State House forecast: prolonged stalemate

In what was billed as an exclusive, WJAR-TV's Bill Rappleye reported last night that Governor Carcieri is giving himself a 30-day deadline for announcing a plan to cut 1000 state jobs.

As it happens, the size of the state workforce and the outlook for Carcieri's efforts to cut it is the topic of a story I have in this week's Phoenix.

For starters:

Already, the stage is set for a court fight over the Carcieri administration’s selection of a private firm, Hurley of America, to replace about 80 state em¬ployees who work as housekeepers at Eleanor Slater Hospital. While the governor’s office says the move — unveiled shortly before Labor Day — will save $13 million over five years, legislative leaders say it violates a measure passed earlier this year that requires more analysis of “all pending awards and pending privatization contracts.”

Since relations remain hostile between Cariceri and the legislature . . .

It won’t be surprising if the Democrat-controlled General Assembly once again pours cold water on the Republican governor’s efforts to cut the state workforce, in part through privatization . . . .
 
A few years ago, Carcieri and legislative leaders worked together to pass a pension reform plan, but that now seems like a long time ago. In the absence of more common ground, Rhode Island may be poised for yet another ugly budget season, raising the specter of a prolonged stalemate for Carcieri’s remaining three-plus years in office.

The state's economic and budget outlook remain lackluster, so . . .

The stakes are high for the Republican governor, particularly considering how he came into office after a campaign touting reform and heightened economic vitality. More than four years later, Carcieri couldn’t have been pleased this week when a poll by Brown University’s Darrell West showed that his approval rating has taken a sharp hit since the start of the year — falling from 59 percent to 44 percent.
 
More ominously, the poll found that only 31 percent of Rhode Islanders (down from 50 percent in January) think the state is headed in the right direction.
 
Such tidings are clearly unwelcome for any elected official. And while the 2010 gubernatorial election still remains a long way off, this rising level of dissatisfaction, if sustained, could help Rhode Island Democrats to regain the governor’s office for the first time since Bruce Sundlun yielded the reins in the mid-’90s.
 
For now, the larger implication — that Rhode Island, at a time when many states are flush with surpluses, can’t get its fiscal house in order — is bad enough.