Speaker K. Joseph Shekarchi
At dinner tables in every community, people are talking about rising prices and diminishing access to services. Whether it’s at the grocery store or the doctor’s office, rising costs affect every Rhode Island family, from higher rents to increased child care costs. The state budget recently passed by the Rhode Island House of Representatives addresses rising costs and puts the issue at the forefront. From education and housing to health and human services, the budget makes critical investments to help families, children and seniors lower costs and get the services they need.
First, the budget targets the housing crisis by providing new funding to build more affordable housing and lower housing costs for homeowners and renters. The housing crisis has been decades in the making and won’t be solved overnight, but it can be solved. We asked voters to approve $120 million in additional funding to increase construction of affordable housing and provide stronger supports for people experiencing homelessness.
This powerful investment in lowering housing costs is the largest affordable housing bond in Rhode Island history and builds on legislation passed over the past three years to build more housing and lower home prices. By increasing the construction of affordable housing in our state, we can lower housing costs for everyone.
Second, this budget accelerates our efforts to increase Medicaid reimbursement rates for services to care for our most vulnerable neighbors. We allocate more than $200 million from all sources to fully fund Medicaid and other provider increases for behavioral health, children’s services, and home- and community-based services. These investments will strengthen care for seniors, children, and people with disabilities while raising wages for workers who deliver these critical services. Increasing Medicaid reimbursement rates will stabilize our network of health and human service providers, ensuring these services are available and affordable when people need them, while also ensuring that care workers are paid a fair wage.
Third, the budget strengthens support for quality education from early childhood through primary, secondary and postsecondary education. It fully restores core education funding to Rhode Island public schools and provides an additional $71 million in student learning support, including an increase of $888,688 to Warwick Public Schools in the next fiscal year.
It also includes increased funding for multilingual learners as part of the education funding formula; expands state support to early childhood education, child care, and preschool; directs additional state resources to vocational and technical education, and provides meals to eligible students during school and over the summer.
To support workforce development, we continue to fund tuition-free college education at CCRI and RIC, and asked voters to approve funding to build a Biomedical Sciences Facility at URI and a Cybersecurity Center at RIC. Through these investments, we will expand our commitment to providing Rhode Islanders with free or low-cost educational opportunities at every stage of their learning.
Fourth, the budget allocates additional resources to help seniors affected by rising costs. It provides tax relief to seniors who rely on retirement income, increasing the exemption to $50,000 for qualified single filers and $100,000 for qualified joint filers. It also lifts the suspension of annual cost-of-living adjustments for state pension plan retirees who retired before 2012 and accelerates the timeline for reinstating COLAs for other state retirees. It fully funds Medicaid fee increases for home care and other services that help seniors age with dignity in their communities and remain in their own homes if they choose, and it also increases support for services provided in nursing homes and assisted living facilities.
In addition to addressing rising costs, the state budget passed by the House includes many targeted investments to improve the quality of life for Rhode Islanders, including increased funding for public transportation, an arts bond to support groundbreaking projects, and a green bond to help preserve open space, forests and farmland.
These quality of life investments, combined with our steadfast commitment to budget priorities focused on supporting families, children and seniors, will help make Rhode Island a better place to live for everyone.
K. Joseph Shekarchi, a Democrat from Warwick’s 23rd District, serves as House speaker.
