But Rhode Island’s budget has grown by 50% since before the pandemic and the state’s fiscal outlook has grown more challenging. Can Rhode Island afford the growth in its state budget? There are also familiar and persistent difficulties in housing and other areas. What can be done to make more progress on housing? And what does the future hold for the man who leads the House of Representatives? I’m Ian Donnis and this week I’m going in-depth with House Speaker Joe Shekarchi.
Ian Donnis: Welcome back to the Public’s Radio.
Speaker Joe Shekarchi: It’s always my pleasure to be here.
Donnis: The House recently approved an almost 14 billion dollar state budget. The spending plan won a lot of praise, in part, for expanding spending on health care and education, but Rhode Island’s budget has grown by almost 50 percent since before the pandemic. So can the state really sustain this level of spending?
Speaker Shekarchi: I believe it can, at least in the short term. And I just wanted to, in this particular budget, to make sure we took advantage of every single federal dollar that’s available. We spent ARPA money, we spent it twice. What I mean by that is there was a project in East Providence called the South Key, and we spent 35 million dollars of ARPA money last year, but that did not happen. So we re-spent it this year. And that’s why you see the budget numbers as high as they are. We have allocated and reallocated, and we’re very transparent. Every state does it differently. But we show every single federal dollar that the state gets, we pass it through as a budget process. For example, unemployment. When someone goes out on unemployment, they’re eligible to collect. The federal government doesn’t give them unemployment. It gives it to the state, and then the state gives it to the individual. That is how we account for that in the budget and that’s where the budget numbers are slightly higher than I would like, and slightly higher than they would normally be, but it’s a way of being transparent including everything in the budget.
Donnis: That federal aid has enabled the state to run surpluses for the last few years but the more typical course is that there’s a big deficit greeting lawmakers every January due to how, over the long term, state expenses are greater than revenue. Do you expect the return of these perennial deficits starting next year?
Speaker Shekarchi: It’s possible. I don’t know if it’s likely or not. We’ll see how the economy goes, where interest rates go. I point out that a lot of people, myself, were very concerned about this year’s budget, and we ended up with a surplus this year. And the reason for that is our caseloads were down. But we did something very unique in this year’s budget. We accelerated our Medicaid payments to our providers by, the governor proposed $22 million more. The general assembly ended up with $66 million more. By doing that, we’ve unleashed over $120 million more of federal money that gets pumped right into the Rhode Island economy. It goes to wages for Medicaid, providers and people who take care of the elderly, the sick, the disabled, children, and that money will be recycled and re-spent in the economy, and I think you’ll see a positive effect.
There are some states who actually use federal spending as a way of developing economic development. That is not how we do it in Rhode Island, but may have a very beneficial effect. We’ll have to wait and see, but I’m cautiously optimistic on next year’s budget.
Donnis: More than six months have passed since the emergency closing of I-195 westbound in Providence. We see how traffic frequently backs up eastbound on the highway now. Rush hour is a real mess in Providence and the surrounding area since this problem developed. Are you satisfied with the leadership of State Transportation Director Peter Alviti?
Speaker Shekarchi: So far, I would say yes. I don’t know what else he really could have done since the, you know, bridge closure. Now, there is a lot of investigations, a lot of audits going on regarding the, what led up to that. But since the bridge has closed, I don’t know how much anybody else could have done than what he’s done so far. So, we’ll keep a cautiously positive outlook on his performance so far, but we need to know all the details.
We have passed legislation in this year’s session that requires the DOT to give monthly reports to the General Assembly. We have had oversight hearings, joint oversight hearings, we’re going to continue to have oversight and monitor the situation. So we’re concerned about it. And I’d like to point out in this year’s budget, we made a significant allocation for a down payment toward what we as a state have to pay, our portion of the Washington Bridge.
Donnis: As House Speaker, you have prioritized housing, the General Assembly has passed a lot of related legislation, the state has allocated a lot of related money, but it seems like little has changed. How long will it take to make a significant change in addressing the housing crisis?
