RI House passes budget in 3 hours

State Reps stand and cheer after unanimously passing the FY2016 budget
State Reps stand and cheer after unanimously passing the FY2016 budget

By Sam Wroblewski 630wpro.com

In a flourish of efficiency, the Rhode Island House of Representatives passed the Fiscal Year 2016 budget in less than three hours.

House Speaker Nicholas Mattiello steered the house representatives through 22 articles, with the longest debate lasting less than 30 minutes.

More remarkably, the budget received the unanimous support of House Republicans passing with 75 votes.

“I know it’s a good budget and I [knew] it was going to be very well received,” said Mattiello.

“We always vet issues before the House, so I’m very pleased we did it as quickly as we did.”

The passage of $8.67 billion budget was also a big victory for Governor Gina Raimondo, whose major proposals passed largely intact – namely the Infrastructure Bank, Medicaid spending cuts, and the majority of her economic growth measures.

The Governor’s tax exemptions for social security, removal of sales tax on energy for businesses, and the lowering of the corporate minimum tax all made it through the House unscathed.

The budget also holds true to Raimondo’s promise of no new taxes; the tax increase for 2016 will be $0.25 added to the cigarette tax.

The longest debate of the night came over a section of Article 11 pertaining to funds set aside for Newport Grand. Republican Representative Patricia Morgan proposed capping the funds to the slot parlor and taking the remainder to fund state employee’s training in lean enterprise practices put in place by the Governor.

Morgan’s amendment was voted down, but she returned again asking to appropriate funds to launch an investigation into 38 Studios. Mattiello ruled Morgan’s amendment was not germane and ended the debate.

“There should’ve been more debate, I don’t know why there wasn’t,” said Morgan “I did my part.”

In total, 11 articles in the budget were passed unanimously.

In the end, Republicans in the House pulled their amendment to appropriate $60 million from the budget to pay for roads and bridges; the Governor’s proposal to borrow $700 million was withheld from the budget vote, but may be brought before the the House for a special vote.

The budget moves to the Senate Finance Committee Wednesday, where it could be brought to the floor for a vote.

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