Political Scene: Where's the drama? McKee's modest proposals aren't grabbing much attention

It's become a rite of spring: Around 100 days after Gov. Dan McKee teases a new policy initiative in his State of the State speech, the program launches to some fanfare – and some shrugs.

Last year's goal was to close Rhode Island's achievement gap with Massachusetts via the Learn365RI initiative.

This year's goal is to raise Rhode Islanders' personal incomes closer to what they are in Massachusetts – at least $20,000 per year by 2030, with the "Rhode to Prosperity" plan.

If "Rhode to Prosperity" doesn't immediately ring a bell, it could be because it launched on a Thursday evening via a post on X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter. There was no news conference or video hit. Much of the media didn't notice.

With both Rhode to Prosperity and Learn365RI, some who did notice the plans were left looking for more details. Or they questioned whether the policy actions McKee is considering, even if they go as intended, are big enough to meet their goals.

Compared with some of his predecessors', McKee's signature policy proposals can appear a little modest or low-octane.

To be sure, he's made some big decisions since taking office in 2021, including how to transition out of the pandemic, and spending $1.1 billion in federal COVID cash on large investments in housing, homeless shelters, social service providers and school projects.

But McKee hasn't proposed anything as daring – in a good or bad way – as Donald Carcieri's loan guarantees (think 38 Studios), Lincoln Chafee's tax plans or Gina Raimondo's truck tolls, free community college or economic development deals.

Where's the drama?

Maybe McKee is matching the collective mood.

So far, this year's General Assembly proceedings have been mostly fireworks-free. And many voters across the country are tuning out the rerun presidential campaign.

Ocean State attention has drifted to college campuses – or Cranston.

Even Providence City Hall is mostly keeping the drama level low.

Where predecessor Jorge Elorza was known for launching transformational initiatives aimed at sweeping societal problems, Mayor Brett Smiley champions sidewalk repairs and new parking meters.

Smiley has unwound some of Elorza's projects and sought to avoid political drama, even with a progressive City Council majority he's ideologically distant from. It helps that City Council President Rachel Miller also eschews open confrontation and political theater.

Unlike Elorza, Smiley has not shouted at McKee during a WaterFire lighting.

He's even formed a good working relationship with I-195 Commission and Bally's Chairman Marc Crisafulli, whom he clashed with over state gambling policy while Smiley was chief of staff to then-Governor Raimondo.

The education agenda

Learn365RI's primary function has been distributing federal COVID money to cities' and towns' building facilities that host after-school programs. He announced $28 million in grants to cities and towns last month, the first batch of what is expected to be a $81.7-million investment of federal cash in the program. (McKee's fight against student absenteeism, with a public dashboard showing how schools are doing, has also been put under the Learn365RI banner.)

Almost everyone likes local after-school programs, which have existed in different forms for years, and will be happy to see more.

But will a $2.6 million "wellness hub" in Cumberland or a new $669,000 wing on the Swift Community Center in East Greenwich close Rhode Island's decades-long English and math score deficits with Massachusetts?

As McKee has focused on after-school learning, he hasn't rocked the boat or made major policy changes around school itself, starting with the teachers union contract McKee signed shortly after taking office.

Test scores last year made modest incremental gains after plunging during COVID.

A plan to find a plan to boost workforce training

Rhode to Prosperity is a primarily a workforce training plan.

Or, more accurately, it is a plan to find a plan.

"Outreach is the next logical step in building out the Rhode to Prosperity strategy," the Rhode to Prosperity three-pager McKee released last month says. "This summer, the McKee Administration will hold convenings among business and education leaders to better identify ways the current workforce development system can support industry needs."

Getting businesses to match workforce training programs to high-paying jobs of the future is not a new idea. It was a central tenet of Raimondo's economic strategy, through the Real Jobs Rhode Island program.

Digging beneath the education jargon, Rhode Island's Postsecondary Education Commissioner Shannon Gilkey said the McKee administration wants to examine the number of credential programs state schools are offering and possibly trim those that don't lead students to high-paying jobs.

The state also wants more internship opportunities for high school students "to see what the labor markets are like in a meaningful way," he said.

On the workforce-training side, Department of Labor and Training Director Matt Weldon hinted at an overhaul of Real Jobs, which funds industry-run training programs.

"Real Jobs became a big success because we flipped the script on how workforce had been done," Weldon told Political Scene. "However, it became a big program where virtually everything that the partnerships and industry wanted to do was funded if the resources were available, because the government wasn't going to tell the partnerships how to do their work."

The McKee administration wants to make sure the industry partners have some "skin in the game," Weldon said, and aren't getting paid when trainees don't have a high-paying job on the other side, which has been an issue.

"We can't continue to fund every training opportunity unless it's going to have a benefit for the working Rhode Islander that's participating, meaning they're going to earn more money or be in a career where they have a pathway to earn more money in the very near future," he said.

The Rhode to Prosperity plan also includes adding union-backed apprenticeship programs to new industries.

Is $20,000 all it's cracked up to be?

If changes to Rhode Island's workforce training programs could add $20,000 to Rhode Island's annual per-capita income, would that even be enough to make a dent in closing the gap with Massachusetts?

Not unless the Bay State's economy goes in reverse over the next six years.

Absent any policy changes, Rhode Island's per-capita income was projected to rise more than $20,000 from this year to 2030, according to the consensus projections of state fiscal advisers.

As WPRI-TV's Ted Nesi first noted, a big chunk of that increase is due to inflation. In January, McKee's office refused to say whether the $20,000 goal was adjusted for inflation or not, telling reporters they would have to wait 100 days for the full policy rollout.

The three-page Rhode to Prosperity paper does not mention the word inflation, but McKee spokesperson Laura Hart confirmed that the $20,000 target is nominal and not inflation-adjusted.

Andy Boardman, a researcher at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy think tank and a former Rhode Islander, calculated that Rhode Island's $68,203 per-capita income this fiscal year is projected to grow to $88,265 by 2030, but that's only $77,067 when adjusted for inflation. In other words, more than half of the projected increase is inflation.

Over the same six-year period, Massachusetts' per-capita income is projected to grow from around $90,000 to more than $116,000. That means a $20,000 increase in Rhode Island's per-capita income would leave the Ocean State even further behind its neighbors than it is now. (Adjusted for inflation, Massachusetts' per-capita income in 2030 projects out to $101,500, Boardman calculated.)

Is McKee setting the Rhode to Prosperity bar too low?

"The ambition of the Rhode to Prosperity effort is to convene and align Rhode Island business with government and education toward a common goal – to raise incomes and wealth for all Rhode Islanders," Hart wrote in an email.

"The $20,000 increase is the floor, not the ceiling. If the public and private sector can collaborate effectively toward a shared purpose, we can increase the rate of growth in per capita income and exceed our initial goal."

What about home ownership?

The final piece of the McKee Rhode to Prosperity plan is to promote home ownership.

Most of the state's recent spending on housing production has focused on increasing the number of affordable apartments to rent, but McKee has said for months that he wants a new focus on helping people buy.

The way McKee intends to promote home ownership is not spelled out in Rhode to Prosperity, but he has previously used federal pandemic aid for first-time buyer down payment assistance.

Since then, the supply of properties on the market has only shrunk, while prices continue to skyrocket.

"The metrics for measuring our progress toward [the Rhode to Prosperity] goal involve both cause – increased training and education engagement that align to Rhode Island-based employment – and effect – the creation of generational wealth through home ownership," Hart wrote.

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: McKee's two signature policies aren't bringing the drama of his predecessors