Rhode Island
Lamont won’t say if he’ll ease ‘debt diet’ to make Conn. budget fix work • Rhode Island Current
Since his first weeks on the job, Gov. Ned Lamont has urged his fellow Democrats to embrace a “debt diet” and curb borrowing where possible.
But the administration wouldn’t say this week whether it would back legislative leaders’ plans to borrow to effectively cover operating expenses in the next budget — creating a significant hole to be tackled one year from now.
“Gov. Lamont is committed to an honestly balanced budget in [fiscal year] ’25. Any adjustments that impact any level of funding must ensure the budget remains balanced,” Chris Collibee, the governor’s budget spokesman, told The Connecticut Mirror this week.
At first glance, this answer appears to close off options for Democratic legislators, who want to add $300 million to $400 million to a preliminary $26 billion budget for the next fiscal year that already exceeds the state’s spending cap by $30 million.
But borrowing happens outside of the budget. The same applies to spending federal pandemic relief grants. The majority Democrats’ latest plan to bolster the next state budget beyond what the spending cap allows centers on those two areas. It goes like this:
- Step 1: Identify projects and programs currently paid for with the last vestiges of Connecticut’s $2.8 billion American Rescue Plan Act allocation from Congress.
- Step 2: Replace those ARPA dollars with borrowed funds.
- Step 3: Reassign ARPA dollars to higher education, social services and other core programs.
Emergency federal relief can be spent outside of the spending cap, which tries to keep most expenditure growth in line with changes in household income and inflation.
This approach effectively would circumvent the spending cap and other fiscal principles that Lamont frequently espouses.
But borrowing for ongoing expenses adds an interest cost normally reserved for capital projects.
The administration repeatedly chastised public colleges and university systems this past winter for using ARPA dollars for operating costs rather than for one-time purposes such as paying down debt. Yet this latest Democratic strategy would pump more temporary dollars into ongoing programs.
Lamont recently upgraded his estimate of ARPA dollars available for use next fiscal year from $56 million to $200 million — much closer to the $300 million minimum sought by Democratic legislators.
This week, House Speaker Matt Ritter told the CT Mirror that legislators hoped to replace $75 million in ARPA funds earmarked for municipal school HVAC-system upgrades with $75 million in borrowing.
Does Lamont’s upgraded $200 million ARPA tally reflect this proposed supplanting of pandemic grants with borrowing? Could available ARPA be expanded to $300 million or more by identifying more ARPA-funded projects and instead paying for them by borrowing the money?
“The administration will not comment on what is or is not included [in the ARPA tally] until we have had further conversations with the General Assembly,” Collibee said.
Democrats couldn’t pull off such a swap without the governor’s cooperation, given that any bonding bill would go to Lamont’s desk for a signature.
“I think [Lamont] will be fine,” with Democrats’ plans for the upcoming fiscal year, the speaker said earlier this week. “He may not agree with how we spend it, but I think he’ll agree [with] how we get it.”
When asked if Lamont would sign such a maneuver into law, Collibee wouldn’t say, though he acknowledged it would increase the problems state officials would have to solve next year.
“Minimizing structural holes is always a goal,” Collibee added. “Whatever is agreed to may have to be accounted for in future budgets.”
Lamont has been a vocal advocate for the spending cap and other budget controls that he and other supporters have dubbed the state’s “fiscal guardrails.” These controls have helped state government amass a record-setting $3.3 billion rainy day fund and use an extra $7.7 billion in surpluses to pay down pension debt.
But critics say these controls are forcing the state to save excessively and are dangerously shortchanging core programs.
The University of Connecticut and the Connecticut State Colleges and Universities system both have ordered significant tuition and fee hikes for the next academic year and are planning cutbacks to close deficits. Nonprofit agencies that deliver the bulk of state-sponsored social services say they lose $480 million annually because state payments haven’t kept pace with inflation, leaving them unable to meet demand.
When the CT Mirror published a series in late January demonstrating the impact of huge new state savings policies on core programs, Lamont insisted the guardrails were working fine and that legislators had to make tough-but-necessary spending choices.
Leaders of the Republican minorities in the House and Senate said Thursday that Lamont can’t have it both ways. He can’t be the public champion of the guardrails while facilitating a legislative end-run around the system.
