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Yahoo
12 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Push to raise Block Island ferry landing fees moves forward at R.I. State House
Both New Shoreham and Narragansett are asking for a 50-cent increase to passenger landing fees to absorb the costs associated with providing municipal services, including public safety, for tourists, like those seen arriving here at the Port of Galilee in Narragansett. (Photo by Janine L. Weisman/Rhode Island Current) Sailing away on the Block Island Ferry may soon cost more, pending the passage of state legislation that would increase traveler landing fees to and from the island for the first time in nearly 35 years. Two companion proposals in the Rhode Island General Assembly — each with a Senate and House version, for a total of four separate bills — would authorize a 50-cent increase in the landing fees charged to passengers ages 12 and up arriving at both Narragansett's Port of Galilee and Block Island's Old Harbor. That would mean a total increase of $1 per passenger for a round-trip to and from the island. 'For every person that steps off the ferry, there is assessed a landing fee to help the municipalities cover expenses that they are responsible for on both sides of that journey, from police details to garbage pickup to area maintenance and things like that,' Sen. Alana DiMario, a Narragansett Democrat and sponsor of the two Senate bills, said at a May 27 committee hearing. On Tuesday, the House and Senate floors will vote on their respective versions of the bill to up the fee on Block Island's side, and the House Committee on Municipal Government and Housing will hear the bill to raise the fee at Narragansett's port. The Senate passed its version of the Narragansett bill on June 3. The price range of a round trip for riders aged 12 and up is between $16.60 and $20.60 for the traditional speed ferry, which takes about an hour from Galilee. The high-speed ferry takes about half an hour and costs $57 with the landing fee. The traditional ferry runs year round, while the high-speed service runs on a more limited timetable in the off-season. At both ports, those prices add on a 50-cent surcharge for each passenger arriving by boat, which is collected from both private vessels and ferry operators, with the latter redirecting this surcharge into ticket prices. While Narragansett raised its landing fees from 35 cents to 50 cents in 2022, New Shoreham's fee has not budged since 1991. But the town services supported by the fees certainly have, according to Amy Land, New Shoreham's interim town manager, the only municipality on Block Island. 'This includes funding for seasonal police staff, support for the Block Island Medical Center, for fire, for rescue services, recreation, maintenance of public restrooms, improvements to beaches and public access,' Land told the House Committee on Municipal Government and Housing at a May 1 hearing on the New Shoreham bill. 'So all those expenses that are derived from our tourist economy, and clearly the volume and costs of providing those services have increased and escalated in the 35 years since the landing fee was first introduced,' she added. A hot summer's day on Block Island can draw 20,000 to 30,000 tourists on average, Land said. In recent years, the town has typically grossed about $180,000 to $190,000 in landing fees annually. Land said the majority of landing fee revenue — about $135,000 — comes from Interstate Navigation's ferry from Galilee. An additional $35,000 is collected from ferries out of New London, Connecticut, and Orient, New York. Smaller amounts flow from the Montauk ferry, plus passengers on ships that use the town's moorings, anchorages, and dockage. Land said the town is also collaborating with private marinas to have them collect and remit landing fees on the town's behalf. 'That seems like your collection is low, comparatively, because the only way to get there is by boat,' said Charlestown Democratic Rep. Tina Spears, who sponsored the bill on the House side. 'Not necessarily,' Land replied. 'We are confident that our primary channel, Interstate, is remitting fairly and appropriately. You may have people who come and stay for an extended period. You have others that come and go. So the timing of visitors is something we've always been challenged to document.' For every person that steps off the ferry, there is assessed a landing fee to help the municipalities cover expenses that they are responsible for on both sides of that journey, from police details to garbage pickup to area maintenance and things like that. – Sen. Alana DiMario, a Narragansett Democrat Rep. Lauren Carson, a Newport Democrat, suggested New Shoreham should raise landing fees more, then nodded to her own successful legislation last year that saw Newport raise its fees for docked cruise ships from $6 to $20 per passenger. 