In State of State address, McKee vows boosts to education, small business, health care

PROVIDENCE − Comparing Rhode Island to an underestimated basketball team he once coached, Gov. Dan McKee used his televised State of the State address on Tuesday night to deliver a pep talk.

His goals: More home construction. Schools just as good as those in Massachusetts. Major gains on Rhode Island's troubled health care front with long sought rate boosts.

And "this year, we’re going to set a goal to raise per-capita income by a minimum of $20,000 by the year 2030," he told lawmakers and other dignitaries packed into the House chamber.

"No one believed they could succeed, but they did,'' McKee said of the "Rhode Island Shooting Stars," the team of young basketball players he coached. "Two state championships, four national championship invites ... And just like Rhode Island, they earned the respect they deserve."

Alternately hokey, aspirational and motivational, McKee talked in broad strokes on issues big and small, promising, for example, to recommit the state's efforts to "closing the [student test-score] gap between Rhode Island and Massachusetts by 2030."

He asked "parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles to ... get in the game because every home, every day, learning matters." And he said his granddaughter Mabel, a toddler, "reminds me of why I’m here ... We want to ensure Rhode Island is the place they want to call home and a place they can afford to call home."

He also dropped this all-in-the-family tidbit: his wife, Susan, a retired teacher, is the "honorary chair" of Always Learning Rhode Island, a nonprofit agency formed by former teachers union leader Bob Walsh to help school districts that signed on to McKee's out-of-school initiative, which harks back to one of his proudest efforts as a mayor.

"To date, they’ve raised over half a million dollars with the help of the local business community and civic leaders," McKee said of the nonprofit.

Investments in education, small businesses, health care

Throughout the speech, the state's Democratic governor also sprinkled hints of what he will include in the multibillion-dollar-budget he is scheduled to unveil on Thursday.

He promised "key investments in education, small businesses and Rhode Island’s health care system without raising any broad-based taxes."

Among the budget nuggets McKee previewed:

∎ "$135 million in investments to increase health care provider rates and support the behavioral health needs of Rhode Islanders," while a new working group focuses on "planning work to ensure we have access to an efficient and effective health care delivery system aligned with our state’s needs."

The working group created as part of this executive order will be composed of "members from my health cabinet with broad input from a wide array of stakeholders who will be ready to do the work."

∎ An additional "$15 million for math and English Language Arts coaching for students and professional development for teachers to help us meet the goal ahead of us."

∎ "The placement of bonds on the November ballot, including a $100-million housing production bond on the ballot [that] would be the largest housing-production bond in our state’s history; a bond, of unspecified size, to build a new building for the state's archives and a bond to a build a new life science school at the University of Rhode Island.

What he didn't mention was perhaps as significant as what he did mention.

He did not mention the new courthouse − or the reinstatement of employee longevity bonuses − sought by the judiciary. He did not mention the proposed new baseball stadium at Rhode Island College that a local businessman has pitched, the Pawtucket soccer stadium or the state's investment in converting the "Superman" building in downtown Providence to apartments.

And perhaps tellingly, he did not mention one of the toplines of his 2023 State of the State address: a sales tax cut, which he was unable to sell to legislators last year.

But he did sketch the outline of a small-business relief package that would, among other things, reduce the state's corporate minimum tax from $400 to $350, since "this tax impacts our state’s smallest businesses the most."

He vowed to do his utmost to eliminate "6 annoying fees ... including the redundant real estate broker and liquor manufacturing fees."

He also pledged an unspecified amount of money "to help more minority- and women-owned businesses get certified to qualify for state contracts."

He did not mention any additional money for the state's financially struggling public transit system, aka RIPTA, or the retired state workers and public school teachers demanding the reinstatement of the annual pension increases, aka COLAs, that were effectively frozen more than a decade ago to rein in skyrocketing taxpayer costs.

On the reinstatement of annual COLAs, McKee said he would await the recommendations of a pension study group convened by state Treasurer James Diossa. But he did not close the door.

"While that work continues, let’s act now to raise the threshold for taxable retirement income so our retirees can keep more money in their pockets," he said. (Current law exempts the first $20,000 in taxable pension and/or annuity income from Rhode Island personal income tax.)

No further details, but he said: "I’ll be sending a budget proposal to the General Assembly to make this happen. It’s the right thing to do – let’s get it done."

On the non-budget legislative front, McKee committed to "finding common ground and reforming the Law Enforcement Officers’ Bill of Rights, finding new ways to speed up housing production, and this year – let’s finally pass an assault-weapons ban in Rhode Island."

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Governor promises key investments in education, small businesses, and health care without raising any broad-based taxes.