WPRI-TV (Channel 12) is getting ready to release some early indicators on this big political year (disclosure: I'm a weekly panelist on the station's Newsmakers show). The poll, billed as the station's largest, includes the following questions:

Recently announced gubernatorial candidates Lincoln Chafee's status as an independent cuts both ways; it allows him to draw support from across the political spectrum, including the state's biggest pool of voters -- unaffiliateds. Yet running outside the bounds of conventional parties will also deny Chafee a share of institutional support, possibly including from those elected officials who like his vision and approach.

WRNI has learned that Carcieri administration briefings with municipal officials and labor leaders were cancelled this afternoon, perhaps because of the release of this document:

OFFICE OF THE GOVERNOR
INTEROFFICE MEMORANDUM

TO: Andy Hodgkin, Beverly Najarian, John Robitaille, Gary Sasse, Rosemary Booth Gallogly, Mike Cronan, Fred Sneesby
   
FROM:  Amy Kempe

RE: FY 2010 Supplemental budget briefing schedule and message points

During the 10 News Conference broadcast last Sunday, Senate President Teresa Paiva-Weed said she expects legislation to consolidate Rhode Island government to be on the ballot in 2010.

She was reluctant to get into specifics, citing ongoing research by legislative legal staff, but the implication was that of an effort to reduce spending by the state's cities and towns, perhaps by combining services.

The General Assembly will not approve Governor Carcieri's plan to save $32 million by withholding fourth-quarter car tax revenue from cities and towns. That's the view of Providence Mayor David N. Cicilline (latest mayoral campaign Web site here), who expressed it during a taping this morning of WPRI/WNAC-TV's Newsmakers.

Tom Sgouros has a very smart essay about the issue of Rhode Island's balooning state debt, which nobody in the State House seems to want to address.

The structural deficit is just the fancy term for the deficit next year (and the years after). It's an acknowledgement that revenues and expenses do not match, despite what we may have done or not done to patch it together for the current year.

In what is believed to be the first vote approving a lingering debt-reduction agreement with the state, a union representing 200 Department of Health workers has supported the pact.

The union, a unit of the National Education Association, approved the agreement on a 128-to-35 margin, says Patrick Crowley, the NEA's assistant executive director. The unit represents scientists, inspectors, and other Health Department workers.

Michael O'Connell, the man credited with exposing mind-boggling problems at the state Central Landfill in Johnston, says the situation is partially due to the lack of built-in oversight for the state's quasi-public agencies. There are 18 such agencies, according to the Carcieri administration.

*With a caveat.

This just in, from Council 94:

North Providence, RI-AFSCME Council 94 is willing to accept Governor Carcieri's proposal if the administration removes the worker relocation provision.  We will recommend the proposal to our membership and urge them to agree to work eight days without pay in this budget year, four next year and to accept a six-month delay in a promised 3-percent raise in July, 2010.

This just in:

Contract Update: No Vote Today

Yesterday, Council 94 sent a counter proposal to the state and requested a meeting with the administration.  Currently we have not had the meeting.  Council 94 hopes negotiations with the state will continue soon and because we have no complete proposal or agreement, a vote will not be taken today.