Projo Politics Blog

PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- At one of its rare public meetings, a legislative leadership panel chaired by House Speaker William J. Murphy will decide this week whether to extend to General Assembly employees the same 2.5 percent raises promised most other state workers in union contracts ratified before the bottom fell out on the state's economy.

The panel will also decide whether or not to impose on this select group of state workers the same unpaid time off -- also known as a furlough day -- that other state workers may be asked to take between now and June 30, under the terms of their contracts.

Known as the Joint Committee on Legislative Services, the five-member panel that includes the House speaker, the Senate president, the House majority leader and the House and Senate minority leaders will meet at 3 p.m. Wednesday. With no further detail, the broadly-worded agenda says they will discuss "administrative matters relating to the Rhode Island General Assembly and its employees.''

But that panel left several hanging questions when it met in fall 2008 for the first time since February 2006.

At that fall 2008 meeting, the panel agreed to hike the employee share of health insurance premiums to the same level as other state workers.

But the legislative leaders decided not to vote at that time on raises to match those promised the state's unionized employees who, after no raise this year, were pledged 2.5 percent raises in the new budget year that begins July 1, followed by back-to-back 3 percent raises in each of the two years after that.

House Minority Leader Robert Watson argued, at that meeting, that the state's financial health had deteriorated since those contracts were hammered out over the summer and fall; that outside state government people are losing jobs in big numbers, and those still employed would be "lucky if they see any increase in year-to-year income."

He argued for a wage and salary freeze until state leaders "get their hands around" the state's "out-of-control" budget crisis, and said: "we may have to lead the charge." In one of several moments of unity that day, the three Democrats and two Republicans on the panel agreed to table discussion of pay increases for legislative staff indefinitely.

But the panel agreed their staffers would have to forgo a day's pay between January and June to save money this year, under the same terms offered other state workers. They could recoup the lost money - or take an extra paid day off - sometime between 2010 and 2012. But that has not happened yet, and with the lawmakers now in the final month and a half of this year's legislative session, it's unclear how the legislators will achieve this one-time cost-cutting maneuver.

According to the state controller's office, there were 560 people receiving paychecks from the legislature in the last pay period, including the 113 lawmakers. But the legislative business office says this translates into 282 "full-time equivalents," including 241 full-time and 71 part-time employees not counting any of the pages, doorkeepers, and "seasonal committee clerks and attorneys, paid on a daily rate or monthly rate.''

 Tags  General Assembly Providence RI William Murphy

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