The Independent Man glows atop the Rhode Island State House on Monday, Jan. 13, 2025. (Alexander Castro/Rhode Island Current)
State budget officials made it clear: There’s no money for extras in the upcoming fiscal 2026 spending plan, so don’t ask.
But that didn’t stop nearly two dozen state agencies from asking for more full-time staff in their fiscal 2026 budget requests, according to a Dec. 27 analysis by the Rhode Island Senate Fiscal office.
Combined requests for 140 new, full-time employees come with a $15.8 million price tag, including $13.9 million from state coffers —- hardly the kind of belt-tightening required amid a projected $330 million deficit.
Gov. Dan McKee is slated to unveil his proposed fiscal 2026 spending plan on Thursday.
“The Governor’s Office engages in an iterative, comprehensive review of agency submissions to balance each agency’s unique needs with the overall fiscal health of the budget,” Olivia DaRocha, a spokesperson for McKee’s office, said in an email Monday.
The new personnel requests may seem the opposite of what the McKee administration asked. But don’t rule them completely out, said Sen. Lou DiPalma, a Middletown Democrat and Senate Committee on Finance chairman.
“Everything is on the table,” DiPalma said in a recent interview. “Each of these folks needs to come to the table and say, ‘I need this, and here’s why.’ It can’t be ‘I want this.’ There’s a big difference.”
Circumstances might be favorable to add some positions. With the state still reeling from the recent cyberattack on the RIBridges platform, compromising personal information of an estimated 657,000 Rhode Islanders, the need to bolster state cybersecurity protections is top-of-mind for DiPalma.
The General Treasurer’s office reiterated its unfilled request for a new cybersecurity person to help protect data that falls outside the purview of the state’s information technology department. Eighty percent of the $119,000 salary would be covered by revenue from restricted receipts flowing into the office, with the remaining 20% coming from state general funds. Meanwhile, the Rhode Island Office of the Attorney General wants two new full-time employees working on cybersecurity, along with $400,000 of software and hardware to detect and respond to cyberattacks.
The other big “muscle-mover” for DiPalma: “Anything that’s going to help Rhode Island increase its economic growth and overall well-being.”
University of Rhode Island seeks 40 new hires
McKee unveiled an ambitious goal in his 2024 State of the State address to raise per capita income by $20,000 by the end of the decade. The governor’s broad-brush plan centers on workforce development and higher education.
Which could be good news for the University of Rhode Island, which put in the largest and most expensive personnel request of any state-funded group. The proposal for 40 new hires, costing $4.8 million, would be equally split between professors and academic advisors.
When asked for comment, URI spokesperson Dawn Bergantino referred back to an Oct. 1 budget memo from URI President Marc Parlange. He called for more professors to serve the university’s growing life science programs and advisors to help students succeed across programs.
It’s not unusual for the state’s flagship university, which is also funded through tuition and grants, to receive extra money in the state budget, said Michael DiBiase, president and CEO of the Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council, and former state administration director. But usually, the extra funding is offered as a general lump sum, not for specific positions or programs.
“Typically they don’t want [the budget office] involved in where the money is going,” DiBiase said. “Perhaps they are concerned they’re not going to get any other increase.”
There’s also a “strategy of overasking,” DiPalma said, though he declined to say if he thought specific departments were overreaching in their requests.
AG wants to boost special victims unit, APRA team
The attorney general’s office requested 13 requested new hires, which would require $1.7 million from state general funds.
“The AG has always felt that we should ask for exactly what we need,” Adi Goldstein, deputy attorney general, said. “When we ask for positions, it’s because they’re really necessary.”
This year, those necessities include bolstering the office’s special victims unit, public protections bureau, and prosecutors focused on drunk driving cases, along with the team that reviews records requests under the state’s Access to Public Records Act.
Goldstein said all 13 positions were necessary to support the office’s ever-expanding scope of criminal and civil cases, including pro-active litigation that returns “millions” to the state in settlement money.
“We’ve brought in tenfold more than we’ve asked for over the past few years,” Goldstein said.
A piece of the attorneys’ fees from a state settlement in the Purdue Pharma case was used to fund 15 new positions for the AG’s office in the fiscal 2024 budget — the last time the office increased its personnel cap.
But Goldstein said the latest hiring proposal should be funded by state revenue “just like every state office is.”
As for how Attorney General Peter Neronha’s frosty relationship with McKee might affect the office’s request?
“We are not going to let any concerns about the AG’s relationship with the governor impact what we think we need to do for this office, what is right for us to do for this office and for the state,” Goldstein said.
Other state agency leaders also said they need additional staff to meet their state-mandated responsibilities, and in some cases, federal funding requirements. The Executive Office of Health and Human Services, which oversees the massive state Medicaid program, asked for 10 new positions to help meet new federal requirements imposed by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Over half of the $1.4 million cost for the new positions would come from federal funding.
