Journal exclusive: Ruggerio may end budget standoff next week

PROVIDENCE, R.I. - The 19-day budget stalemate may end, as soon as next week, with the return of the Senate to the State House.

In an exclusive interview with The Journal, Senate President Dominick Ruggerio said he intends to call key members of his leadership team on Wednesday afternoon to gauge their willingness to reconsider the budget vote they took on the last day of the 2017 session, and pass it anew.

"I've got to talk to my senators and see what their availability is. So that is what I am going to be doing today,'' he said. "I want to sit down and talk with them first. I want to talk with my leadership team. I want to talk with [Senate Finance Chairman William] Conley. I am looking to do that today."

"I want to keep the members informed as to what is happening,'' he said, on the day after he and House Speaker Nicholas Mattiello had what they both later described as a productive conversation, at an undisclosed location, about ending the impasse that has left the state without a budget since the new year began on July 1. 

"We are still in the talking stages,'' he said. "But I think we're there. We don't want to hold up the budget any longer. That's become a little problematic, so we are going to talk this out and I expect that we will have some kind of an agreement with in the next day or two."

In response to Ruggerio's interview with The Journal, Mattiello issued a statement:

“I’m cautiously optimistic after our very productive meeting. I believe the Senate President has the best interests of Rhode Islanders at heart and he has always been a great leader. We discussed issues and concerns that the Senate President and the Senate had. I fully expect us to move forward in a collaborative manner.”

Ruggerio, when asked if he would like to reconvene the Senate next week before the state hits July 31 - when the first big big payments are due to the the cities and towns, said: "That's possible ... I want to check and see who's away. People plan for vacations. I want to see what our availability is."

"It's a little premature at this time to decide when we are coming back,'' he said. "We're still talking about who's going to come back when... Obviously there were some very important bills that were left to be decided. So we're going to talk about that."

Asked if he was open to reconvening the Senate next week, he said: "Yes. I would be open to that. Yes."

Was the return premised on the House returning at the same time?  "I don't believe we have to have the House to come back. We have to come back anyway this year, later on in September, because of judges and things like that that we are anticipating. So we're going to be coming back anyway, in the fall."

"But there is a sense of immediacy here,'' he said of the proposed $9.2 billion budget, in limbo.

It is not yet fully clear what agreements he may have wrested from the House to bring the conversation to this point.

But it appears that Ruggerio is willing to now remove the amendment the Senate tacked onto the budget that Mattiello viewed as a power-grab. The amendment would, in effect, put the $221 million car-tax phaseout that Mattiello championed on hold if the state hit a financial crisis.

The story is still developing.