PROVIDENCE Rhode Island state government is set to finish a COVID-ravaged year better funded than ever after the General Assembly passed a $12.7-billion mid-year state budget Friday.
Meeting in a rare lame-duck session at Rhode Island College for social distancing, senators passed the budget 31 to 5 along party lines, with all Senate Republicans opposed. The tax-and-spending plan passed the House on Wednesday, and Gov. GIna Raimondo is expected to sign it into law.
The budget takes advantage of unprecedented federal funding to maintain current services and avoid layoffs through the end of June.
Rhode Island spending in the budget would exceed what Raimondo proposed in January by $2.5 billion and last year s budget by $900 million.
A month-by-month look at COVID-19 in Rhode Island
With two weeks still to go, December is already one of the worst months of the pandemic
By Dan McGowan Globe Staff,Updated December 18, 2020, 8:21 a.m.
Email to a Friend
A health care worker carries a COVID-19 specimen from a motorist at a drive-thru testing site outside McCoy Stadium in Pawtucket, R.I, Wednesday, Dec. 9, 2020. The testing site was set up outside the minor league baseball stadium as a partnership with the state and ACCU Reference Medical Lab to help with demand for more testing amidst a surge in coronavirus cases.David Goldman/Associated Press
Itâs decision day in the money laundering trial of political operative Jeff Britt
He is facing a felony money laundering charge and a misdemeanor campaign finance violation.
By Dan McGowan Globe Staff,Updated December 16, 2020, 9:29 a.m.
Email to a Friend
Jeffrey T. Britt, left, and his lawyer, former US Attorney Robert Clark Corrente, leave the Kent County Courthouse on Tuesday, March 10.Edward Fitzpatrick
If you have friends or relatives who would like their own free copy of this daily briefing about Rhode Island, tell them they can
LEADING OFF
Happy Wednesday and welcome to Rhode Map, your daily guide to everything happening in the Ocean State. Iâm Dan McGowan and knowing that weâre about to get the first real snowstorm of the years makes me miss Bennyâs. Follow me on Twitter
PROVIDENCE The first openings in a decade on the Rhode Island Supreme Court gave members of the House of Representatives a chance on Wednesday to approve two newcomers to the court.
The House approved Gov. Gina Raimondo s nomination of Erin Lynch Prata, a powerful six-term state Senator, on a 58-to-5 vote, despite arguments the appointment violates the state s 1992 revolving-door ban against leaps directly from the State House to the courts.
Until her resignation last week, Lynch Prata chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee.
The lawmakers unanimously approved Raimondo s nomination of the first Black person, Superior Court Judge Melissa Long, to the Supreme Court, a nomination that was hailed by Long s backers as important and historic in the context of civil-rights tensions roiling Rhode Island and the nation.