Many a past legislative session ended with a flurry of last-minute votes on special pension deals, the expungement of thousands more criminal records and the unionization of workers in state-subsidized private industries.
With the 2018 election-year session headed for an anticipated end this week, it remains to be seen if the pattern will repeat itself. There are 36 pension bills in the wings, along with the SEIU’s latest expansion bid and a bill to remove decades of court records from public view.
Some of the bills certainly have worthy-sounding goals.
But the devil is in the details, as the state’s lawmakers are fond of saying. So here you go: some bills to watch. A bill known as H7484 would gradually, over a five-year period beginning on Sept. 1, increase the benefits paid retired Central Falls police officers and firefighters from 75 percent to 87.5 percent of their base amount on July 31, 2011, before their city sunk into bankruptcy and the hammer came down.