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February 1, 2008

Carcieri speaks about "historic" state budget proposal

Journal photo / Steve Szydlowski
Governor Carcieri speaks about his plan to decrease general revenue spending in the 2009 fiscal year by 3.8 percent, including reductions in personnel, human services and payments to cities and towns.

PROVIDENCE -- At an afternoon news conference, Governor Carcieri spoke about his $6.88-billion spending plan that aims to close the largest budget deficit in nearly two decades.

“The budget that I am submitting today is historic,” Carcieri said. “It proposes a fiscal year 2009 general revenue spending of $3.272 billion which is a decrease of 3.8 percent, a decrease, let me repeat that, from the ‘08 budget that was enacted by the legislature. This is historic. Nobody can recall … a time when our state has had to do this."

The governor added: "You heard me say we’re at a tipping point. History will be written about Rhode Island at the beginning of the third millennium as either a tale of struggle and decline or a story of hard work and success. I intend it to be the latter and we begin with this budget.”

Carcieri also acknowledged that his budget submission “is just the beginning of a long conversation,” regarding next year’s spending.

“The Legislature will conduct hearings and deliberations on what I have proposed,” he said. “There will be many voices in that conversation.”

Carcieri's 2008-09 budget proposal calls for, among other things, cutting millions from the state’s public college system, diverting hundreds of elderly, disabled and neglected children away from residential programs on a voluntary basis, and freezing state education aid to cities and towns.

Read detailed coverage of the governor's state budget proposal and the executive summary of the budget.

-- With reports from staff writers Cynthia Needham and Steve Peoples of the Journal State House Bureau

Posted by Mike McKinney  at 4:50 PM | Permalink

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