Speaker Mattiello quickly returned to his familiar trope about the car Tax telling Dan, “they don’t like the tax, they’re offended that it’s the highest in the country” before getting into the details of the deal that lead to the Senate returning to session.
Come the fall, the Speaker is confident that the Senate will pass a bill that prevents domestic violence abusers from having access to firearms and the House will pass the desired sick leave bill.
Speaker Mattiello was vague in answering Dan’s final question about the lessons that can be learned from the budget impasse, “I don’t know what the moral of the story is.”
On the same day that the budget passes the Senate, Ted Nesi and Tim White at WPRI 12 received public documents they had previous requested from Rhode Island college concerning the Frank Montanaro Jr. tuition investigation. Speaker Mattiello told Dan that he had learned about the new developments in the case just a few minutes before his conversation with Dan and that he hadn’t “digested” them yet.
The WPRI 12 investigators found that there was discord between RIC and the union and that there was tension over the leave-to-protect status tuition perks.
The Speaker told Dan that Montanaro Jr. is paying back $41,000 in tuition benefits “at my request.” He explained, “he didn’t have to pay it back… it shouldn’t have been given.” Speaker Mattiello suggested that issue is more of a Governor review issue than his issue at this point.
