The entire contingent of Bristol County legislators gathered for coffee and current affairs during a forum hosted by the East Bay Chamber of Commerce last Friday morning, April 4. They talked about housing and schools, doctors and dentists, and the lack thereof, broken government and broken bridges, and the looming specter of Trump Administration cuts roiling the state budget.

Here is some of what was discussed during the hour-plus event at the Cutler Mill complex in Warren.

Their priorities

Sen. Pam Lauria: The senator whose district includes areas of Barrington, Riverside and Bristol, said she focuses heavily on healthcare issues, particularly the current primary care provider shortage that is impacting Rhode Islanders. She is part of a special study commission examining the feasibility of establishing a medical school at the University of Rhode Island.

Rep. Jennifer Boylan: The representative for half of Barrington and most of Riverside, she is fighting for environmental legislation to address extreme weather, extreme flooding, coastal erosion and other climate-related issues.

Rep. June Speakman: The representative for Warren and Bristol, she is focused primarily on housing issues and secondarily on solar energy. She said one particular focus is a land conservation bill that encourages the development of affordable housing without heavily impacting green spaces.

Rep. Susan Donovan: The retired educator representing Bristol and Prudence Island said she is always focused on education and veterans issues, but this year something else has high priority as well. “Everything around our healthcare crisis right now and our primary care physician crisis are my priorities right now. We have a lot of bills to help physicians.”

Sen. Linda Ujifusa: Representing Portsmouth and Bristol, she said her top priority is going after the “middlemen” in healthcare – corporations that are limiting care and “sucking about one-third of every healthcare dollar away from actual health care.” She is also working on an internet services provider bill, so those companies fall under government oversight. She said Rhode Island is the only state in the country that does not have an internet or broadband office for oversight and regulation.

Rep. Jason Knight: The representative for Barrington and Warren said his top priority is putting an assault weapons ban on the books.

Sen. Wally Felag: The veteran senator representing Warren, Bristol and areas of Tiverton, who is vice chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said he is always heavily focused on the budget. This year he has an eye on state aid to education for all communities. He also is active on veterans affairs bills and a PFAS bill affecting firefighters and firefighting equipment.

Biggest challenge facing R.I.

All the legislators were asked what they believe to be the biggest challenge facing Rhode Island right now.

Rep. Knight: “The biggest challenge in Rhode Island is our lack of leadership at the executive level, and our sclerotic bureaucracy that can’t seem to execute on the most basic of missions that we give them. It’s embarrassing that there are certain things, like building 43 sheds inside of a few months, that we just can’t do, and I’m referring to the pallet shelters up at Echo Village. It’s a real problem. It’s been a problem. It will continue to be a problem, until we elect leadership that can stand up and actually make shit happen.”

Sen. Ujifusa: “I think the biggest problem is that life has become unaffordable for most Road Islanders.”

Rep. Donovan: “One of the biggest challenges we have now and into the immediate future is our primary care physician crisis. We are going to run out of doctors and pediatricians.”

Sen. Lauria: She said she’s worried about the actions of the federal government, beginning with cuts to Medicaid funding. “It’s likely going to leave people without necessary health insurance, and it’s going to put a strain on our hospitals and our federally qualified health centers that are already under incredible stress, and I don’t know if they’re going to survive.”

Rep. Speakman: “All of that, and the impact of the tariffs, on you all, on workers, on housing costs, on construction costs.”

Rep. Boylan: “The uncertainty that we’re seeing with this administration federally, it ripples down to so many significant things here, from education, to Medicaid, to protections for the environment. And honestly, I think we are going to be holding our breath until that bridge is fixed.”

The medical field

Barrington resident and local dentist Lisa Daft asked legislators to comment on bills attempting to address the physician (and soon-to-be dentist, she warned) shortage in Rhode Island. Topics included medical “loss ratio,” insurance company reimbursement rates, and the effort to launch a URI medical school.

“When I graduated dental school, I was told, ‘Do not open a practice in Rhode Island.’ So I have practiced in Seekonk for the last 27 years, because I was told 30 years ago not to open a practice. Delta Dental pays Rhode Island dentists probably 25% less than what I get two miles down the road from East Providence. That’s a problem,” Daft said.

Sen. Ujifusa: “Medical loss ratio is this weird thing. When she says the ratio is 85%, that means that 85% of the money from a premium is supposed to go to actual care providers. So where’s the other 15%? It can go to administrative expenses, meaning the insurance companies.” The senator has introduced and supported bills to require that more money goes to providers, and less goes to insurance companies and “middle men.”

Sen. Lauria: “I absolutely support raising the loss ratio.” The senator, who is chair of the commission studying the medical school idea, also talked at length about the issues they are examining, including how to keep graduates in Rhode Island, and how to increase residency spots in Rhode Island hospitals.

She talked about a federal program where qualified medical centers that create family medicine residency spots can get reimbursed by the federal government at about 75%. “So we’re going to ask the General Assembly to consider supplementing the other 25% for four spots, because again, yes, we need more residency spots.”

“There are so many reasons where we have this crisis right now,” Sen. Lauria continued. “Nobody thinks that a medical school alone is going to solve it. But that’s one part of it. Absolutely the rates are part of it, too. And as Lisa talked about, as far as dentists making 25% more if they go over the border, we know that it’s 20% to 30% more for health providers as well. And we need a robust primary care workforce in Rhode Island, not just physicians. We need nurse practitioners, PA’s. We’re working on all that.”

