PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- For Gina Raimondo, an initial allocation of nearly $20 million for school construction represents something tangible at the crossroads of two of her major initiatives as Rhode Island governor: building out a knowledge-based economy and fixing tattered infrastructure.
“To see this list distributed statewide is great to see – town by town, district by district, who gets painting work and windows fixed,” Raimondo said in an interview during The Bond Buyer’s Healthcare and Higher Education Conference, where she gave the luncheon keynote speech.
Last week, the Council on Elementary and Secondary Education unanimously approved funding to kick off school renovation projects in 18 communities. The authority cleared 86 projects among 120 applications from 18 school districts or charter public schools.
The reimbursements apply toward a total cost for the projects of roughly $24 million, the balance paid from local funds.
“In cities like Pawtucket, Central Falls and Providence, our schools are falling apart,” said Raimondo, a Democratic first-year governor and former general treasurer. “You’ll see in the front of some of these schools that there are holes in the ceiling and buckets catching the water.”
Raimondo, upon taking office last January, made education and infrastructure the lynchpins of her first year.
“This ain’t cheap,” she said.
Project funding comes from the capital fund of the School Building Authority, which Raimondo launched in August to quicken the process for approval and funding of school renovations and repairs.
Raimondo in her first year has launched several initiatives designed to transition the Ocean State from a manufacturing economy to tech. Rhode Island during recent years has sported one of the worst unemployment rates in the U.S.
“Instead of starting with the supply of people who need jobs, we’re starting with demand,” she said. “We’re only in the second inning of an economic comeback. Turning around the economy is hard work.”
Raimondo – as did General Treasurer Seth Magaziner in his morning speech at the conference ¬– touted the role of the Ivy League’s Brown University and of the Rhode Island School of Design in the tech buildup.
Brown last week announced a $3 billion capital improvement program. “$3 billion, that’s huge,” said Raimondo. “They have a lot invested in that area.”
Capital markets analysts see niche schools such as RISD as vibrant credits in higher education of late. Brown and RISD -- which sits at the foot of the Brown-centric College Hill neighborhood just off downtown – are both adjacent to Providence land vacated through the relocation of Interstate 195.
Administration officials envision a tech buildup on the I-195 land comparable to Cornell University’s initiative for Roosevelt Island in New York City.
Earlier this month, the I-195 Redevelopment District Commission, which Raimondo controls, signed a letter of intent with Wexford Science & Technology of Baltimore, and development firm CV Properties LLC of Boston. CV Properties is working on converting a vacant power station along the South Street waterfront to a shared nursing facility.
The letter of intent is not binding.
“We’ll have to see what we do with Wexford,” Raimondo said of further plans for I-195.
Much of the plan could hinge on a report by Washington think tank Brookings Institution due out by year’s end. Raimondo on Tuesday sandwiched her Bond Buyer interview and luncheon speech with two Brookings sessions.
“They’ve got some great ideas, very data driven,” she said. “What Rhode Island needs is a shared vision of its economy, and strengths and strategies.”
On Monday, Raimondo, along with House Speaker Nicholas Mattiello, D-Cranston, and Senate President Teresa Paiva Weed, D-Newport, launched tax-credit programs aimed at spurring economic growth across Rhode Island.
The qualified jobs incentive provides a base tax credit for companies relocating to the state and creating a minimum number of new jobs, and for Rhode Island companies expanding their in-state workforce by a threshold percentage. The Rebuild Rhode Island tax credit is supposed to foster growth in construction and real estate development by providing a tax credit of up to 20% of project costs to qualified real estate projects of $5 million or more that demonstrate a financing gap.
