RHODE ISLAND — The countdown is on for Rhode Island residents who haven’t gotten their REAL ID cards. After moving the deadline for getting the gold star required to board domestic flights and certain federal offices, Homeland Security officials set May 7, 2025, as the final date.

COVID-19 backlogs in state agencies charged with issuing driver’s licenses and identification cards prompted the last REAL ID extension in late 2022. The original 2020 deadline to get REAL IDs had been extended multiple times because of the pandemic.

After May 7, 2025, federal agencies, including the Transportation Security Administration, will no longer accept identification that does not meet the new standards.

The REAL ID Act of 2005 was passed by Congress in response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks. In addition to the stars, REAL ID cards are built with technology that makes them more difficult to forge, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

Rhode Island residents who don’t plan to fly domestically or visit a federal office don’t need to do anything. A REAL ID isn’t required to get a driver’s license. Also, the TSA won’t require children under 18 to provide identification when they’re traveling with an adult companion within the United States, but the companion must have acceptable identification.

The REAL ID is not a substitute for a passport required for international travel, and it also does not affect the ability to vote or register to vote, applications for federal benefits, enter federal facilities that don’t require identification, obtain medical care, or participate in police proceedings or investigations.

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Thirty-seven police chiefs command the local police officers who work in Rhode Island’s cities and towns.

Twenty-one of those chiefs took their oaths less than five years ago.

Fifteen were sworn in less than three years ago.

The count rises to 16 if the grouping of city and town police chiefs is expanded to include the superintendent of the Rhode Island State Police: Col. Darnell S. Weaver took his oath in April 2022.

Of course, neither Weaver nor his counterparts in the cities and towns are newbies to law enforcement. Most logged many years of experience as lower-ranking police leaders before they took the reins of their respective organizations.

But being first-in-command is different. And the number of newcomers to the chief rank, including 10 chiefs who were sworn-in less than two years ago, has been noticed at monthly gatherings of the Rhode Island Police Chiefs’ Association.

The executive director of the Rhode Island Police Chiefs Association, Sidney Wordell, said he can’t recall another time when Rhode Island had so many new police chiefs.

“No doubt, we’ve seen a turnover of chiefs that I have never seen before,” said Wordell, himself a former Little Compton police chief who has been YYYat the association for nine years.

The sheen of retirement

A collection of societal trends and economic factors have played into the recent wave of departures, according to Wordell.

A big influence, he says, involves the economics that have made it harder for employers everywhere to hold onto employees in general.

Even police chiefs, with less experience in the job, have management skills that can be desirable to employers, Wordell said.

In recent years, at least five police leaders in Rhode Island have shifted from law enforcement to work jobs as town administrators.

The environment for police work itself has been full of new challenges in recent years, from scrutiny and pressure brought by social justice activists, to enormous technological change to safety threats related to the willingness of some Americans to kill other people, including police officers, with high powered rifles such as the AR-15.

Chiefs also face more adversity in recruiting police officers.

All of these factors can put a different sheen on moving to a different occupation or retiring sooner rather than later.

On a certain level, Rhode Island has entered a new era, according to Wordell. The time when certain chiefs, police leaders like former Johnston police chief, Richard S. Tamburini stay in the job for more than 25 may be over.

“It’s unheard of,” Wordell said.

The sage veterans

Rhode Island’s most experienced police chief is Middletown Police Chief Anthony Pesare.

Pesare logged 18 years as Middletown’s chief before he left the force in 2018.

In February 2023, Pesare returned to lead the force after the departure of Chief William Kewer.

Only eight other police chiefs, in addition to Pesare, are still leading their departments after taking over more than 10 years ago.

Cranston’s police chief, Col. Michael J. Winquist, who swore his oath in October of 2014 — after a lengthy state police career — is in the next group of top police leaders.

Both Narragansett Police Chief Sean Corrigan and Woonsocket Police Chief Thomas F. Oates III are close behind Winquist.

What are more experienced chiefs doing to help newcomers?

Oates, who served as a deputy chief in Providence for many years before his appointment in Woonsocket, has noticed new faces at the association’s monthly gatherings.

