PROVIDENCE – A housing crisis that hasn’t gone away. A primary care doctor shortage that shows no signs of easing. And a mountain of questions about responsibility for Rhode Island’s failed westbound Washington Bridge that legislative leaders seem reluctant to ask, in public, while the state is suing private companies for damages.
None of these problems are new. In fact, they were all top of the agenda during the last legislative session that ended in June.
But they remain big unsolved problems Rhode Island lawmakers will face when the new two-year legislative session begins on Jan. 7 under the shadow of a projected deficit between $300 million and $350 million that will most definitely limit the lawmakers’ ability to spend their way out of any dilemma.
In a rare personal moment during a look-ahead interview on Monday, House Speaker K. Joseph Shekarchi told The Journal his own primary care doctor recently hit burnout and quit, leaving him in the same predicament many other Rhode Islanders have faced in recent years: the extreme difficulty of finding a new a doctor.
Should the state be graced with any currently unexpected dollars in 2026, Shekarchi said he would like to do what top Senators wanted to do during the last legislative session: Provide “incentives” to keep or attract more doctors to Rhode Island, whether it be through higher Medicaid reimbursement rates or medical school loan forgiveness.
But personal anecdotes aside, Shekarchi said he cannot, at this point, rule out any of the no-no’s of past years, including the so-called “millionaires tax” that Massachusetts has already tried to mixed reviews and that the Rhode Island unions have pushed here for years without luck.
Here are some highlights of the interview with Shekarchi and House Majority Leader Christopher Blazejewski:
WASHINGTON BRIDGE: A year after the sudden demise of the westbound Washington Bridge became the biggest story in the state, Shekarchi said he is ready to hold a new round of House Oversight Committee hearings on the bridge in January.
However, from Shekarchi’s description of the hearings, the focus may be on a path ahead to a replacement bridge rather than a look back into why the last bridge failed and who was responsible.
“My members were going door to door in this election cycle and they’ve had a lot of [bridge] questions, namely when, how much and in terms of what the design will be and look like,” he said.
Could the Oversight Committee issue subpoenas for the “forensic analysis” of the bridge failure the McKee Administration has refused to make public?
“Since I’ve been speaker, we have not issued subpoenas,” Shekarchi said. “I would defer to Oversight Chairwoman [Patricia] Serpa if she felt there was a need. But I will tell you that to the best of my knowledge, everybody who’s appeared before oversight in the past has done so voluntarily and has been truthful.”
The ultimate cost of building a new bridge may not be known until the bid due date in June, but Shekarchi is confident the state will at the very least keep the $221 million in federal “mega” dollars already pledged when President-elect Donald Trump returns to the White House.
Why? “I feel very comfortable that [U.S. Senators] Jack Reed and Sheldon Whitehouse, while in the minority, still have good reputation[s] and good, strong, broad-based bipartisan support that [will ensure] what has been awarded to Rhode Island will stay.”
TAXES: With no more big dollops of COVID cash to sustain a record-high $14-billion state budget, Shekarchi said he cannot rule out a tax increase in the next budget go around.
Asked the chances Rhode Island will add a surcharge to the tax bills of the state’s highest earners, Shekarchi said he remembers the pushback to that perennial idea his first year as speaker.
As far as how it has worked out in Massachusetts, which has a 4% surtax on taxable income over $1 million, Shekarchi said: “I think the jury is still out. I’m also reading information that there’s a mass exodus of young people from Massachusetts who are entrepreneurs … relocating to New Hampshire and other places to start their businesses … at least in part, because of the ‘millionaires tax.'”
Shekarchi noted Massachusetts also “has a lot more millionaires than Rhode Island has … [so] I don’t think what we would receive is anywhere near what Massachusetts is receiving.”
“You’re still going to have a deficit to deal with,” he said.
TOLLS: Though Rhode Island’s suspended truck tolls have been ruled legal, the caps the state had on daily toll charges were not.
“I would like to do something, if at all possible [to help the in-state trucking industry] and something that will withstand constitutional scrutiny,” Shekarchi said. “It’s easy to say that. It’s another thing to practically do it … I’m looking at and listening for ideas by several different people, the truckers, the advocates, some of my colleagues.”
In so many words, he did, however, rule out an expansion of the tolls to passenger vehicles and said, in response to legislative Republicans who want to scrap the tolls altogether: “No, I don’t think we should just scrap it.”
HASBRO: Shekarchi is among the Rhode Island leaders trying to keep Hasbro’s corporate headquarters in the state.
He said state officials made a presentation to the toy company showing six potential new headquarters sites.
“I have also spoken to [CEO] Chris Cocks privately. I’ve also met with the single largest shareholder of Hasbro and I’ve spoken to them and the governor [is] leading that effort and I’m playing a part,” Shekarchi said.
He declined to handicap the state’s prospects of keeping the company.
HEALTH CARE: For the past year, Attorney General Peter Neronha has warned that some of Rhode Island’s hospitals are in unsustainable financial positions, but while Shekarchi said he has discussed health care with Neronha, the attorney general did not make any specific policy recommendations.
Is the speaker worried about a looming hospital finance crisis, like what happened with the Steward hospitals in Massachusetts?
“Not in the short term, because I’ve spent a lot of time with both hospital systems, Care New England and the Brown Health Group,” he said. “They have seemed to get their footing … We’ve been very generous to the hospitals. When you talk about COVID money, we gave a lot of money to the hospitals. I’m proud of that.”
On the primary care shortage, Shekarchi said the House will reexamine raising medical reimbursement rates, building a new University of Rhode Island medical school (or at least an osteopath school) and changing the law to make it easier for foreign doctors to practice medicine here.
SHORT-TERM RENTALS: Lawmakers for several years have been looking to respond to anger at the proliferation of short-term rentals in Rhode Island’s coastal communities, but have not settled on a solution to the issue.
Shekarchi said he is interested in creating a “two-tiered system” where more corporate rental owners of multiple properties would be regulated different from mom-and-pop homeowners who “use it to supplement their income.”
SUPERMAN: Has the speaker received any request from the owner of the vacant Industrial Trust or “Superman Building” in downtown Providence?
“There hasn’t been any formal ask or informal ask of any dollar amount for the Superman Building to me, for the General Assembly that I’m aware of,” he said.
“I am considering running for speaker, which is coming up in … three weeks and then I’m going to be the best possible speaker I can be and I let the future worry about itself.”
Would he run against Gov. Dan McKee? Reiterating what he has said before, he said: “I can’t ever see myself running against the governor.”
He will not, however, weigh in on the public feud between Gov. Dan McKee and Neronha, or McKee’s not-so-great poll numbers, saying only: “The poll numbers are just that, poll numbers. It’s way too early. I know a lot of people are in the political mode, especially in the media … [but] I’m in a government mode. I’m trying to worry about next year’s session and next year’s budget.”
