Gov. Carcieri spent $200,000 on the Carcieri v. Kempthorn case, which contributed to overspending in the Governor’s office and leaving the state in a deficit. While a small part of the larger $33 million deficit, it is the first time the state has had “an end of year deficit in modern history attributable to overspending. From The Providence Journal by Katherine Gregg (h/t Indianz):
Asked more specifically to list the expenses that resulted in the $184,152 deficit in the governor’s office accounts, she cited two. She said the administration planned to sublet to Guam an empty office the state has maintained in Washington for years at a cost of $2,000 a month, but the paperwork took longer than expected to go through. She also cited Carcieri’s hiring of former U.S. Solicitor General Theodore B. Olson — the lawyer who successfully argued the case that put George W. Bush in the White House — to help the state in its fight to keep control of 31 acres owned by the Narragansett Indian tribe.
Carcieri hired Olson as lead lawyer for his office shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court agreed in February to decide whether the Department of Interior can take 31 acres just north of Route 1 in Charlestown into trust on behalf of the Narragansett Indians. Trust status would remove the land from most state and local laws, placing it under tribal and federal control.
Olson was to be paid a flat $200,000 in installments from the governor’s contingency account: $100,000 last year and the rest this year, according to the governor’s former press secretary, Jeff Neal. According to Kempe, that did not play out as anticipated.
Turtle Talk 