'We are hoping to come back more frequently over time,' Land said. In the Senate Committee on Housing and Municipal Government, Chair Jake Bissaillon, a Providence Democrat, had only one question for lobbyist Rick McAuliffeof The Mayforth Group, which represents New Shoreham: Why wasn't the bill introduced alongside the previous Narragansett legislation in 2022? 'To be honest with you, we weren't prepared,' McAulliffe said. 'We wanted to make sure that we had a number that would justify the public safety and things that we have.' McAuliffe said there are two State Police troopers who come to the island during the summer, plus additional police detail to handle the summer months' massive crowds. The medical center is 'very full' on a hot summer's day, he added. 'Certainly, tourism dollars are important to the island, but there's a cost to host so many residents, so many tourists,' McAulliffe said. 'I can't say we won't come back in another 35 years.' In March, the New Shoreham Town Council originally considered asking the General Assembly for permission to raise the landing fee from the current 50 cents to $1.75 — a $1.25 increase. Councilors voted on March 27 to seek approval from the General Assembly for the $1.25 landing fee increase. But at the April 2 council meeting, Interstate lawyer Michael McElroy said that such a drastic increase would trigger Narragansett to do the same and ultimately push round-trip landing costs to increase by $3.25 per passenger, according to the Block Island Times. '$1.75 is a big deal and Narragansett will want to match it,' McElroy was quoted in the Times. The New Shoreham Town Council revised its plan on April 9 to reduce the proposed increase to 50 cents, for a $1 landing fee on the island. DiMario's first bill submitted on April 16 had sought the $1.25 increase. A week later, councilors met with DiMario and Spears virtually to align their proposals on Smith Hill with the requested 50-cent increase. McElroy's hunch about Narragansett was confirmed on May 19. On that night, the Narragansett Town Council approved a resolution for a 50-cent increase to match New Shoreham. Interstate Navigation did not immediately respond to requests for comment for this story. Each of the four bills must pass both the House and Senate before the legislation can arrive on the governor's desk. The bills would take effect upon passage. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Health
- Yahoo
Legislation allowing ADHD med refills for more than a month at a time gains speed at State House
Democratic lawmakers Sen. Alana DiMario of Narragansett and Rep. Michelle McGaw of Portsmouth are sponsoring not-quite-identical bills that would increase how much ADHD medication patients can receive at once. (Photo by Alexander Castro/Rhode Island Current) Availability of tightly regulated ADHD medications could improve under a pair of bills that continue to move through the Rhode Island General Assembly following a Senate floor vote Tuesday night. Bill S795 by Sen. Alana DiMario, a Narragansett Democrat, passed 36-0 and now joins the amended version of bill H5866 by Portsmouth Democratic Rep. Michelle McGaw, which passed the House 70-0 on April 22. Now each bill awaits a committee hearing in the opposite chamber. Both bills would allow for non-opioid Schedule II stimulants like Adderall, Ritalin, and Vyvanse, which are commonly used as ADHD treatments, to be prescribed and dispensed in larger amounts for doctor and patient convenience. Sen. Pam Lauria, a Barrington Democrat and nurse practitioner, stood to commend DiMario's legislation on the Senate floor, calling it 'an incredibly important bill, particularly as we are talking about the administrative burdens on primary care providers.' 'These are chronic medications that these people take every day, but every month, because of the very real safeguards for these medications, the extra time that it takes for primary care providers or psychiatrists… to do this work is cumbersome,' Lauria said. The 'cumbersome' refill schedule is exactly what DiMario's legislation wants to fix. Under current federal rules, providers can write three separate 30-day prescriptions for a total 90-day supply. Some states have adopted revised rules that allow patients to pick up all 90 days' worth at once, as Massachusetts did in 2024. In the Ocean State, however, patients still have to return to the pharmacy monthly and pick up the prescriptions one by one. Patients also have to contact their doctor to send in the second and third month's prescriptions, piling onto providers' workloads. Alas, there's one important difference between the bills: DiMario's version allows for patients to fill all 90 days at once, while McGaw's amended version caps fills at 60 days. DiMario said in a phone interview Wednesday that she believes the House and Senate will eventually agree on a version of the legislation as the state's legislative session winds down in the following weeks. 'We really believe that 90 days provides the most meaningful kind of time burden relief for patients and providers,' DiMario said. 