The association has scheduled some special sessions that are specifically geared to help provide some orientation to new police chiefs.

Oates said he has closely coordinated with the new chief in neighboring Cumberland, Chief Matthew Benson as Benson has settled in.

All of the chiefs have worked together on projects such as the adoption of body cameras at departments across the state.

Such contact can help them handle crises, togeher, too, Oates said.

“It’s great,” he said.

Chiefs who were sworn in back before the pandemic started, more than four years ago, are in the next group behind Oates. They are Tiverton Police Chief Patrick Jones; Pawtucket Police Chief Tina Goncalves; Charlestown Police Chief Michael J. Paliotta; Little Compton Police Chief Scott N. Raynes; Portsmouth Police Chief Brian P. Peters; and, Bristol Police Chief Kevin Lynch.

Police chiefs of the 2020s

Chiefs who were sworn in more than three years ago, during the early pandemic era, include Coventry Police Chief Frederick J. Heise III; North Smithfield Chief Tim Lafferty; Central Falls’ police chief, Col. Anthony J. Roberson; Scituate Police Chief Eric C. Rollinson; Warren Police Chief Roy M. Borges; and, Warwick’s police chief, Col. Bradford E. Connor.

East Providence Police Chief Christopher Francesconi; West Warwick’s police chief, Col. Ernest Lavigne; and, North Providence Police Chief Alfredo Ruggiero Jr. were sworn in on the back end of the pandemic in 2021, more than two years ago.

South Kingstown Police Chief Matthew C. Moynihan took his oath less than two years ago in June 2022. But prior to that, in 2021 and 2022, the former state police veteran had led Block Island’s police force.

Rhode Island’s newest police chiefs

Benson in Cumberland, Westerly Police Chief Paul Gingerella, and Weaver were sworn in about two years ago.

Both Newport Police Chief Ryan G. Duffy, and Providence Police Chief Oscar L. Perez Jr. are now leading police organizations in two of Rhode Island’s largest cities after taking their oaths less than two years ago.

Johnston Police Chief Mark A. Vieira also took his oath last year in January. Several months later, Vieira had one of the busiest days of his career when a Simmonsville man shot and killed his own mother. The same man also shot and killed a 44-year-old neighbor and he shot a teenage neighbor before he died in a confrontation with Cranston and Providence police.

Three Rhode Island chiefs took their oaths within the past year: They are Foster Police Chief Gina Lindell, Lincoln Police Chief Dennis Fleming, and Jamestown Police Chief James Campbell.

New Shoreham Police Chief Paul Deane was sworn in on Block Island in February and Hopkinton Police Chief Mark Carrier became a chief in early March.

Newest of new

After serving as an acting chief for a period, North Kingstown Police Chief John J. Urban Jr. took his oath on March 27, rising to become the state’s newest police chief.

Urban, a 22-year police veteran who also served in Iraq with the Rhode Island National Guard, became North Kingstown’s acting chief in September.

He is optimistic about the prospects for a turnaround in recruiting and he has his own strategy for dealing with the many changes of the current era. Flexibility is key, he said.

Urban also recognizes that a certain leader might reach a point where providing flexibility isn’t possible.

“Then you have to go,” he said. “I say it all the time, we are just pictures on the walls.”

North Kingstown, said Urban, will have a police force long after he is gone, and, for that matter, long after his children, and their children, are gone.

“That’s just the facts,” he said.

WASHINGTON — Families gathered outside the U.S. Capitol Tuesday to “make a fuss for babies,” who they believe are being left behind by lawmakers who direct only a fraction of U.S. resources to young children.

Parents and kids representing 50 states and the District of Columbia convened for the eighth annual “Strolling Thunder.” Moms and dads pushing strollers decked out in state license plates rallied on the Capitol’s East Lawn to lobby lawmakers to fund child care, establish national paid family leave, and permanently expand the child tax credit.

Matthew Melmed, executive director of ZERO TO THREE, the organization behind the event, rallied parents to tell their representatives that the 11 million babies in the U.S. “make up 3.4% of our population, but 100% of our future.”

