s embrace of far-reaching changes to how cash-strapped municipal governments operate is part of a larger trend:

Chafee is coming out for mandate reform for the same reason that mayors like Chicago’s Rahm Emanuel and Los Angeles’s Antonio Villaraigosa are aggressively pushing pension reform. A majority of the typical local government budget consists of compensation costs. States and localities face significant political and economic barriers to collecting new revenue. When budgets get squeezed, the practical choice is often between reining in compensation costs per employee or cutting back on service delivery.

For politicians who care about providing high-quality government services, public employee compensation reforms have become the best available option.

Bob Plain of Rhode Island’s Future thinks I missed a crucial distinction between Chafee’s ideas and Carcieri’s:

[T]he big difference is Chafee’s bottom-up approach. Carcieri’s proposal was a blanket exemption to every municipality and Chafee’s is need-based. RI Future has held the former governor’s feet to the fire for cutting so much money from cities and towns that had so little. So did Chafee earlier this week.

Here’s hoping that Chafee’s proposal sparks a big debate in the General Assembly about the disparity between the haves and have-not communities in Rhode Island as this is arguably the biggest affliction affecting the entire state.

Monique Chartier of Anchor Rising thinks it’s foolish that some of the savings would go into pension funds:

Many cities and towns do not have the revenue to properly fund their pension plans. Some cities and towns do not have the revenue to maintain day to day operations, much less try to make up underfunded and very generous pensions. Accordingly, how could they have the money to reinvest, exclusively or otherwise, into their pension systems?

The Projo reports labor leaders are not happy:

Governor Chafee’s proposal to let financially distressed cities and towns make significant changes to union contracts represents a “fundamental assault” on the labor movement’s “core values,” according to George H. Nee, president of the state AFL-CIO. …

[James Parisi, lobbyist for the Rhode Island Federation of Teachers and Health Professionals] said giving certain cities and towns the ability to freeze annual salary increases for teachers and change medical benefits were particularly offensive, considering local chapters have, over the years, made concessions in their contract negotiations. …

Paul L. Valletta Jr., lobbyist for the State Association of Fire Fighters, said the proposal essentially allows executives of financially distressed cities and towns to “rip up” collectively-bargained union contracts.

“I actually thought this governor thought more of working men and women of this state,” he said. “This opens up everything. There are no protections anymore.”

And in case you missed it earlier this morning, my take is that Chafee sounds a lot like Carcieri:

Chafee’s pitch on Thursday sounded much like his predecessor’s in December 2009. ”I urge the General Assembly to pass the municipal tools articles immediately upon returning to session,” Carcieri said. “There is no need to debate them again this year. Pass them and free the cities and towns to manage their own budgets.”

Acknowledging that local aid cuts have taken a sharp bite out of city and town budgets, the governor asked lawmakers to approve a long list of changes to give municipalities more flexibility on spending matters ranging from pensions to school bus monitors.

Lincoln Chafee? Nope. Try Don Carcieri.

Johnston Mayor Joseph Polisena and others like to criticize Carcieri, sometimes by name, for making deep cuts in state aid to cities and towns. What they don’t mention is that the General Assembly approved all those cuts – but failed to approve Carcieri’s companion proposals to eliminate state mandates as a way of offsetting the losses.

Carcieri himself made that point less than two years ago when he allowed the 2010-11 budget to become law without his signature, partly because it slashed local aid by more than $130 million without granting any new flexibility. ”The General Assembly must give our municipalities the tools to equip town and city officials with the means to make local government more affordable,” Carcieri said then.

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