Projo Politics Blog

The Senate is losing its top policy adviser for the last decade, Kenneth Payne.

Friday was the last day at the State House for the $113,925-a-year Payne, who went to work for the Senate in 1997 after an eight-year stint as former U.S. Sen. Claiborne Pell’s federal projects coordinator. Before that, he was the executive director of the Rhode Island League of Cities and Towns.

Though he is not one to demand that people call him “doctor” — as was famously true of some others in state government — Payne has a Ph.D. in regional planning from the University of Massachusetts. He co-authored Business Attraction and Retention: Local Economic Development Efforts.

One of his specialties at the State House: environmental issues, a focus that won him a lifetime achievement award from the Environmental Council of Rhode Island in 1998. Over the years he has had a hand in crafting what Senate leaders describe as their “landmark ’06 housing energy act” and other legislation aimed at “affordable housing” and “changing the way we monitor the health of the Bay.”

In a statement last week that announced his departure, Payne said he was leaving to “devote his primary energies to analysis of structures of governance and development issues affecting southeastern New England.”

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