Over at Anchor, Don gets the broad strokes right in this post:

As someone who has led corporate turnarounds for nearly 20 years and has read extensively on what it takes to lead successful change initiatives, it is appalling how little progress has been made to effect real change in the face of the current crisis here in RI. It's not like these structural problems are a new development!

One of my favorite authors on leadership and change is Harvard Business School professor John Kotter. He has been writing for years about the topic of leading change and is a world authority on the subject. More on his books can be found here.

For the last decade, Kotter has been writing extensively on what he calls the "Eight Step Process of Successful Change." Here is an excerpt from his "Iceberg" book, a book which uses a fable to describe what it takes to realize successful change. Easily accessible to the layperson, I recommend reading it.

Set the Stage

1. Create a sense of urgency: Help others see the need for change and the importance of acting immediately.

2. Pull together the guiding team: Make sure there is a powerful group guiding the change - one with leadership skills, credibility, communications ability, authority, analytical skills, and a sense of urgency.

Decide What to Do

3. Develop the change vision and strategy: Clarify how the future will be different from the past, and how you can make that future a reality.

Make it Happen

4. Communicate for understanding: Make sure as many others as possible understand and accept the vision and strategy.

5. Empower others to act: Remove as many barriers as possible so that those who want to make the vision a reality can do so.

6. Produce short-term wins: Create some visible, unambiguous successes as soon as possible.

7. Don't let up: Press harder and faster after the first successes. Be relentless with initiating change after change until the vision is a reality.

Make It Stick

8. Create a new culture: Hold on to the new ways of behaving, and make sure they succeed, until they become strong enough to replace old traditions.

As we all reflect on the severe crisis here in RI, one of the most disconcerting conclusions is how RI is currently 0-for-8 in moving in the right direction.

State budget is out of whack and the local economy is sucking wind? Check.

Dems run the show in the legislature, and Republicans can't get a foothold? Check.

Quintessential boondoggle involving dubious activity (around the Central Landfill)? Check.

Corruption trial? Check.

Just another day . . .

This from a release touting URI economist Leonard Lardaro's latest tracking data:

The year 2008 continues to be a nightmare for Rhode Island’s economy. The Index remains at 8 for March, pointing to a second and deeper recession phase. Fifty is a neutral value—anything below that represents contraction, while anything above it represents expansion.

It's not surprising that the latest state revenue estimates have come in lower than previously expected, but this hardly makes it easier to contend with the situation. Here's the heart of Steve Peoples's report today:

Until yesterday, Governor Carcieri had officially anticipated a budget deficit of $384 million for the fiscal year that begins in July. He had already submitted a plan to close the massive gap, which accounts for 11 percent of state spending.

A group of budget analysts, however, determined yesterday that weak tax collections — led by declining sales-tax revenues — caused the state’s financial hole to grow by between $50 million and $55 million. ....

The election-year debate over the midyear spending plan raged for much of the last month. But it might pale in comparison to the debate over how to close a budget hole nearly three times larger for the coming fiscal year. That question will consume Smith Hill for the next seven weeks.

We're at a point where Governor Carcieri, legislative leaders, and A.T. Wall, director of the state Department of Corrections, basically agree on the need to expand treatment options for non-violent criminal offenders. Doing so is smart policy and more cost-effective than keeping such criminals warehoused at the ACI. Yet making progress on this front remains difficult, as Te-Ping Chen writes in this week's Phoenix:

It was after midnight, and Dawn Jacques lay sleepless in her cell at the Adult Correctional Institutions, shuddering. Bathed in sweat, she stared at the ceiling for hours until it blurred. When the occasional wave of nausea ran through her, she lurched toward the toilet, vomiting.

It could have been the first time she was incarcerated or the tenth. Jacques, a 31-year-old from Cranston, has been addicted to heroin and in and out of jail for 10 years, and the long nights of withdrawal were the same every time.

“It felt like I was going to die,” Jacques says. Jail made her feel “miserable,” she says, “like [she] had no choice but to keep using.” And upon leaving prison, that’s exactly what she would do: return to the streets and start shooting up again.

Across the state, Jacques’s story is a familiar one. America’s drug war has devolved into a domestic quagmire, costing $500 billion without discernible success. Yet while a wealth of studies indicate that treating addicts is more cost-effective than incarcerating them, access to treatment remains limited in many states, including Rhode Island. In fact, according to data from the US Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, Rhode Island has the second-highest rate of addicts that need treatment but don’t receive it.