Vacancy woes
The Department of Housing asked for six new positions, including one to manage a new pilot program offering financial assistance to families at risk of becoming homeless. A recent cold snap renewed attention and frustration on the lack of emergency shelters, but another staffer may not be the answer, DiPalma said.
“I think right now it’s more of a focus on what they do with what they already have,” DiPalma said.
Eighteen of the 38 positions funded in the fiscal 2025 budget are still unfilled, though the department is “actively recruiting,” with seven of the vacant roles posted online, Patti Doyle, a department spokesperson, said in an email on Friday.
Doyle referred back to the agency’s budget memo when asked for further comment about the personnel requests.
Across the state, nearly 1,500 of the 15,778 full-time positions funded in the fiscal 2025 budget were unfilled as of Dec. 28, according to a Jan. 2. Senate Fiscal Office report.
Faced with an eight-digit budget deficit, some of those unfilled jobs will likely get cut, said Gary Sasse, former director of administration and revenue. During Sasse’s tenure under former Gov. Don Carcieri in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, personnel was one of the obvious cuts made to state spending, with varying success.
“When you try to cut FTEs, you don’t always accrue savings the day you cut them, because there are costs involved with separation as well,” Sasse said.
But personnel might seem a more palatable option than slashing the state’s Medicaid spending — which comprises more than a third of the annual spending plan — or local aid to municipalities and school districts.
“The governor has indicated he doesn’t want to increase taxes, so if you take new revenue off the table, and significant changes to entitlement spending are off the table, and you can’t touch local aid, personnel sticks out,” Sasse said.
Constrained budget could jeopardize Child Advocate, state OSHA program
Some state agencies warned of dire consequences if staffing levels were cut.
The Office of the Child Advocate, for example, concluded the only way it could shave the required 7.5% from its current $1.9 million budget was to eliminate the top position: the $240,000 salary of the child advocate.
“Our budget is mainly salary and benefits,” Child Advocate Katelyn Medeiros wrote in her agency budget memo. “We remain fiscally responsible, while considering the expanding needs of our agency. With the budget as requested, the only way to meet this constrained request is to eliminate several FTEs or eliminate our highest paid position, which is a position protected by a term. Our agency cannot sustain either.”
Medeiros wrote that she hopes the constrained budget proposal would not be considered given her office’s size.
DiPalma agreed.
“The Office of Child Advocate is a critical function within our state,” he said. “We need that position filled.”
Medeiros’ office issued a scathing report on the conditions at St. Mary’s Home for Children, prompting legislative oversight hearings and eventually, the closure of the residential treatment facility in North Providence in August 2024. She had been confirmed as the permanent Child Advocate in May 2024 after serving in an acting capacity for nearly two years.
Medeiros was not available for comment. Kara Foley, a spokesperson for the office, highlighted the importance of the office’s work when asked to comment on the budget proposal.
“While the OCA recognizes that this is a challenging fiscal year, it is important to illustrate the needs of the office and request the support necessary to further our critical work on behalf of children and youth in the state of Rhode Island,” Foley wrote in an email.
Another staff reduction likely to be a nonstarter: getting rid of the four Department of Health workers who oversee the state’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) consultation program. Health Department Director Dr. Jerry Larkin included the scenario in the constrained version of his department’s budget memo. Cutting the four positions would save $80,000 in state revenue, he said, but would also mean giving up more than $580,000 in federal funds that support the program. It also could put 1.3 million Rhode Island workers at risk, Larkin wrote.
Selling the Washington Monument
The state budget office in its instructions to state agencies wrote that constrained budget proposals must be “reasonable and realistic.”
“Budget requests that propose unrealistic or unattainable savings (i.e.,“selling the Washington Monument”) may be returned to the agency as incomplete,” the August memo states.
DiBiase said the proposed cuts to the state OSHA program or the child advocate job qualified as Washington Monument-level proposals.
“Sometimes departments offer up things they know are sacred and can’t be cut as a strategy,” DiBiase said.
But, he added, “If you’re a small agency and your budget is mostly staff, you’re probably going to look at positions if you have to cut 7.5%.”
One exception: the Department of Corrections, where new hires might save the state money in overtime. Director Wayne Salisbury suggested in his Oct. 1 budget memo that hiring 150 new corrections officers, in addition to filling 126 vacant positions, would save nearly $9.5 million in overtime costs.
For the year that ended June 30, 2024, the department logged more than 590,000 overtime hours, according to Salisbury’s memo.
The Department of Corrections declined to comment further.
While McKee gets a first crack at framing the state’s fiscal 2026 spending plan, his vision will be reshaped by lawmakers before a final budget is passed before June 30, 2025.
House Speaker K. Joseph Shekarchi and Senate President Dominick Ruggerio in a joint statement said it was premature to comment on proposed hiring or staffing cuts.
“As always the requests will be evaluated on their own merit as part of the budget review process,” they said.
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