Rhode Island, in Deficit Fight, Shuts Down for Day

No welfare checks were written Friday in Rhode Island. No criminals were prosecuted, no driver’s licenses were issued or renewed, no legislation was passed and not a single lawyer filed a new case in state court.

State government, the largest employer in Rhode Island, simply did not open. And it will do that nine more times before the end of the fiscal year on June 30 in an effort not to go broke.

From state parks to the Statehouse, doors were locked and most workers were told to stay home.

“It’s a total hardship,” said Norman Miller, who led a small band of Transportation Department workers picketing in front of the Statehouse and the Registry of Motor Vehicles in downtown Providence.

They were among the roughly 19,000 state workers furloughed Friday.

The workers face the prospect of losing 10% of their annual pay as Gov. Bruce G. Sundlun tries to rein in what he describes as the worst state budget deficit in the nation, when measured as a percentage of total spending.

The budget started out at $1.5 billion but now is $222 million in the red, roughly 15% of anticipated spending.

“I’m terribly sorry we had to shut down,” the governor said after meeting with U.S. Treasury Secretary Nicholas F. Brady and local business leaders. “I’m terribly sorry we have to lay off. We have to do it because we have a serious deficit that I did not create.”

Because of a constitutional requirement to balance the budget, Sundlun canceled consultants’ contracts, slashed departmental budgets and won legislative approval of tax increases--an increase of 20% for personal income, 11% for business profits and 5 cents a gallon for gasoline.

Still facing a shortfall, he turned his attention to personnel, laying off 108 non-union managers and 470 of the state’s 16,300 unionized workers.

“I’ve asked all Rhode Islanders to sacrifice and they have,” he said in a speech last week. “Now I’m asking state employees to join the rest of us.”

Workers considered vital to public safety, such as the state police, prison guards and some hospital personnel, were on the job Friday.

Meanwhile, angry demonstrators jeered Brady as he headed for his meeting with Sundlun to discuss federal help to reopen the state’s closed financial institutions. Police said a 76-year-old protester was dragged bloodied from the building after he tried to force his way into the meeting.

Afterward, Brady offered no hope of federal help to get back more than $1 billion in bank funds for about 300,000 depositors. They lost the money when Sundlun closed 45 institutions on Jan. 1 after their private deposit insurer failed.