Not surprisingly, the state prison system is feeling the crush. Since 1976, the ACI’s population has exploded by 457 percent, with what Department of Corrections Director A.T. Wall calls an “ever-increasing number of offenders with substance abuse problems being swept [in]” — and with similar cost increases for the state. Today, 70 percent of ACI inmates report substance abuse problems (mostly heroin, alcohol, and cocaine). And without treatment, the majority of these offenders who are released will end up imprisoned again.

Renaissance Man Robert Healey, the leader of the Cool Moose Party in Rhode Island, knows just how tough it is to build an alt-party. In 2002, I wrote about the challenges facing alternative parties.

Healey, 45, who is still hailed by strangers on the street as "Cool Moose" and "the Moose Guy," is currently running for lieutenant governor on a platform of abolishing the office. Regardless of the outcome, this will mark the last campaign of the Cool Moose Party since state law requires that a party must receive five percent of the presidential or gubernatorial vote, or a petition with the signatures of five percent of those who voted in the last gubernatorial election, to remain on the ballot.

Without a dramatic shift in the fabric of American politics, Healey doesn't expect third-party candidates to make significant inroads in his lifetime, "but that doesn't mean you should stop trying."

So while voters, at least according to a RIC poll released this week, have caught up with his idea of abolishing the LG's office, it's not particularly surprising that Healey sees Ken Block's Moderate Party as facing less than a highly impactful future.

Asked about this during a taping this morning of WPRI/WNAC-TV's Newsmakers, Healey praised Block for getting involved in the civic process, but when pressed, he acknowledged that alt-parties are whistling in the wind.

House Minority Leader Bob Watson and Terry Gorman of RIILE also appear on the show, which will be broadcast Sunday, at 5:30 am on Channel 12 and at 10 am on Fox 64. (Ramon Martinez from Progreso Latino was invited to appear, but couldn't make it.)

As I report in my story on the RI blogosphere, Matt Jerzyk, the leading light of the Rhode Island's Future blog, is looking to sell it. Matt, who is about to graduate from Roger Williams Law School (and as I note in my piece, is a friend and a Phoenix contributor), elaborated this way:

For me, I have given 3 years of my life to getting RI Future off the ground and I am ready to pass the torch sometime in the near future. In fact, I have been talking with interested parties about selling the blog. Ideally, I would like to sell it to someone who will maintain the character and the integrity of the blog. 

 

My goal is to be able to leave the blog and to have nothing change. To accomplish this, I have been trying to find new writers who can reduce my posting workload (shameless plug: contact me if you want to write!) . . . .

 

I am open to all possibilitites with regard to the future of Rhode Island's future. I have heard suggestions ranging from an outright sale to another media organization to the formation of a cooperative of current writers and friends in the progressive community to the idea of a young entrepreneur or current blogger who wants to pick up where I left off. I am currently in "listening" mode and trying to figure out a solution that will be best for RI Future and the progressive blogosphere as a whole.

From Rhode Island College:

The survey was conducted between April 17-28, 2008 and sampled 400 randomly selected registered voters for a 4.5 percent margin of error. The sample was drawn reflecting voter contribution by geographic region in recent statewide elections.

 

Gov. Donald Carcieri submitted several cost cutting proposals, which the House of Representatives responded to last week. Designed to begin to address Rhode Island’s fiscal crisis, RIC’s latest survey tapped into public sentiment on proposals under consideration at the State House. In the face of the most serious fiscal predicament since the banking crisis of the early 1990s, Rhode Islanders favor welfare cuts and a merger of Rhode Island College and CCRI, but are lukewarm to other actions to close the budget gap.   

      

The survey showed Rhode Islanders support only three of the 10 budget cutting proposals tested in the survey. The study found:

 

• Overwhelming agreement to the governor’s proposal to reduce the maximum amount of time a family can remain on welfare.

• Major support for the elimination of the office of Lieutenant Governor, a proposal that has not been previously floated by government officials.

• Considerable agreement that Rhode Island College and CCRI should be merge to reduce expenses.

 

Respondents were divided nearly equally on two items:

 

• About one in two supported round-the-clock gambling in Newport and Lincoln, while an almost identical number opposed it.

• Nearly half opposed massive state employee layoffs, while a similar number favored them.

 

The sample was closely divided on three items:  

 

• Slightly more than half disagree with the proposal to release early well behaved, non sex-offender prisoners from the ACI, while four in 10 favor the proposal

• Just over half oppose privatization as a method for cutting the state workforce; about forty percent are in favor.

• About half are against RIte Care cuts, while one-third support them. 

 

Cuts in state aid to CCRI, RIC,and URI, or to cities and did not find favor with the electoral:

• More than eight out of 10 surveyed disagree with the proposal to cut $17.1 million from the budget of CCRI, RIC, and URI; only about one in 10 favored the idea

• Two in three opposed cuts in state aid to cities and towns for non education purposes 

 

“In this time of fiscal crisis for our state, it is critical that decision makers have information available from their bosses, the Rhode Island public,” said Victor Profughi, political scientist and director of the survey.

