PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- Paying down the debt left after Rhode Island's failed investment in the video-game company 38 Studios may be the reason why House and Senate leaders have yet to produce their version of the state budget for the year starting July 1, lawmakers critical of the Democratic leadership suggest this week.
Governor Chafee's budget, submitted to lawmakers in January, calls for a multiyear plan to pay the more than $100 million debt, starting with a $2.5 million payment next year, followed by $12.5 million annual payments for the seven years thereafter.
"My gut says to me that the holdup is 38 Studios funding," House Minority Leader Brian C. Newberry, R-North Smithfield, said Monday. "There may be other issues in debate but they wouldn't be there if we didn't have the 38 Studios question. That's fundamentally what's holding things up."
State Rep. J. Patrick O'Neill, a Pawtucket Democrat who had once been House Speaker Gordon D. Fox's majority whip, agreed.
"I can already see the argument that it's only $2.5 million in an $8 billion budget. But it's so much more than that," he said Monday. "It's not as innocent, I'd argue. This is when the lawyer in me kicks in. You've accepted the responsibility towards that whole thing once you've made a partial payment."
But House Speaker Gordon D. Fox, a Providence Democrat, rejected the notion that the 38 Studios question holds the key to the budget on Wednesday: "It's an issue. But if the question is whether that is holding up the budget? No, it's not."
He didn't offer up any timeline for when the budget might materialize nor when lawmakers hoped to wrap up the six month session, which began on Jan. 1.
"We're not going to be done until we are done," Fox said when asked about when the House might produce its version of the budget. "As long as it takes. Like every year, it will happen when it happens. Sometimes it happens early. Sometimes it happens later. [...] I'm committed to being here until the work is done."
The new budget year starts July 1, but lawmakers do no necessarily need to finalize a tax-and-spending plan by then.