R.I. department heads grilled at House finance hearing / Photo
5:54 PM Tue, Dec 02, 2008 | Permalink
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"This committee is not trying to be contentious. We're trying to put pressure on you because we are in crisis," committee Chairman Steven M. Costantino said to Department of Human Services Director Gary Alexander, after one of the most contentious exchanges in the State House committee room in recent memory. Costantino and other committee members suggested some directors had knowingly booked unrealistic budget savings. Costantino referred to a state law that allows department heads who intentionally overspend their budgets to be fined up to $1,000. "That has never been used," said the governor's budget officer, Rosemary Booth Gallogly. "It's not necessarily the best alternative." Alexander acknowledged that continued delays threaten much of the $67 million his department said it could save this year by reforming Medicaid programs. "I don't know when the red flags finally went off that, 'Oh gee, there's going to be a major delay,' " Costantino said. "I don't know why the $[67] million was booked." Alexander shot back by saying his department, which controls more than $1 billion in state and federal spending, would end the current year with a balanced budget. But he wouldn't say specifically how. "To simply say at the end of the day that the department is going to come in balanced is a disservice to the department," Costantino said. Virtually every major state department was represented at today's hearing. "It's a personal failure," Department of Environmental Management Director W. Michael Sullivan said of continued overspending. "Do I need a public flogging? Do I need an uncomfortable meeting to remind me of my responsibility? Absolutely not." The hearing was one of three before the House Finance Committee this week on the state's budget situation. Yesterday's hearing focused on getting an overview on the problems. Tomorrow, the committee will meet again at 1 p.m. 
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I assume that the DEM Director is overspending his budget. If this is true, he answered his own questions. Do I need a public flogging?, YES. Do I need an Uncomfortable meeting to remind me of my responsibility, YES. He should either resign tomorrow, or submit a plan (tomorrow) to be within budget.
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Tar and feather the rascals.
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It's amazing that Rep. Steven Costantino can sit there with a straight face and grill these department heads when he himself is as guilty as they are. Mr. Constantino is equally responsible for counting the savings-dollars before they were "in the bank." He wanted to say to his constituents that he pushed a balanced budget when he KNEW that he'd be roadblocking any savings initiatives that the governor attempted. Mr. Constantino helped create this mess, and a huge negative number should be the epitaph on his political headstone.
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How about our great department of ed, and the idiots in charge, Flanders and McWalters. Both a complete waste of taxpayers money.
More and more overspending, and a lesser education year after year. Go figure.
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I watched the entire Finance Committee Hearings over the past couple of days. Today I was totally disturbed as a tax payer at the "lackadazicle" approach the Cacieri Administration's communication and total disregard to State Department's overspending their budgets with no consequence, as administration officials put it thier procedure to inform the Governor with overspending in Departments is "an informal process" this is inexcusable !!! We are lucky to have the oversight of Chairman Costantino and the House Finance Committee to confront the Governor's lack of knowledge and /or concern of his department 's over spending costing us millions of dollars a day. Today's debarcle on the administration's part was hopefully nipped in the bud by the Finance Committee's agressive actions. Good job Chairman Costantino !!! Someone has to take control of the governor's department's overspending and you have shown the leadership to do it !!!!!!!!!
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I watched the entire Finance Committee Hearings over the past couple of days. Today I was totally disturbed as a tax payer at the "lackadazicle" approach the Cacieri Administration's communication and total disregard to State Department's overspending their budgets with no consequence, as administration officials put it thier procedure to inform the Governor with overspending in Departments is "an informal process" this is inexcusable !!! We are lucky to have the oversight of Chairman Costantino and the House Finance Committee to confront the Governor's lack of knowledge and /or concern of his department 's over spending costing us millions of dollars a day. Today's debarcle on the administration's part was hopefully nipped in the bud by the Finance Committee's agressive actions. Good job Chairman Costantino !!! Someone has to take control of the governor's department's overspending and you have shown the leadership to do it !!!!!!!!!
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that chairman instead of passing the buck to carcieri should be accepting his share of the blame.all those politicans should have the guts to explain why there are so many employees in this state.all of them should be held accountable for every family member or friend placed on the payroll.the democratic leaders in this state are hypocrits for going after carcieri on nepotism.every union leader should be up there under oath.the democrats want to go after the department heads what a joke.the late senator montalbano got his son into garrahy courthouse because he controls that budget for that particular department.so the judges had to bow down and genuflect.this dishonesty is one of many examples how corrupt this state is.
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Does any Rhode Islander take these hearings serious?
What a @%#&* Joke !!!
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It kills me to realize that they are ALL guilty of the overspending. No different than CONGRESS, our Finance COmmittee should be overseeing these department heads and they don't. The oonly time they do is when we have a crisis such as this one. They should all be thrown out of office, ALL OF THEM. It is unrealistic to think that we could be smart enough to get rid of them and start over. There is too much corruption in our state government and people are not accountable for their actions as you can see. If this were a private company those people would loose their jobs, but not state jobs, not in RI. We continue to elect them, we continue to put up with this and in the end we will continue to PAY. Then we wonder why we are the laughing stock of the USA. There are just no HONEST people willing to do the right thing and help us. When you add insult to injury to finding out that 380 million a year is being spent on Health Coverage for ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS....well I guess it doens't matter anymore if you are legal or illegal. This state is just poorly managed.
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It kills me to realize that they are ALL guilty of the overspending. No different than CONGRESS, our Finance COmmittee should be overseeing these department heads and they don't. The oonly time they do is when we have a crisis such as this one. They should all be thrown out of office, ALL OF THEM. It is unrealistic to think that we could be smart enough to get rid of them and start over. There is too much corruption in our state government and people are not accountable for their actions as you can see. If this were a private company those people would loose their jobs, but not state jobs, not in RI. We continue to elect them, we continue to put up with this and in the end we will continue to PAY. Then we wonder why we are the laughing stock of the USA. There are just no HONEST people willing to do the right thing and help us. When you add insult to injury to finding out that 380 million a year is being spent on Health Coverage for ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS....well I guess it doens't matter anymore if you are legal or illegal. This state is just poorly managed.
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You notice that the DOJ is the ONLY dept not represented in the overspending whipping circle? That of course is because they didn't have to take a budget cut as usual.
As for the clowns running the budget show in the Finance Committee, do any of them have the qualifications to be in charge of a budget of this size? And for that matter, considering what's been happening with the state budgets over the last 5-7 years, what the heck are you voters doing, re-electing these clowns year after year for? Are you masochists?
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