Labor activist Patrick Crowley, who's been on the warpath lately against Governor Carcieri (Pat, we suspect, would say it's the other way around), sends word of this rally:

Community Activists, Organized Labor and Religious Leaders Will Join In Calling On State Leaders To Promote Economic Justice For All Rhode Islanders

                       

What:Thousands of people – including community activists, organized labor, religious leaders and hard-working Rhode Islanders – will march through Providence to the State House to attend a rally promoting economic justice for all Rhode Islanders.

 

When:  Friday, May 2nd 4

4:00 pm: Photo Opportunity: Westin Ballroom, March to State House

5:00 pm Rally

 

Where: RI State House Lawn

 82 Smith Street, Providence, RI 02903

 

Who: Master of Ceremony:

George Nee

Secretary/Treasurer, Rhode Island AFL-CIO

           

Speaking Program:

Paul Booth

AFSCME National Organizing Director

           

Sarita Gupta

Executive Director, National Jobs with Justice

 

Bob Walsh

Executive Director, NEA RI

Secretary-Treasurer, Working RI

           

Roxana Rivera

SEIU Local 615 Commercial Division Director

           

Why: The country is on the brink of recession and Rhode Island is in the midst of an economic crisis. How we move forward together out of this crisis will impact every Rhode Islander and will impact how communities across the country move forward.

 

On May 2nd, we will unite around a vision of Rhode Island that will protect and promote the dignity of every Rhode Islander. We will unite around a vision of a state that honors and respects hard work. We will fight for economic justice for all Rhode Islanders.

Grow Smart RI does a lot of good work in helping to preserve the best of the state's distinctive character, so Scott Wolf and his crew want you to know about the group's May 2 Power of Place Summit, for which registration closes next Tuesday, April 29, at noon.

Our inaugural Power of Place Summit in 2006 drew nearly 500 opinion leaders, state and local officials, academics, development professionals, investors, journalists and citizen activists for the launch of Rhode Island’s new smart growth oriented state land-use plan. There are now encouraging examples all across our state of how some of the plan’s long-term strategies and recommendations are being embraced and implemented to the benefit of our communities and future generations. Yet other key objectives - such as reducing our state’s over-reliance on the local property tax, better integrating our transportation system with desired development goals and targeting more of our state investment dollars to energy efficient urban, town and village centers - remain daunting challenges that keep us from reaching our potential.

This upcoming Summit will take a closer look at how the growth and development choices we make today will impact our economy, quality places, public health, environment, the efficiency of state and local government and the taxes we pay. We’ll look at what’s working and what needs to be improved to grow our innovation economy, revitalize our walkable centers, ensure agricultural viability, promote healthy community design and reduce global warming pollution, among other key goals for a prosperous and sustainable future.

Click HERE for the Detailed Program

Highlights:

• Morning Keynote Speaker: Bruce Katz, Founder and Director of the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution "The Blueprint for American Prosperity" 
  
  
• Panel Response from Governor Carcieri (invited), Mayor Cicilline, Economist Richard Seline and Grow Smart Executive Director Scott Wolf
  
  
• Lunchtime Keynote Address: Patrick MacRoy, Executive Director, Alliance for Healthy Homes, Washington, DC - "The Connection between Public Health & the Built Environment"
  
  
• A total of 24 workshop on everything from Smart Economic Development, Place-Making and Renewable Energy to Low Impact Development, Tax Increment Financing and LEED-ND

In the course of my habitual channel-surfing, N4N moves on when I find ultimate fighting, rather than Roadhouse, on Spike TV. However, Paul Wachter's recent New York Times Magazine profile of ultimate fighter Shad Smith was nothing less than fascinating.

Shortly after he was released from California’s Avenal State Prison in early 2005, Shad Smith got a call from the organizers of an underground fight club called Felony Fights. Was he available? they asked. “I was just out of prison and out of money,” Smith told me recently. He was incarcerated for failing to comply with the probation terms of an earlier D.U.I. conviction, a relatively minor offense in his long criminal résumé. “They said they’d give me 800 bucks to show up and double that if I won.”

Most fighters who appear in Felony Fights are ex-convicts, but few are professionals. Smith was: he fought in sanctioned bouts for King of the Cage and several other second-tier mixed-martial-arts organizations that have sprung up in the past few years. For Smith, taking on an untrained, would-be tough guy seemed like easy money. ....