'My position is that I'm strongly advocating for the 90 days, but I do believe that an agreement will be reached.' Greg Paré, a Senate spokesperson, did not immediately have scheduling details for the bills Wednesday, and noted that the bills' different time frames 'will have to be addressed.' McGaw agreed in a phone call Wednesday evening, saying that with the Senate's OK of a 90-day supply, the legislation is 'still sort of in limbo' until she can meet with the House committee chair and the senate's policy team. McGaw originally proposed a 90-day supply but reduced it to 60 days after feedback from some prescribers. She thinks a single version of the bill will eventually emerge after more conversations, acknowledging that edits to not-quite-identical legislation in both chambers is not uncommon as the legislative session nears its end. 'I would be happy with either version, whether we decide on 60 or 90 days,' McGaw said. 'In either case, it helps to reduce some of the administrative burdens for our physicians, and also helps parents or patients for whom it's a challenge to go to the doctor every month and get a new prescription.' On the Senate floor, DiMario said the bill builds on successful legislation last year that authorized electronic transfers of ADHD prescriptions, pending state adoption of new federal standards. Both last year's and this year's ADHD drug bills are designed to alleviate headaches for patients and providers alike amid pill shortages ongoing since 2022, attributed to a number of factors, including a sharp increase in adult diagnoses. The Drug Enforcement Administration previously faced scrutiny for limiting production quotas of Schedule II drugs, but it increased some of those quotas in 2024. An October 2024 edition of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report relayed that there were an estimated 15.5 million U.S. adults with an ADHD diagnosis in 2023; about half were diagnosed as adults. Roughly one-third of these adults take stimulant drugs for their condition, and shortages affected 71.5% of this population's access to their medications. A 2025 article in the American Journal of Managed Care noted that stimulant prescriptions have almost doubled in the past 10 years. 'There is only so much pharmaceutical companies can do when demand severely outweighs supply,' the authors wrote. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
27-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
The student and teacher on R.I. Board of Education can't vote. This bill would empower them.
Sen. Alana DiMario, a Narragansett Democrat, presents legislation that grants voting rights to student and teacher representatives on the Rhode Island Board of Education before the Senate Committee on Education during a March 26, 2025, hearing. (Screencap/CapitolTV) A student and a working teacher already have seats at the table of the Rhode Island Board of Education. They just can't vote on any matters of importance. But they could under a bill sponsored by Narragansett Democratic Sen. Alana DiMario heard Wednesday evening before the Senate Committee on Education. DiMario's bill would grant voting privileges to Council on Elementary and Secondary Education's ex officio members, the state's Teacher of the Year and the head of the Student Advisory Council, which is composed of high school sophomores through seniors. 'They could come to the meetings, they could participate, but they weren't truly decision makers,' DiMario said in a phone interview Wednesday afternoon. Decisions by the commissioner of the Rhode Island Department of Education (RIDE) are still subject to the approval by the eight-member Council on Elementary and Secondary Education. This K-12 council is part of the larger 17-member Board of Education, first established in 2014 to oversee all levels of education from kindergarten to university. Membership across both councils is determined by governor appointees. The House version of the bill, led by Rep. David Morales, a Providence Democrat, was introduced on Feb. 28 but has yet to be scheduled for a hearing. DiMario's bill was held for further study Wednesday by the Senate committee. In her testimony, DiMario cited Article 12 of the Rhode Island State Constitution, which allows the General Assembly to 'adopt all means which it may deem necessary and proper to secure to the people the advantages and opportunities of education.' 'I believe that allowing for the Teacher of the Year as well as the chair of the Student Advisory Council, to have full voting seats on that council will be a means to that end,' DiMario told her fellow senators on the committee. This year's bill layers together two previous legislative efforts. RIDE announces the state's Teacher of the Year from the prior year's batch of District Teachers of the Year, an honor determined by the district's own teachers. The state's top teacher was granted a voteless seat at the table in 2023, although the bill became law sans Gov. Dan McKee's signature. Sen. Valarie Lawson, an East Providence Democrat who is president of the National Education Association of Rhode Island, led the legislation for the student voting powers in recent years. But Lawson, who began her tenure as majority leader in January, has 'a lot on her plate,' DiMario said. So this year Lawson and DiMario combined their efforts into the current bill, which features both women plus eight other Democrats as sponsors. An overfull plate was also one of the reasons cited by RIDE in its public opposition to the bill at Wednesday's hearing — a concern relayed from Gabriella Bautista Bolvito, the current chair of the Student Advisory Council and a senior at Classical High School in Providence. In her written testimony, Bolvito wrote about one of the first K-12 council meetings she attended, in which the council members were readying the fiscal 2026 budget. They could come to the meetings, they could participate, but they weren't truly decision makers. – Sen. Alana DiMario, a Narragnsett Democrat 'I knew little of what a budget entailed but was happy to be present in the conversation and to have the opportunity to give my input when necessary,' Bolvito wrote. 'As a 17-year-old with only an intro level Macroeconomics course in my back pocket, the prospect of potentially having to vote on a matter as serious as RIDE's budget is daunting. Although I hold several leadership positions. RIDE's area of focus is still foreign to me.' Bolvito did not attend the hearing, but quoting parts of her testimony in person for the Senate committee was Andy Andrade, special assistant to the commissioner for legislative relations at RIDE, who also argued that, rather than the power to contribute to K-12 council decisions, students would be better served by sitting on their local school boards. 'It seems to me that the best place for a student…would be to be a member of their local school committee, where they have a vested interest, where they know the issues, and they would be, I think, much more effective in that role,' Andrade said. 'A commitment as a voting member would be challenging for any student with many responsibilities in and out of school.' Sen. Tiara Mack, a Providence Democrat who has previously supported lowering the voting age, disagreed. 'I was a little disappointed to hear that one of our students didn't feel like they were given the tools or empowerment to engage civically within our state at a variety of levels,' Mack said. 'I think our young people are smart, and when given the proper tools, empowerment and resources, I believe they can engage in multimillion dollar decisions … and I think we should be giving our young people more opportunities to authentically engage in civics.' Two people spoke up on behalf of the bill in person, while a packet of nine written submissions from members of Young Voices, a youth-led Providence nonprofit focused on empowering students of color in the state's urban core, rallied in support of the bill. 'People constantly ask us to be involved civically, but then we lack the opportunity to do so,' Krissia Diaz, a Classical student, wrote in a testimony. 'Give us the opportunity to have a real say as to what happens in our schools. . 'We need to pass this bill, youth deserve to use their voice rather than have decisions made for them by officials who haven't stepped foot in a school for more than fifteen years.' It's not unheard of for states' boards of education to grant voting rights to student or teacher representatives. Massachusetts gives its student education board member voting rights, making it one of seven states that did so, according to 2022 data from the National Association of State Boards of Education. Some states have guardrails in place, like Maryland, which gives its student representative a say in the boardroom without being able to vote on personnel matters or certain appeals, according to state law. As for teacher representatives, their governing powers on school councils also vary by state. DiMario said the bill eliminates the need to identify and appoint new representatives for the student and teacher council seats, as they would be filled by existing office holders. The Teacher of the Year would sit on their council seat the year following their tenure as the state's top teacher. DiMario's bill would use the Senate, rather than the governor, to appoint the two new seats. 'I do expect that there could be some questions about that separation of powers issue,' DiMario said, adding that she's not sure if the governor would support the legislation. A spokesperson for Gov. Dan McKee did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday. 'I think it's a fundamental approach to policy, I believe very strongly in that whole idea of 'Nothing about us, without us,'' DiMario said. 'We can only make our best decisions about what is going to solve a problem when we talk to people that are closest to that problem. To me, this is just a piece of that.' 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