By Scott Rasmussen, includes “… On a percentage basis, the biggest increases were found in Idaho, Arizona, Nevada, and Utah.”
The financial condition of the City of Providence, Rhode Island certainly looks precarious. The municipality may need to seek bankruptcy protection in the near future primarily as a result of its over $1 billion in unfunded pension obligations.
The 2020 Financial State of the States report surveys the fiscal health of the 50 states prior to the coronavirus pandemic. This data is released today by Truth in Accounting (TIA), a think tank that analyzes government financial reporting.
How large could the shortfall in state government general revenues be, amidst the coronavirus and related crises?
The current U.S. budget deficit could soon exceed a record $4 trillion. The massive borrowing is being driven both by prior budget profligacy and a hurried effort by the Donald Trump administration to pump liquidity into a quarantined America.
The coronavirus pandemic is paving the way for a state budget crisis that will likely be deeper than any Maine has seen in decades.
It is becoming clearer by the day that the transparency required to protect the taxpayers is woefully lacking at the Rhode Island Convention Center.
A new study gives Rhode Island’s teacher’s pensions an “F." It is not where Rhode Island was supposed to be seven years later after adopting comprehensive pension reform.
PROVIDENCE — Rhode Island’s state budget grew faster than residents’ personal income and faster than the rate of inflation over the past eight years, according to a report by the Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council.
Getting a clear financial picture in Warwick has not been an easy task. Even those with accounting degrees would likely have a difficult time piecing together the complex puzzle of shifting budgetary conditions that have developed in the past couple years without a calculator and some detailed notes in front of them.
Pension plans managed by religious organizations in Rhode Island now must provide regular updates to participants on the financial health of the plans.
Both chambers of the State Assembly have passed legislation that would require religious organizations that manage pension plans to send regular updates on the financial health of the pensions to plan participants.
Warwick City Council members on Monday morning fired back at criticism of the reported plan – brokered by a mediator and described by Mayor Solomon last week – which involves using $4 million from a school pension account in order to close the Warwick School Department’s projected deficit for the current fiscal year (which ends June 30).
The majority of municipal plans across the state are also designated as critically underfunded, a total of twenty other municipal pension plans.
“Rhode Island’s 35 locally run pension plans have close to $2.5 billion in unfunded obligations to past and present police, fire and municipal employees — led by a billion-dollar gap in the city of Providence … Almost two-thirds of the plans — 21 out of 35 — are in ‘critical status’ …”
City officials made a persuasive argument for leveraging the Scituate Reservoir and the municipal water system to improve its ailing pension system, but the public was having none of it.
Are all Wall Street people crooks? Of course not. Are all pension board members naive rubes? Of course not. Are all pension reforms at best bad ideas, and at worst, scams? Of course not. BUT … some of them ARE.
One suspects the “tax the rich” approach is offered, here, mainly for educational purposes. Riley’s drastic proposal is made in response to an F for Providence’s finances from Truth in Accounting.
On Oct. 23, Moody’s, the investors credit service, downgraded Vermont’s bond rating from AAA to Aa1. This has significant implications for the state’s ability to borrow money and the cost of doing so.
Rhode Island Treasurer Seth Magaziner issued an overview of the actions that his office has taken in 2018 to “strengthen corporate accountability at hundreds of publicly traded companies in which the state's pension fund invests.”