Smith is gay, and I know of no other professional fighter who is openly so. “I was always scared that my mom and dad would find out and wouldn’t like me, and my brothers wouldn’t like me,” he said. “I was petrified, because I didn’t want anyone to find out. And I would try to be the toughest person around. That way, no one would suspect, no one would ever say it, no one would think it.”

Anyway, BeloBlog reports that RI is moving closer to embracing ultimate fighting.

A modest proposal might involve installing the octagon under the State House dome.

Last week, when I took part in a taping of A Lively Experiment, Ron St. Pierre asked whether it was wrong for state lawmakers to take a spring break with the state facing such dire fiscal problems. Lou Pulner offered the best response, describing how the traditional last-minute passage of a cascade of legislation poses a greater concern.

Now, House Finance, on the second day after the legislative break, says it is expected to vote today on the supplemental budget. While a small number of individuals controlling the process is status quo on Smith Hill, it hardly seems to offer the chance for thorough consideration of the budget. 

STATE HOUSE – The House Finance Committee is expected to vote on the supplemental budget (2008-H 7204) for the 2008 fiscal year this evening. The committee is scheduled to meet today, April 22, at the rise of the House session (likely sometime after 5 p.m.) in Room 35 in the basement of the State House. The committee has canceled all other business it had planned for today.

 

The committee is also scheduled to take up numerous bills this week at hearings at 1 p.m. on Wednesday and Thursday. On Wednesday at the rise of the House session, the committee will hold a hearing on the status, outlook and prospects for Veterans’ Memorial Auditorium. All hearings will be held in Room 35.

Steve Peoples elaborates today on the pension and tax proposal discussed by state Senator Stephen Alves during his appearance last weekend on 10 News Conference, while also describing the sharp reaction. And while it's understandable that George Nee, for example, wants to be a part of this conversation sooner rather than later, the pushback (which was keenly anticipated by Jim Taricani during Sunday's show) underlies the difficulty of delivering change in Rhode Island.

First, the concepts:

While Alves would not release a draft of the [pension] bill yesterday, he provided a written summary of proposed changes for municipal employees with less than 10 years in the system:

• Police and firefighters must be 55 years old with at least 25 years of service to qualify for a full pension.

• Non-public safety employees must be at least 59 years old with 29 years of service or 65 with 10 years of service to qualify for a full pension.

• Annual pension increases would be capped at a simple 3 percent each year.

• Retiree health-care benefits would begin only at age 55, while coverage would expire when the retiree becomes eligible for Medicare.

And this:

At the same time, he plans to introduce a separate bill that would raise the minimum corporate tax from $500 to $5,000 on a tiered basis. Only companies that gross more than $10 million annually would have to pay $5,000.

“These are some large companies,” Alves said. “I don’t think $5,000 is that onerous.”

An analysis by the Senate fiscal office suggests that the tax increase would apply to less than a quarter of corporate filers who pay the minimum and could generate $10.1 million, which would be distributed to cities and towns.

Now the reaction:

“On the business tax competitiveness front, Rhode Island ranks 50 out of 50 states — dead last for two years in a row,” said Laurie White, president of the Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce, citing data from the Tax Foundation’s 2007 Business Tax Climate Index. “This proposal does not move the needle in the right direction.”

And AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer George Nee blasted the pension proposal as “offensive” and “an unnecessary reach.”

“I think that it would have been much more helpful and respectful if there had been a dialogue and a discussion with the parties that are affected by this before a proposal was just thrown out,” he said. “These are obvious serious issues; they affect the taxpayers, but they also affect peoples’ retirements and economic future.”

Jim Taricani and Bill Rappleye had an interesting extended conversation with state Senator Stephen D. Alves, chairman of Senate Finance, during the 10 News Conference broadcast yesterday morning.

Among the highlights:

-- Alves says he has not been interviewed by the FBI in relation to Operation Dollar Bill and has not received a "target letter" concerning the investigation.

-- Despite the anticipated pushback from labor, Alves expects growing support for pension reform, due to the severity of the costs facing the state.

-- Alves, who was criticized for a proposal to increase a tax on businesses, says it would affect less than a quarter of the businesses operating in Rhode Island. He called it a minimum fixed tax that represents a very small amount for large corporations.

Is "illegal immigrant" or "undocumented immigrant" the best way to describe the folks getting so much attention these days in Rhode Island?

Representative Peter Palumbo (D-Cranston) and Fred Ordonez of Progreso Latino, not surprisingly, offered different views on that and other facets of the immigration debate during a taping this morning of WPRI/WNAC-TV's Newsmakers. The show will be broadcast on Sunday, at 5:30 am on Channel 12 and at 10 am on Fox 64.