Speaker Shekarchi: Well, a lot of the legislation that we passed, the real meat and potatoes of it, didn’t go into effect until about seven months ago, actually six months ago. It went into effect January 1st of this current year. Even the ADU legislation that we had passed has not become law yet. The governor has not signed it yet. I think that it took over 30 years for the state to get in this mess. We haven’t done any significant land use reform in over 30 years since the early 1990s. It’s going to take some time, but I think all the elements are there.
I talked to builders. I talked to advocates from the nonprofit sector, the profit section, the private sector, the public housing, the housing authorities. Everyone is excited about the package. Everyone thinks that we have cut down dramatically on red tape and we’ve allowed a lot of individuals, hopefully, to take marginally buildable land and make it buildable.
Donnis: You convened a summit last month on health care. If you had to pick two or three action steps coming out of what was presented at that summit for the state to tackle, what would those be?
Speaker Shekarchi: Well, the number one ask of the Rhode Island Medical Society was that we as the general assembly pass a shield law so that doctors in Rhode Island can practice medicine without the threat of being long armed in or sued by other states or other jurisdictions and being, you know, basically, it’s a legal term when I say long armed, into another state’s jurisdiction. So we passed that this year. We passed it on the last night with the legislation that was proposed needed a lot of work. I will tell you that we were taught to do that. In addition to that, I think you see a commitment on the fact that the House leadership, the Senate leadership, the attorney general, the governor, we’re all talking about it. It’s on everybody’s radar screen. We need to address it regarding reimbursements, but also mandates. The reason why our reimbursement rates are so low in Rhode Island is that our mandates are very significant. And when there’s only so much health care dollar, if for every dollar that you have, You know, what we pay in Rhode Island is very comparable to what they pay in Massachusetts. Then why are our reimbursements down? Well, realistically, the Rhode Island Foundation did a very comprehensive study and what they said is that we cover many more procedures in Rhode Island that they would pay in Massachusetts or give coverage for. So we need to take a good long look at that and see how we can bring that back into a better balance. We need to, we need to increase our reimbursement rates. That much is known and how we get there. We have to figure it out going forward.
Donnis: You mentioned Attorney General Peter Neronha, he recently told me that even if two safety net hospitals, Roger Williams Medical Center and Our Lady of Fatima, are returned to non profit ownership, they could still go bankrupt. Do you believe that the administration of Governor McKee has done enough to have a contingency plan if that worst case scenario comes to pass?
Speaker Shekarchi: I will defer to the Governor as a, member of the legislature. We don’t get to see those detailed plans, so I don’t know exactly what he’s done. I will tell you that we have great hope for the new Department of Health director, Dr Larkin. We actually passed legislation or allowed legislation to become into law to increase his salary dramatically. So we got somebody who’s triple board certified. I believe the attorney general is very diligent and he’s looking at this very carefully. I am concerned, as I was concerned with the closure of Memorial Hospital in Pawtucket, that those two hospitals that are both privately owned, they’re both for profit, could be in bankruptcy. I don’t think so, at the end of the day, that will go there because they’re part of a much larger system that if they went into bankruptcy could put the whole company into bankruptcy. I think there’s ongoing mediation going on right now. The attorney general’s at the table, the department of health is at the table. Let’s hope that cooler heads will prevail and that those systems will, those two hospitals in that system will survive.
Donnis: Let me, let me stop you there, because we still have a lot of ground to cover. You’ve been house speaker since 2021, you love politics, but you also face a lot of demands constantly as speaker. Are you getting a little tired of the job?
