By Tessa Roy, WPRO News
Attorney General Peter Kilmartin said his main office location in downtown Providence was no longer sufficient, as there was not enough room for staff or enough parking for those seeking services.
“Our IT was woefully outdated, our buildings were cramped and unsecured. We had attorneys sitting at desks and corridors working on big cases like the recently settled federal court DCYF case. We had to do interviews with consumers publicly in the foyer outside of elevators to deal with issues that our office was trying to help those folks resolve,” Kilmartin said of the Providence office at a ribbon cutting for a new Cranston office on Friday.
The Cranston facility will house the Bureau of Criminal Identification (BCI), Consumer Protection Unit (CPU), and Diversion Unit, as well as offer flexible office space for attorneys. Background checks will now be exclusively performed at this building.
Kilmartin’s office said the new facility will “ease congestion” at the Providence location where the BCI office can serve an average of 300-350 people per day. Last year, that BCI office performed about 75,000 state background checks and more than 24,000 national background checks.
The facility is named for former Attorney General Julius C. Michaelson. Kilmartin said multiple times that the $15.4 million building is funded solely through Google settlement funds, not taxpayer money.
The Cranston facility opens officially on July 23.