Also appearing is Elizabeth Burke Bryant, executive director of Rhode Island Kids Count.

Speaking of Chafee, he has declined to sign on with the Moderate Party of Rhode Island, main Moderate Ken Block tells me, but Block has enlisted the backing of former attorney general Arlene Violet, my regular co-panelist on Newsmakers.

In hindsight, I was a bit too quick to dismiss Block's effort when I wrote last November about why RI Republicans fail. As he explains it, drawing people to the center, and away from the ideological extremes, could help to focus energy on the state's top problems. It's worth a shot, and if he encourages more people to run for office, that's good, too.

I offer a short look at Block's ongoing efforts in this week's Phoenix:

Block, a Barrington resident who owns a Warwick software company, says he’s long been frustrated by the shortcomings of the local status quo, in which Republicans don’t offer a viable alternative and legislative Democrats operate with a lack of accountability. As a businessman with elderly parents and school-age children, Block, a self-described centrist, says neither party adequately addresses his various concerns.
 
If his nascent Moderate Party could pull enough people into the center, he reasons, it could have an impact, helping to put some pressure on the ruling Democrats.
 
While efforts to develop third parties have had little success amid America’s two-party duopoly, a poll recently commissioned by Block, among other results, found that 78 percent of the respondents felt that neither major political party represents their views on the way state government should be run.
 
Seventy-four percent of the respondents said they would be supportive of a new moderate political party that was “not beholden to the state’s labor unions and special interest of the left or in lock step support of Republicans on the right.”
 
The Moderate Party of Rhode Island (moderate-ri.org) advocates the immediate adoption of five core principles:

• Toughen ethics laws and employment agreements to make our elected, appointed and employed state officials far more accountable for their actions.

• Stop spending money that is not well spent.

• Induce businesses to locate to Rhode Island by bringing RI's business taxes in line with Massachusetts’ business taxes.

• Bring the total compensation packages (including wages, benefits, pension amounts and pension eligibility) for state employees in line with what private sector workers earn.

• Produce a balanced budget by reducing spending and waste and by not relying on one-time gimmicks like selling tobacco settlement funds or revenue anticipation bonds.
 
Block says he is focused on raising awareness about the Moderate Party, attracting support from such individuals as former attorney general Arlene Violet, and starting a related political action committee. In time, he hopes to establish the Mods as a state-sanctioned political party, an effort that would require the gathering of a number of signatures equal to five percent of the voting in the last gubernatorial election.

The bit about compensation packages may be more complicated than some believe, as Brian J. Jones wrote about here. But Block seems motivated by a sincere call to public-minded civic action -- and you can't knock that.

It's not a big surprise that the Providence FOP, as Buddy Cianci reports, is backing Governor Carcieri's executive order on immigration -- in direct contrast to the stance taken by Dean Esserman.

For his part, Cianci agrees with those who describe the focus on illegal immigration as misplaced. "People want an excuse," he said this morning. "They blame the illegal immigration," which, as Cianci noted, is a relatively small influence in Rhode Island's $450 million budget deficit.

Returning today to the ProJo's op-ep page, Justin makes the case that economic flight is one of the most dire problems facing Rhode Island, and that a fix is needed, pronto.

First, the problem:

• Almost 30,000 fewer Rhode Islanders lived in households earning over three times the poverty level (around $60,000 for a family of four) in 2006 than 2005 (U.S. Census American Community Survey).

• Over that same period, married-with-children households earning more than $100,000 or more a year decreased by 1,033.

• According to tax returns filed in 2005 and 2006 (based on income from 2004 and 2005), Rhode Island lost, on a net basis, 8,296 taxpayers, with an aggregate adjusted gross income totaling $485 million, over those two years (IRS Migration Data). ...

If the trends portrayed in the latest available data have continued, Rhode Island has been losing around 1 percent of its tax-paying population every year since 2004, and those who’ve fled have taken a quarter billion dollars of income with them annually. Stopping this flight must become state and local governments’ Number 1 objective.

One simple solution is to make Rhode Island a more attractive place to live by decreasing the cost of living here (i.e., lowering taxes) and increasing the incentive for businesses to open up shop. Therefore, seeking to drain more tax revenue from commerce and layering taxes on corporations, both of which are “on the table” at the General Assembly, borders on dementia.

A clear consequence of lowering taxes, at least near-term, is that revenue will slip even further below spending. Compensating by taxing the rich more would simply tip the capsizing boat the other way. In 2003, the $75,000-$200,000 and $200,000-plus categories each paid around 35 percent of the total income-tax liability for the state. As the former’s percentage has dropped, the latter’s has increased to over 40 percent. As reluctant as we all may be to take taxpayer-funded services and other public-sector benefits away from those who’ve come to rely on them, our budget must be balanced entirely from the spending column.