“You’re here with the pork producers and the insurance lobby and the pharmaceutical industry. Members of Congress don’t normally see real people, and they rarely see babies and toddlers, particularly babies and toddlers who need to have their diapers changed on their desks. And that’s what I encourage you to do if you need to have that happen,” Melmed told the crowd.

The nonprofit ZERO TO THREE bases its advocacy on health and developmental research findings in infants up to age 3, the years the group describes as “the most important for lifelong mental health and well-being.”

Melmed praised top Democratic appropriators Sen. Patty Murray of Washington and Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut for achieving a $1 billion increase for child care block grants and Head Start in this year’s government funding bills.

DeLauro, who spoke to the crowd, said “families deserve better.”

“The cost of living has increased year after year, and more and more Americans simply do not get paid enough to live on, let alone to raise a family,” the Connecticut lawmaker said, promising to advocate for the reinstatement of a fully refundable child tax credit.

‘Diapers, child care, formula’

Candace Winkler, a former Alaska resident and current ZERO TO THREE leader, sat on the Capitol lawn next to Sabrina Donnellan who traveled to D.C. from Girdwood, Alaska, with her 13-month-old Blakely to advocate for lower child care costs and paid family leave.

Winkler, the organization’s chief development and strategy officer, said the group of families would divide up in the halls of Congress Tuesday to meet with their representatives about six key policy issues, including permanently expanding the child tax credit to pandemic levels.

“We’ve seen that time and time again that families are using those resources for diapers, child care, formula and things their babies and their family needs. And it’s really critical for their success,” WInkler said.

The current child tax credit is $2,000 a year after tax liability, but the amount a parent could receive per child under 17 in a refund check is capped at $1,600 in 2023. The credit phases in at 15% on every dollar after earnings of $2,500.

As the U.S. was digging out from under the COVID-19 economic crisis, Congress approved a one-year expansion of the tax credit to $3,000 per child under age 18, and $3,600 for those under age 6 — including for families who made $0 in income. Lawmakers made the entire amount refundable, and a portion of it was sent to families in monthly installments.

Advocates hailed the research findings that showed the temporary move was a game changer for lifting children from poverty in the U.S.

A current bipartisan proposal, widely supported by U.S. House lawmakers, to temporarily expand the child tax credit until 2025 — though not to pandemic levels — is currently stalled by U.S. Senate Republicans who liken aspects of the bill to a welfare program.

The proposal, as passed by the House, would increase the credit’s refundable portion to $1,800 in 2023, $1,900 in 2024 and $2,000 in 2025. The legislation would also increase the phase-in rate to 15% per child, simultaneously — in other words, 30% for a family with two children, 45% for a family with three, and so on.

Credit card debt for child care

Cruz Bueno, a parent from Warwick, Rhode Island, shared her story of racking up credit card debt to enroll her 11-month-old Rosie in child care, along with her 2-year-old sister Amalia.

“Putting Rosie into daycare means that we must put a halt to our dream of buying a home,” said Bueno, an economist who lives in Warwick with her husband, Xhuljan Meta.

“One of the stipulations of our mortgage pre-approval was to keep our credit card balances low. Even so, we remain hopeful that one day in the not-so-distant future we will be able to buy a home to raise our girls and pass on wealth to them,” she said.

When asked about the Strolling Thunder event at Tuesday morning’s regularly scheduled House Republican press conference, House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana said, “There’s lots of ideas out there. What we stand for, what our party stands for, is support of families. We support infants and children, and there’s an appropriate role to play in that.”

“The devil’s always in the details on legislation, so I’m not sure exactly what they’re proposing, but all of us are looking at those avenues. We want to support families. That’s good public policy,” Johnson said. “In our view, the best way often for the government to do that is to step back and allow the local and state officials to handle their business at that local level.”

Rep. Elise Stefanik, House Republican Conference Chair, said the GOP is “proud to be a pro-family conference.”

“There are many of our members who have proposed innovative solutions — one is rural child care. Home-based child care, that’s an issue I’ve worked with many of my colleagues on the Education and Workforce Committee,” Stefanik, of New York, said. “But the economy, the border, crime, these issues, these crises caused by Joe Biden, they impact every family.”