McKee's FY 2026 budget underestimated labor costs for R.I. State Police, correctional officers

Yahoo

23-05-2025

Members of the Rhode Island State Police march in the Newport St. Patrick's Day Parade on March 15, 2025. (Photo by Janine L. Weisman/Rhode Island Current)
You wouldn't suspect any opposition to proposed pay raises for state troopers and correctional officers based on public hearings Friday morning.
The requisite meetings on new collective bargaining agreements held just before the holiday weekend concluded in under 10 minutes, with no public feedback on either contract. But legislative leaders are less than thrilled about the salary increases and accompanying benefits for roughly 1,250 state employees, which require $15 million more than what Gov. Dan McKee planned for in his fiscal 2026 budget proposal.
Unlike most other state employee unions, the Rhode Island Brotherhood of Correctional Officers and the Rhode Island Troopers Association had not inked new deals with the administration when McKee unveiled his proposed $14 billion spending plan in January. So McKee put in a $30 million placeholder for the yet-to-be signed contracts.
Turns out, the agreements are actually going to cost the state $45 million over the next two years, rather than the $30 million McKee budgeted.
Hardly welcome news to the leaders of the Rhode Island General Assembly already grappling with a budget deficit and potentially devastating federal funding cuts just weeks before the end of the 2025 legislative session. A spending plan must be approved by the start of the new fiscal year on July 1.
'Unfortunately, the newly revealed shortfall from the Administration's contract settlements is not the only issue we need to address in the budget,' House Speaker K. Joseph Shekarchi said in an emailed statement. 'It certainly worsens the situation and is, frankly, beyond frustrating.'
Senate President Valarie Lawson also appeared caught off-guard by the unexpected cost hike, which she said she learned about on Wednesday.
'While this is deeply concerning, I will work with the Senate Finance Committee to address this unexpected challenge,' Lawson said in an emailed statement.
Laura Hart, a spokesperson for McKee's office, defended the contract costs in an emailed response Friday, noting that the third-quarter revenue report from the state budget office shows an extra $60.9 million expected to flow into state coffers by the end of the fiscal year 2025.
'The Governor encourages the General Assembly to support the contractual increases for public safety personnel using these dollars in the upcoming budget,' Hart said.
Both contracts call for annual cost-of-living adjustments starting at 5% in year one, with a 4% second-year bump and a 3% adjustment in the third year — identical to the incremental scale adopted for 4,000 other state employees under contracts finalized last fall. So how did McKee mess up the math?
For one, the raises for 255 state troopers start earlier than expected: the 5% pay bump is retroactive to Nov. 1, 2023, rather than the July 1, 2024, start date for other state union workers, including correction officers, said Karen Greco, a spokesperson for the Rhode Island Department of Administration. The tentative agreement, reached on Feb. 28, also features a 'uniform allowance' not accounted for in the governor's budget projections, Greco said.
Erik Jensen, president of the state troopers union, acknowledged but did not offer a response to questions about the agreement on Friday.
Richard Ferruccio, president of the Rhode Island Brotherhood of Correctional Officers, remained unsatisfied with the terms of the 1,000-member union's new state contract, which was finalized on May 14 after months of arbitration.
'I don't want to sound ungrateful,' Ferruccio said in an interview Friday. 'But I still feel somewhat frustrated with it.'
His main grievance was not with the annual cost-of-living increases, but accompanying benefits that would make the union better able to attract and retain officers. Staffing woes at the Rhode Island Department of Corrections are well-documented, and costly; the 117 open positions as of March 22 is projected to lead to a $42.9 million overtime cost for the full fiscal year 2025, according to a presentation to state lawmakers in April.
It certainly worsens the situation and is, frankly, beyond frustrating.
– House Speaker K. Joseph Shekarchi
Ferruccio blamed staffing shortages on uncompetitive benefits relative to other local law enforcement officers and neighboring states, where officers can reach the 'top step' of pay in a shorter period of time.
'There are only a handful of people that really want to get involved in any type of law enforcement,' Ferruccio said. 'When you look at other local police departments, they have a significantly better situation with the top step than we do.'
He had hoped to lower the seniority requirement for union officers to reach maximum pay from its current 14 years to six years, matching the policy offered for correctional officers in Connecticut. But the compromise struck with the state cuts the length of service to 10 years beginning this June, and eight years starting in June 2026. The agreement also includes a 2.5% pay raise for anyone who stays at least 20 years.
The governor's budget did not account for the costs associated with these changes, either, Greco said.
But Ferruccio said the final price tag should not have come as a surprise, noting that the changes to top step and retention benefits were longstanding asks by the union.
'I think the governor was given bad information by DOC,' Ferruccio said. He pointed to the grossly underestimated cost to close the state's minimum security facility — initially pegged at $1 million in McKee's budget when a study found it would actually cost $67 million to $71 million — as an example of miscommunication by the corrections department.
J.R. Ventura, a spokesperson for the state corrections department, did not immediately respond to inquiries for comment Friday.
State worker contract costs are not the only expense McKee underestimated in his fiscal 2026 budget proposal. The state will also have to make up a $24 million shortfall in education aid to local school districts in its fiscal 2025 and 26 budgets due to corrected data on the number of students in poverty.
SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX