By JIM BARON

PROVIDENCE — The House Finance Committee gave its budgetary blessing to Cumberland Mayor Daniel McKee's proposal for “Mayoral  Academy” charter schools, loosening the rules to provide for the educational experiment as part of the 2009 state budget it approved unanimously on Wednesday.

The $6.9 billion budget, $3.2 billion of that coming from state revenues is $130 million less than the bottom line for the current year, but is $3.4 million above ($500,000 in state revenues) what Gov. Donald Carcieri recommended in his budget plan.
The budget also uses revenues from extended gambling hours at Lincoln's Twin River casino to provide additional funding for hard-pressed school districts across the state.
The spending plan, which closes a nearly half-billion dollar deficit without raising income, sales or business taxes, is slated to go to the floor of the House of Representatives for a vote next Wednesday.
The mayoral academy that McKee envisions for students in Cumberland, Lincoln, Pawtucket and Central Falls would be operated by a non-profit organization and would not be bound by rules and regulations that apply to other charter schools regarding issues such as wages for teachers, teacher tenure and retirement, and the length of the school day and year.
The effort was sponsored and shepherded through the committee hearing process by Rep. Kenneth Vaudreuil, who represents parts of Central Falls and Cumberland.
It did not pass without controversy, however. It prompted the lengthiest discussion of all 39 articles in the budget, got more “no” votes — five — than any other article.
Among those voting no were Pawtucket Rep. William San Bento and North Smithfield Rep. Raymond Church, both Democrats, and East Providence Rep. John Savage, a Republican.
To vote no on the mayoral academy, all three legislators had to also vote to reject the additional state aid from the revenues expected from all-night gambling on weekends and holidays at Twin River.
San Bento vowed to attempt to make changes to the charter school proposal with amendments on the House floor, or by moving to have that article voted by sections.
If the mayoral academy part of the article is voted separately from the additional state aid to school districts from the gambling money, San Bento said
See BUDGET, Page A-2
the charter school section would “absolutely” fail.
“It will go down like a P-38, in flames,” San Bento said, referring to the World War II-vintage fighter aircraft.
Church said he voted against it in the hope that “some accommodations can be made” in the mayoral academy proposal before the final House vote next week.
“This is a significant education proposal and we had one hearing,” Church said. “It's got to be studied more.”
Savage said he is concerned that the legislature is “sacrificing oversight” over charter schools, that the McKee plan is an “end-run around the process.”
Finance Committee Chairman Steven Costantino said, “it is about innovation; it is about trying something different.”
Robert Walsh, executive director of the National Education Association of RI and a Cumberland resident, pulled no punches in his opposition to the bill.
“Mayor McKee has declared war on public eduction,” and obviously agitated Walsh said after the committee vote. “He is no friend of public education and no friend of labor and he is going try to decimate his own school system for some unknown political agenda. It is phenomenal to me how short-sighted this proposal is and we're going to have to do everything we can to get it changed.”
Attempts to reach McKee for comment on Wednesday were unsuccessful.
“Municipal aid cuts, more than $12 million worth, in the 2008 supplemental budget were carried over to 2009 as well. But school districts will benefit as follows from the additional gambling money:
Pawtucket will get an extra $1.3 million; Central Falls, 864,291; Cumberland, $261,156; Lincoln, $145,840, and East Providence, $529,684.
Woonsocket would see an additional $739,179; North Smithfield, $95,232; Burrillville, $272,931; Glocester, $63,311, and Foster-Glocester regional, $112,875.
West Warwick would be in line for another $402,667; Coventry, $395,468, and Warwick, $741,211
The committee budget moderated cuts that Gov. Donald Carcieri proposed for adults on the RIte Care health insurance program. Carcieri wanted to reduce the income eligibility limit from the current 185 percent of the federal poverty level to 133 percent.
Costantino said that largely by instituting a $15 million savings by requiring that RIte Care pay for only generic drugs except in cases where only a brand-name pharmaceutical is available, the committee was able to lower the limit only to 175 percent of poverty. That means about 1,000 people would be eliminated from the rolls, rather than the 7,400 the governor would have cut.
Also, Costantino said, $1.2 million has been allocated for health centers throughout the state who have agreed to treat non-citizen children who were forced off RIte Care.
Carcieri, who has vetoed several of the General Assembly's budgets since taking office in 2003, only to see those vetoes overridden by the Democrat-dominated legislature, appeared bullish on this year's version.
“If approved by the full House and Senate, the House Finance Committee budget will be a significant win for Rhode Island taxpayers,” Carcieri said in a written statement.  “For the first time in recent history, Rhode Island is on track to spend less next year than was originally approved for this year.  We are reducing spending in order to balance the budget, while holding the line on broad-based tax increases and implementing important policy reforms.  That’s the approach I’ve been advocating for over five years.”
“The House Finance Committee vote is a very good start,” Carcieri said.  “I hope that the full House and Senate will approve this budget quickly.  If they do, we will have succeeded in making some of the major spending reforms that I have long said are necessary to solve the state’s long term budget problems and put our state on the path to fiscal health and future growth.”
Other highlights in the budget plan include:
— Reducing the proposed $3.8 million budget increase to the state-operated Central Falls school district by $1.3 million.
— A $10 increase (to $35) in court costs for people whose traffic violations are dismissed because they have a clean driving record for three years. The governor proposed increasing the court fee to the amount the fine would have been, but Costantino said that raised constitutional issues.
— But the fine for all moving violations are also being increased by $10.
— There is no provision in the budget for assessing fines to people for using a cell phone while driving, but bills are still alive that would assess such fines.
— The Neighborhood Opportunities Program, which helps build affordable housing, was slated for a cut of its entire $7.5 million appropriation, but the committee budget restored $5 million.
— Carcieri's plan to eliminate the West Warwick Registry of Motor Vehicles office was reversed.
— Funding was provided to restore 141 of the 400 Head Start placements that Carcieri chopped in his budget.
— Half of the funding cut from the school breakfast program, $300,000, was restored to prevent the costs from being shifted to school districts.