Besides Frank J. Williams, Representatives Art Handy (D-Cranston) and Joe Trillo (R-Warwick) also appear on Newsmakers this weekend (Sunday, 5:30 am on Channel 12, 10 am on Fox 64), for a discussion of the state budget and Handy's much-discussed proposal.

You can expect where this comes down: Handy says his plan would benefit most Rhode Islanders and slightly diminish the bite of property taxes, while Trillo says Rhode Islanders are already overtaxed and that any further tax hikes should be avoided.

Frank J. Williams, chief justice of the Rhode Island Supreme Court, who wields enormous power and has a lifetime appointment, maintains that sufficient measures are in place to hold him accountable. He made the statement during a taping this morning of WPRI/WNAC-TV's Newsmakers.

I noted that electing judges, as is the case in some other states, seems like a flawed process, but that two of the most powerful men in state government -- House Speaker William J. Murphy and Senate President Joseph Montalbano -- face election in their districts every two years. So is there a sufficient counterpoint to his authority, I wondered.

Williams responded by agreeing that electing judges is a bad concept, since it injects fundraising into the process. He said the current setup, such as the opportunity for complaints to be examined by the Rhode Island Commission on Judicial Tenure and Discipline, is adequate and that he is held accountable.

Of course, it was adverse publicity that led Williams a few years ago to scrap his personal Web site, which had promoted his availability for speaking engagements and listed a court employee as his point of contact.

Asked about the controversial and costly bird sounds at the Kent County Courthouse, the chief justice said he would have preferred to seen the money spent on technology or security. In calling the courts a small part of the state budget, he defended plans for an eventual $71 million Blackstone Valley courthouse and the opposition of judges to pension cuts.

Williams said he would like to see more court interpreters, rather than fewer. While newcomers to the US should learn English, democracy is diminished, he said, when the access to the courts of recent immigrants is hindered by a lack of interpreters.

Governor Carcieri entered a long-running debate about the value of the early-education program Head Start this week. Here's what he said in a story yesterday by the ProJo's Steve Peoples:

“Show me empirical evidence that Head Start has done anything,” he said. “I think it’s been the biggest waste of money, frankly.”

I took a quick look via Google to seek indications of Head Start's impact. There are a lot of positive reviews, but also some more critical ones. At minimum, considering the research, the governor engaged in a rhetorical over-reach. (The US Department of Health and Human Services has a detailed look at the research here.)

Here's one of the positive reviews that I found:

The Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (FACES) is a longitudinal study, meaning the same group of children (cohort) is folowed over several years. FACES provides key findings related to children’s outcomes and program quality. FACES proves Head Start’s ability to help narrow the gap between disadvantaged children and other children in the areas of education and social behavior. According to the survey, most children entering Head Start had early academic skills that were below national norms. However, by the end of the program, Head Start children showed gains in vocabulary, early math, writing skills, and other literacy-related areas. Head Start children also showed growth in their social skills which better prepares them for cooperative classroom learning.

Not only has Head Start proven to help children early in their schooling, it also has an effect on their later schooling as well. According to an issue brief (pdf) drafted by the National Head Start Association, “Reliable studies have found that Head Start children have increased achievement test scores and that they experience favorable long-term effects on grade repetition, special education, and graduation rates.”

Here's another:

A recent rigorous national evaluation of the impact of Head Start on three- and four-year-olds, the Head Start Impact Study, found gains for Head Start children in pre-reading, pre-writing, vocabulary and literacy skills.¹ Children assigned to participate in Head Start also had fewer behavior problems, better overall physical health, less hyperactivity, and more access to dental care. More positive effects were found for children who entered the program as three-year olds than as four-year olds.² Another study found that four-year olds participating in Head Start did better in receptive language and phonemic awareness than four-year olds of similar backgrounds who were wait-listed for the Head Start program.³ Other studies find that children who attended Head Start are more likely to stay in school, and have lower rates of grade retention in early elementary school.⁴ Head Start participants were also more likely to have been fully immunized⁵ and to have better access to health care.⁶

Head Start programs may also have benefits for the parents of the children attending. In comparison to a group of families with similar backgrounds, parents of children attending such programs are more likely to report good health and safety practices than are parents of children not attending.⁷ First-year findings from the National Head Start Impact study also found that parents of children attending Head Start were more likely to read to their children frequently, less likely to use physical punishment, and more likely to engage in educational activities with their children. However, in this study, parents were not significantly more likely to use better safety practices.⁸

The Heritage Foundation says this:

Since its inception, there has been controversy over Head Start's effectiveness. Early research from the Westinghouse Learning Corporation in 1969 showed cognitive gains of the program's participants faded away within a few grades, at which point the cognitive abilities of Head Start participants are indistinguishable from their nonparticipating peers.