Education funding

Barrington resident Bill Dewitt asked about the state’s funding formula for public education. He said, “Towns like Barrington don’t need the money, but we get too much of it. And the towns that do need it, don’t get enough of it.”

Sen. Ujifusa: “The funding formula has huge problems in it. For example, transportation is not included in the core amount that they dole out. So one of my bills is to look at statewide transportation. Bristol-Warren was paying close to $2 million to participate in the statewide transportation system because they were shipping kids up to LaSalle and Hendricken.

“So what’s happening with it? I don’t know, because there are 35 different groups clamoring to have it changed in a way that helps benefit them.”

Rep. Knight: He talked about how changes to the funding formula have been part of an evolution, not a quick fix, and they’ve progressed from the days when politics and deal-making determined which district got how much money. “We’re trying to get to a space where a student going to school in Chariho, and a student going to school in Barrington, and a student in Providence, are all going to get the same quality education. We are super far from that goal, but if we look at the formula on a continuum, from where we were, to where we’re trying to get to …It’s better than it was, and it distributes money more fairly than it did 15 years ago. But it’s not certainly not perfect.”

Employees buying businesses

Chamber board member Don Saracen talked about a bill that would require any business, before it is sold, to notify all employees of the pending sale and offer them a chance to buy the business first. He asked how legislators sort through the roughly 2,400 bills submitted annually to determine which ones are taken seriously and which are not.

Rep. Speakman: “There are 75 reps and 38 senators, and all of us are equally welcome to put in as many bills — crazy, not crazy, unrealistic, absolutely perfect — as we wish. And many of us do. We have people offering 60 bills, 70 bills … And every bill gets a hearing. So that bill was heard, pros and cons, and it’s not going to go anywhere, in my view.”

Rep. Knight: The veteran legislator talked about the variety of perspectives represented in one political body. “We have members who span the entire political spectrum. I mean, we have the hardest of hardcore right-wing members, the kind of rep. who thinks, ‘Trump is kind of liberal, but I’ll vote for him anyway.’ And then we have basically communists on the left. And everything in between. It’s amazing.”

Housing issues

Chamber board member Shomari Lewis asked what the legislature is doing to address housing issues in Rhode Island.

Rep. Speakman: “As many of you probably know, for House Speaker [Joe] Shekarchi, housing is his number one issue, and for the fourth year in a row, he has submitted a package of housing bills, all of which will most likely pass, because they’re the speaker’s bills. His focus is on production, production, production. His view is that if you make it easier to build, then people will build. There will be more units and that will be bring the price down.

“I hope he’s right. The market’s so hot that it seems to be if you increase supply, the people who have the money will just keep buying units. But another thing we’ve been doing for the past three years is to — and this is very controversial — is to loosen up zoning so you can build more than one dwelling on a single-family lot.

“We haven’t banned single-family lots in the state, but things like the ADU [Accessory Dwelling Unit] bill, which I proudly sponsored and was passed last year, allows you to build another unit on your single-family lot, by right, in most instances. So you’re kind of moving away from single-family zoning, allowing for more lots in our towns in a way that’s consistent with the flavor of the town. We need more multi-family housing everywhere. In Warren and Bristol, that would be small apartment buildings.”

Sen. Ujifusa: “Because I represent Portsmouth and southern Bristol, I can’t say that I support all of Speaker Shekarchi’s bills — if you just build a lot of stuff and increase density, that that’s going to solve everything. And I frankly opposed the ADU bill. But what I did support in our town, and you’ve seen it if you’ve driven past our [Portsmouth] senior center, is for there to be low and moderate income senior housing. That’s going to be 53 units, and it definitely fits within the vision of the folks in town … You know, public housing is not what we used to think it was. I think that there can be really good public housing.”

Tax on high-earners

The legislators were asked about their stances on a bill that would increase the personal income tax on “high-earners,” specifically defined in the current bill as individuals who earn more than $640,000 annually.

Rep. Speakman: “I support the bill. I don’t think it will pass.”

Sen. Ujifusa: “I like it. I don’t think it will pass. It’s the counter to 2009 tax cuts on the rich, which people assumed would have a trickle down effect and really help our state, and we’re not seeing that.”

Rep. Knight: “I don’t like it, and I don’t think it’s going to pass. My overall, overarching opinion around state government is that it has a few fundamental things that it just has to provide. Roads, infrastructure, public safety, education, and a decent social safety net. So if something goes bad for Grandma, God forbid, she can be taken care of with basic healthcare needs, that sort of thing. Beyond that, it’s all discretionary.

“And the thing about the high-earners tax bill is that the proponent is talking about generating an extra $100 million, $120 million, $140 million, that’s going to be used for education. It’s going to be used for healthcare. It’s going to be used for, you know, Universal Pre-K, which is all great, except no General Assembly can bind another General Assembly when it comes to spending … So it would pump $100 million and change into the General Fund, and this year’s General Assembly might fund Head Start, or Pre-K, or whatever, but next year they’ll siphon off a percentage for DOT, and then they’ll siphon off a percentage to create an incentive for Balley’s to do an expansion … So you just can’t control it the way the proponents want to control it.”

Energy bills

Chamber board member Brenda Santos asked what is being done about the high cost of energy in Rhode Island.

Rep. Boylan: “I can tell you, it’s getting a lot of attention in our building. I just got my [energy] bills this week, and the good news is they’re coming way down. My my most recent bills that came this week are substantially down from where they were. I mean, it’s an issue we’ve all been looking at. We’ve had community meetings. We’ve had internal meetings with Rhode Island Energy, and the committee process [for energy-related bills] is still playing out.”