Republicans already are frustrated that Democrats have said they won’t address hundreds of millions of dollars in projected holes in the next state budget, involving eroding sales tax receipts, cost overruns in Medicaid and other programs, and insufficient appropriations to cover required pension fund contributions.
If Lamont helps Democrats borrow for operating expenses, even as they ignore budget holes, the GOP said, it’s a big financial mistake.
“Right now, the governor is a bit of a deer in the headlights, and I think they’re trying to cover up that [ARPA] money,” said House Minority Leader Vincent J. Candelora of North Branford, who predicted state finances will be struggling 12 months from now when ARPA funds have been exhausted. “I don’t foresee a soft landing.”
“It’s bad fiscal policy, and it’s counter to what this governor ran for reelection on two years ago,” said Senate Minority Leader Stephen Harding of Brookfield.
Staff writer Mark Pazniokas contributed to this story.
Connecticut Mirror is a content partner of States Newsroom. Read the original version here.
WARWICK, R.I. (WJAR) — The local community hosted a send-off celebration for Special Olympics Rhode Island athletes on Friday.
Twenty-four athletes, along with partners, coaches, and medical personnel, are traveling to Minneapolis for the 2026 Special Olympics USA Games.
The local community hosted a send-off celebration for Special Olympics Rhode Island athletes on Friday. (WJAR)
Textron hosted the team in a private jet for travel to the games, officials said.
“The USA Games represent months of dedication, hard work, and perseverance for our athletes,” President and CEO of Special Olympics Rhode Island Ed Pacheco said. “Our athletes, Unified partners, and coaches carry with them the hopes and aspirations of achieving gold while representing the very fabric of our great state. This journey would not be possible without Textron, and we are incredibly grateful for their support in creating a once-in-a-lifetime experience for Team Rhode Island as they travel to compete on the national stage.”
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Officials said the 2026 Special Olympics USA Games will be held from Saturday through next Friday.
“They were truly the unrelenting voices of their time, and made sure that this was something that happened because they knew it was important,” Jess Motyl-Szary, director of Rhode Island Pride, said in an interview on Thursday.
The 1976 pride march came after local Bicentennial Committee organizers “refused meeting space for the group of community members hosting the Congress of People with Gay Concerns,” according to research by Matthew Lawrence and published on the Providence Public Library’s website.
“Calling themselves Toward a Gayer Bicentennial Committee, the group sued the official Bicentennial Committee and won the right to assemble at the Old State House, where about 30 people met in June 1976 to discuss civil rights concerns,” according to Lawrence.
But the contingent also had to fight to join the Bicentennial Parade after they were initially denied the right to do so by officials who pointed to the state’s anti-sodomy law at the time, according to Motyl-Szary.
The 76ers “knew that being a part of an existing parade meant there was a little bit of safety there, because it was an existing infrastructure,” Motyl-Szary said.
“But it also meant that there was a much higher visibility for them to be able to be out there, be proud, and show other people who might not have been out that there is a safe space for them,” Motyl-Szary said.
With the assistance of the American Civil Liberties Union, they won the right to march, she said.
“It wasn’t safe to be out in the ’70s,” Motyl-Szary said. “Incredibly great people marched. Some had to march with paper bags on their heads because there were no legal protections to protect their jobs, their home, their families, but [it was] still incredibly brave to go out there, create visibility, and create this organization.
“Being here 50 years later, and being a part of their legacy has been so incredible,” she said.
A lot has changed for LGBTQIA+ Rhode Islanders in the decades since, Motyl-Szary said.
“But the closeness of it still feels relevant because we’re seeing these continued attacks in our community, and a very real resurgence of attacks on the LGBTQIA+ community, especially our trans brothers, sisters, and siblings,” Motyl-Szary said.
Since returning to office last year, the Trump Administration has taken aim at transgender rights across the country, especially after President Donald Trump signed an executive order recognizing two sexes, male and female. Among other actions, Trump has often sought to tie adherence to the order with federal funding requirements, and the administration has also attempted to gather private medical records from hospitals that provided gender-affirming care to transgender children and teens.
Reflecting on what pride means to her right now, Motyl-Szary said pride festivities are new to at least somebody every year.