In 1985, the Head Start Synthesis Project, a meta-analysis of over 210 studies and reports, found:

Children enrolled in Head Start enjoy significant, immediate gains in cognitive test scores, socioemotional test scores, and health status. In the long run, cognitive and socio-emotional test scores of former Head Start students do not remain superior to those of disadvantaged children who did not attend Head Start.

A few studies indicated that Head Start participants were less likely to be enrolled in special education or to be held back a grade. Head Start students also received more dental and health screenings.

The Goldwater Institute says:

[T]he Head Start Impact Study—in which children who attended the program are being compared with those who did not—began in 2002 and is continuing. Its control group is made up of children who could not get into the program because all the slots were filled after a lottery, explained Nicholas Zill, the director of the Child and Family Study Area at Westat, a Rockville, Md.-based research organization.

Initial results released in 2005 showed “modest” gains for the Head Start children in pre-reading, pre-writing, and vocabulary skills. But improvements were not found in oral-comprehension or math skills. Results after the children’s kindergarten year are being analyzed and will be released later this year.

Officials with the Bush administration noted that the preliminary findings showed that children in the program still lag behind their peers, while Head Start advocates used the results to boast that the children are making progress.

Matt takes a look at the front of today's ProJo's State House tax-issue coverage and sees a not-so-subtle division:

Anyone notice the stark contrast on the front page of today's BeloJo? 

In one corner we have MEN IN SUITS who are longtime advocates for lowering taxes on the richest millionaires and corporate tycoons at the expense of health care and child care!

In the other corner we have WOMEN & CHILDREN who desperately want to save a program that helps poor kids have equal opportunities for early childhood development.

Who will win this historic battle? 

Analysts say that even though the WOMEN & CHILDREN turned out many more supporters, the MEN IN SUITS have connections where it counts: at the top (and they're not afraid of paying off the refs!).

Stay tuned!

Lost in much of the attention to devoted to Twin River's lien issues is how Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick's casino plan has been soundly defeated. It remains to be seen where this issue goes from here in our neighbor to the north (Patrick is continuing related studies), but at least for now, there's less immediate worry for competition for one of RI's leading revenue sources.

Former Cranston Mayor Steve Laffey says he'd outflank legislative Democrats, if elected governor, by making far more effective use of the bully pulpit than Governor Carcieri. The Republican, who emitted a loud laugh when I noted that he's expected to run for governor in 2010, made the comment during a taping this morning of WPRI/WNAC-TV's Newsmakers.

For the record, Laffey told me, off-camera, that he's not ready to divulge his plans for 2010.

Yet in response to my question during our taping, he pointed to how he mobilized citizens during his time as mayor in Cranston, and says that he would do the same thing if he were in the governor's office. The galvanization of the public, he says, would be sufficient to have an impact on the majority Democrats in the General Assembly.

Laffey seemed in campaign-mode, talking up the state's budget problems and quickly changing the subject when I asked about the source of the foreclosure crisis, and whether it's due to a regulatory failure. (He said he could talk all day about the federal government's role in economic bubbles, but turned the subject back to the state.)

Earlier in Governor Carcieri's tenure, it seemed as if his communication skills would help to advance his political agenda. Now, though, the governor appears bogged down and it's open to question if things will improve, particularly with a likely growing amount of staff departures, before he leaves office in 2011. When previously asked on Newsmakers about his inability to outflank legislative Dems, Carcieri has pointed to the paucity of Republicans in the General Assembly.

Also joining Steve Aveson, Arlene Violet, and myself were URI economist Leonard Lardaro, and, in a separate segment, Teny Gross, executive director of the Institute for the Study & Practice of Nonviolence. Newsmakers is broadcast Sunday, at 5:30 am on Channel 12 and at 10 am on Fox 64.

In a lighter moment before we began taping, Laffey indicated he got a chuckle out of my recent bit describing his uncanny similarities to muckraker Greg Palast.

From URI's Leonard Lardaro:

The Current Conditions Index for January 2008 tied its lowest value ever, 8. That means the Index has been in the contracting range for the sixth consecutive month. The last time the Index posted an expanding value was July at 58. There is one inescapable conclusion — Rhode Island fell into recession in 2007.

It was just a matter of time until Bill Lynch jumped on this:

PAWTUCKET- Rhode Island Democratic Party Chairman Bill Lynch called upon Gov. Don Carcieri today to explain exactly where he intends to find the money to pay for two high-priced communications directors, at a time when the state is being choked by a nearly half-billion-dollar deficit.

