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You heard it first on WPRO: Rhode Island has one of the most expensive General Assemblies per capita.
Guest host John Loughlin made the assertion on WPRO on June 7, inviting PolitiFact to check his figures.
PolitiFact took up the invitation, ruling that Loughlin was indeed correct.
The proof comes from a U.S. Census spreadsheet that outlines General Assembly expenditures for all 50 states. Sure enough, Rhode Island spent $26 per capita in FY 2011, less than only Alaska, which spends an enormous $71.27 per capita.
States that have similar per capita expenditures are Hawaii ($22.46) and Pennsylvania ($23.67). All other states spend less than $20 per person on their legislative branches.
Spokesman for Speaker Fox, Larry Berman, told PolitiFact that part of the reason Rhode Island’s per capita expenditure is so high is because the state categorized budget items differently than others:
Rhode Island's legislative budget includes some expenses that other states list under other categories, Berman said.
In 2011, Berman said, "$4,634,000 of the General Assembly’s budget was earmarked that year for the auditor general’s office . . . [which has] 44 employees [who] work independently of the legislature to evaluate programs throughout state government." Other states don't include audit expenses in the legislative budget, he said.
Also, "the budget that year contained $1,298,000 for the operation of our own Capitol Television channel. In other states, the television production may be operated by public television or contained within another part of the state budget," he said.
In addition, Berman said the 2011 fiscal year was the year the budget "included $1.5 million for the once-every-10-year function of redistricting. While every state is mandated federally to conduct this process, it does significantly increase our state’s legislative budget for that year only."
But when we looked at rankings for the previous five years, when redistricting wasn't done, Rhode Island again ranked second in 2006, 2007 and 2008. It dropped to third place, behind Pennsylvania, in 2009 and 2010. In all six years, per capita costs ranged from $25.01 to $26.78.
The expenses cited by Fox's office amounted to about $7.4 million. That's out of a total budget of $27.3 million. Even when we pulled out that money, Rhode Island still ranked near the top, with $19.03 spent by the Assembly for every man, woman and child, putting us in fifth place instead of second.
And of course, PolitiFact also found size was a factor:
John Simmons, executive director of the business-backed Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council, said because of its smaller size — only seven other states have fewer people — Rhode Island doesn't have as many people to share the basic costs of government.
Overall, PolitiFact ruled that Loughlin’s assertion was true. You can read their full report here.