“Someone is coming and getting to feel this embrace, this huge hug of their community for the first time every year,” she said. “And in a time like this, when our community is being told that we are hated by the rest of our community, by the rest of our country, when we are told we should hate ourselves, coming out and celebrating ourselves, loving ourselves, loving each other is so incredibly important. Our community creates the space that we need.”
Motyl-Szary said she also believes that “queer joy is resistance.”
“There is a real need for us to have a space and a celebration of who we are and to remind ourselves that we are worthy of love and that we are worthy of being a part of a community that gathers, celebrates, and fights for ourselves and our rights,” she said.
Rhode Island Pride kicks off on Friday night with the “Golden Anniversary Eve” party from 6 to 8 p.m. at the 195 District Park in Providence, Motyl-Szary said.
Festivities continue at the park on Saturday with yoga at 10 a.m. and PrideFest entertainment beginning at 11 a.m., alongside approximately 260 vendors, she said. A rally at 2 p.m. will focus on “what’s happening, get people motivated to be involved in [the] community to speak up and be an activist in whatever way is right for their path of activism,” Motyl-Szary said.
The Illuminated Night Parade steps off at 7:30 p.m. at Washington and Empire streets before moving through downtown Providence, according to organizers.
Christopher Gavin can be reached at christopher.gavin@globe.com.
(WJAR) — While Rhode Island prepares for its 50th Pride celebration, many are looking back on the history of the event and remembering the people who launched the movement.
“Being in the first parade in 1976, it was the bicentennial year,” said Billy Mencer Ackerly. “It was absolutely very scary and we didn’t know what was going to happen.”
Mencer Ackerly was among a group of between 70 and 100 people who marched in Providence’s first pride parade in June of 1976, at the time of the nation’s bicentennial celebration.
“People on the sidelines were still looking at us like we just came off of a spaceship,” Mencer Ackerly said. “It was almost like they didn’t believe that we would have enough courage to be able to say who we were.”
Billy Mencer Ackerly was among a group of between 70 and 100 people who marched in Providence’s first pride parade in June of 1976, at the time of the nation’s bicentennial celebration. (WJAR)
For some, it was a chance to come out and be seen. For others, like Billy’s family members who took part in the parade, it was an opportunity to show their support.
“My mother was in a car with two other mothers, and it was driven by a gay guy. And on each side of the car it said, ‘I’m proud to say my child is gay,’” Mencer Ackerly said. “It was the best thing my mother ever did for me.”
But the parade itself was almost shut down before it began.
“They were denied the parade by the police chief who said there would be no parade in providence over his dead body,” retired judge and former civil rights attorney Stephen Fortunato said.
First, the bicentennial commission rejected a proposal to include the pride parade in the bicentennial celebrations.
“They can be gay. I have no qualms about their activity or their private habits. We denied endorsement primarily because their activities do not sufficiently relate to the bicentennial,” said Patrick Conley in 1976. He was the Chairman of the Bicentennial Commission at the time.
Stephen Fortunato, who was a civil rights attorney at the time, took on the case.
“This group was ostracized, hated, discriminated against,” Fortunato said. “These civil rights and civil liberties cases depend on the courage of individual people or groups of people like the gay community at the time.”
Billy Mencer Ackerly’s mother, among other mothers, were in a car that read ‘I’m proud to say my child is gay’ during the first parade.
They took the case to federal court and won, paving the way for not just one parade, but five decades of love, acceptance and visibility.
“This movement is based on love,” said Rodney Davis, the current president of Rhode Island Pride. “I want people to come and experience themselves. Their whole selves, who they are.”
This year, organizers are honoring those who came before as well as the tens of thousands of people who show up every year to continue to carry the torch.
“Our theme for this year is ‘We are the people,’ because without everyone America isn’t America,” Davis said.
NBC 10 asked Davis what he hopes to see in the future.
“I want to get to a point where we don’t have to fight to exist,” Davis said. “It’s gotten better, but it’s not there yet.”
Since 1976, Mencer Ackerly has attended Rhode Island’s Pride celebration nearly every year. This coming weekend, he’s once again looking forward to participating.
“When I’m in the parade, I will also be thinking of all those ’76ers that have passed away over the years and about their bravery and their courage,” Mencer Ackerly said. “And I just believe they’ll be clapping up in heaven and celebrating for all of us.”
This year’s PrideFest kicks off Saturday morning at 10:00 a.m. at District Park in Providence.
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