 

Lynch was referring to Carcieri’s Friday announcement that Kass would be the new spokesperson for the Rhode Island Emergency Management Agency, a move originally reported in the media as a transfer from the Governor’s Office payroll, to the EMA. On Saturday the Carcieri administration said Kass was not being transferred; rather, he was being loaned to the EMA to help improve communications efforts. A Carcieri spokesperson said half of Kass’ salary would be covered by federal emergency management grants, a detail that was refuted by an EMA official familiar with the federal grant process.

 

“The truth is the governor has absolutely no idea how to pay for Mr. Kass and Mr. Robitaille’s salaries,” Lynch said in a release Monday. “Unless he intends on creating another new position in state government then one of these two gentlemen need to be let go because Rhode Islanders can ill-afford another high-priced message maven whose only purpose seems to be inflating the governor’s ego,” Lynch said.

 

“The governor is wrong to be playing politics with emergency management. I understand he wants to find a way to keep his pals on the state payroll, but even the man who heads up the EMA in Rhode Island admitted Kass knew nothing about emergency management. His brazen disregard for the people who actually pay these obnoxious salaries is appalling and another indication of just how out of touch this governor has become,” Lynch said.

Dan Yorke was wondering aloud about this yesterday, using a bit from from Star Wars (the Jedi mind trick scene, in which Obi-Wan smoothes his crew's way past a storm trooper) as an analogy for how Governor Carcieri backs down on specific budget cuts once particular interest groups raise a fuss. 

The news today that Steve Kass is sliding into a $126,541 job at the Rhode Island Emergency Management Agency is likely to raise more of the same questions.

When we had the governor on Newsmakers a few weeks back, I asked him how much responsibility he bears for not being able to better outflank legislative Democrats. Carcieri responded, tellingly, by pointing to the meager number of GOP legislators. It was a non-answer.

Now, even sympathetic observers such as Yorke are making the same point: without more effective tactics, Carcieri risks not having much more to show for his efforts when he rides off into the sunset in 2010.

Anchor Rising's Andrew has a detailed report on yesterday's state budget conversation at Brown, presenting the bulleted points of the participants. Here's an excerpt:

Gary Sasse (Director of the Rhode Island Department of Revenue) classified the Rhode Island budget into 3 main silos...

1. Personnel and government operations, $950 million.
2. Entitlements, including Medicaid, $1 billion.
3. State aid, 80% going towards education, $1.1 billion.

He offered observations on all three silos…

• Government needs to be redesigned and made to work smarter. The Governor's proposed budget will reduce the state workforce to 14,800 FTEs (Note: down from 15,688.7, according to this year's official state budget document).
• Medicare needs to be made more efficient, especially in moving long-term care away from institutional settings wherever possible.
• Schools are being "held harmless", i.e. level funded, for the time being.

Sasse claimed that, if adopted as is, the Governor's proposed budget will get the structural budget deficit down to $12-$20 million by 2012.

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Linda Katz (Policy Director, Rhode Island Poverty Institute) observed that 21 states are also facing budget crises, so Rhode Island is not alone. She suggested places to look to for enhancing revenues...

1. Reverse the recent tax cuts (capital gains, flat tax for higher income taxpayers).
2. Look closely at tax expenditures.
3. Modernize the sales tax, especially to include more household services.

Rhode Island has already cut back on programs that help lower income people, by placing caps on eligibility for eligibility to Rite care and subsidized child care; that is not a place to make further cuts.

Katz agreed that Medicare reform is needed and that government needs to be made more efficient. But cuts that ultimately take money out of the healthcare economy can have negative ripple effects.

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Paul Choquette (Chairman, Gilbane, Inc) used two phrases to describe the Rhode Island budget crisis…

• The Perfect Storm
• The chickens coming home to roost.

Rhode Island's population is declining. 1% of the wealthiest filers pay 40% of the income tax. We've increased spending at twice the rate of inflation over the past 10 years. 15% of the Rhode Island workforce is employed by the government. The Tax Foundation says our business climate is worst in the nation; CNBC says 48th. RIPEC says RI is 7 out of 50 in total tax burden.

What needs to be done…

1. Reduce the cost and size of government.
2. Review all services that government delivers, does government need to be doing everything it's doing now, and can it be done more efficiently?
3. Explore regionalization and sharing of services.
4. Recognize that government can't provide all the answers.

Non-profits should not be dependent on government, they need to raise more private dollars. If they can't raise money, maybe they shouldn't be in business.

Former LG Charles Fogarty, now ensconced at J&W, and House Minority Leader