By Kim Kalunian, WPRO News
Governor Lincoln Chafee has until Wednesday to veto the fiscal year 2014 budget approved by the General Assembly last week. Even if the Governor doesn’t sign it by July 3, it will automatically become law.
Governor Chafee told WPRI Monday that he plans to sign the budget, but didn’t indicate when.
So the question that lingers now is: why hasn’t he signed it yet?
Speculation has been swirling that a budget article added on the House floor to suspend the Sakonnet River Bridge tolls is a major factor. The Governor told WPRO that he was concerned about the measure, which he said could cause the bridge to fall into disrepair.
The Governor has a few options: veto the budget, or add what’s called a trailer bill to it. The trailer could do anything from up tolls on the Newport Pell Bridge, to reinstate the tolls on the Sakonnet Bridge.
Rep. John Edwards, the Portsmouth representative who championed the toll suspension, said he doesn’t believe it will be the latter.
“I don’t expect [the Speaker of the House] to chuck us under the bus here at all,” Edwards told WPRO’s Gene Valicenti Tuesday. Edwards said he had heard that Speaker Gordon Fox had been in discussions with Senate President Teresa Paiva Weed and Governor Chafee about the options going forward.
“The Governor hasn’t signed the bill yet so obviously something is up,” he said.
Edwards said the “crux of the issue” is that the budget article not only defers the Sakonnet tolls, it puts a freeze on the Pell tolls, something Edwards said could “prohibit the rights of the bondholders.”
He said he believes some sort of change or compromise is coming down the pike.
Emails to House and Senate spokesmen were not immediately returned.