Speaker Shekarchi: No, not at all. I actually enjoy it. Sometimes you get tired the last week of the job, the last two weeks of the job. The last week of budget and the last week of session, those are always grueling. I mean, my staff literally was working a couple of those days, 24 hours. It takes a lot, takes a toll, but no, I enjoy the job. I enjoy the productivity. I enjoy getting things done, so I enjoy it very much, and we’re into another election cycle, and if the people of Warwick decide they want me back, I’ll pick up the job again in January and ask my colleagues to support me, and I’ll hit the ground running like I have for the last four years. I still have a lot of energy and a lot of passion for the job.
Donnis: Have you or your people had any conversations with Senator Jack Reed or his people about whether Reed might surprise us by not running for reelection in 2026?
Speaker Shekarchi: I have spoken to Jack Reed personally. I enjoy a great relationship. He’s 100 percent committed to running. He’s done a phenomenal job for the people of Rhode Island, without hesitation. We are very lucky to have him. He sits on the Appropriations Committee. He’s chairman of the Armed Services Committee. He sits on Banking. For somebody who’s a West Point grad, doesn’t get much better than that. He commands a lot of respect. And the one thing I try to do to emulate Senator Reed is he has a lot of bipartisan respect. There are a lot of people across the aisle. They may not like Democrats in general, but they like Jack Reed. And I like to think that that’s the best way to govern.
Donnis: You have said that you would not run against Governor Dan McKee for that position. If McKee decided not to seek re-election in 2026, would you, would that increase your interest in running for governor?
Speaker Shekarchi: I’d certainly consider it. I mean, a lot of people are asking me about it. That’s so far away in the future. That’s over three years away. And in politics, three years is a lifetime. I’m worried about the next three months. So I need to get reelected and both the city of Warwick and my home district in the general assembly by my colleagues, and then we’ll let the future worry about the future. But I want to do a good job every day. I think I’m doing a good job. I feel comfortable in the job I’m doing. I feel very passionate about it. And for all indications, I feel that by and large, you know, no speaker is perfect, no session is perfect. But overall, this was a very productive, very good session. We got a lot of good legislation through and I look forward to continuing that, that operation. I can be very content staying as Speaker of the House. I enjoy the job very much.
Donnis: Two bills that did not get a vote in the House this year would have clamped down on payday lending and ban new sales of semi-automatic rifles. It seems like you didn’t bring those to a vote because they were DOA in the Senate. They weren’t going anywhere in the Senate. If leadership changed in the Senate and there was different leadership that was more predisposed to bring those bills to a vote, would you bring them to a vote?
Speaker Shekarchi: I think that’s pretty accurate. Let’s talk. I like to do them separately because that there’s two separate processes in both bills. So let’s talk about payday lending that you talk about. We passed payday lending last year and it went nowhere. I have met with the advocates several times. I met with the sponsors several times and I told them to try to come together to work, to find a middle ground, to find some way to either phase it out or limit it and not do an unnecessarily total elimination of it. They indicated they would try and they did that. Unfortunately, it was unsuccessful. I met with them literally the last day of session, or the last two days of session, and I just said it’s unlikely that, you know, you’re gonna face the same result you have in the Senate, so it doesn’t really make sense for us to move it.
Donnis: Forty five seconds left.
Shekarchi: And on the assault rifle, that’s the type of bill that you really need to move in conjunction with the other chamber. The president has gone on record many times publicly, he thinks it’s a federal solution. So it doesn’t really make sense for the house to move something that we know is not going to pass in the Senate. So we’ll continue to work on it. Every year is new. Every session is new and every membership is new. So we look forward to considering both those issues next session.
Donnis: Rhode Island House Speaker Joe Shekarchi, thank you very much for joining us.
Shekarchi: Thank you very much. It’s always a pleasure to be on your show. Thank you to the listeners.
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Across the rotunda in the Senate, change is coming. Senate President Dominick Ruggerio this week formally announced his re-election campaign. The longest-serving member of the legislature is 75 and the leadership of the Senate is likely to change in the next session. You can read more about that in my TGIF column, posting around 4 this afternoon at thepublicsradio.org/TGIF and on what used to be known as Twitter @IanDon.
